Low power node doesn't require much power and can be powered by a small battery.

Usb dongle device can be powered from PC or hub usb connector, requiring only LDO regulator.

Low power node doesn't require much power and can be powered by a small battery.

Hi, Adam.

Yes, we've contacted the support and solution was to select Board Device BRD4306A (not a separate part BGM13P22) in the Project Setup of the AppBuilder.

Series 1 and Series 2 products are done using different fabrication processes and that is what brings the significant reduction in active current consumption (RX/TX and uA/Mhz on the CPU). Range is a function of the link budget (TX power - RX sensitivity) between two devices and it's not affected by the current consumption on neither of them.

Hello.

We've used only Series 1 BLE modules and now examining the Series 2 modules.

The newest BGM220PC22HNA2 module has significantly better RX sensitivity and radio current consumption values compared to the older BGM13P22 and BGM210P modules. The most curious one is TX Current at 0 dBm, which is 8.5 mA for the BGM13P22, 16.1 mA for the BGM210P and only 4.8 mA for the BGM220P. The power is the same, so how this difference can be explained (especially difference between two Series 2 modules) and how does it affect the radio performance of the modules, e.g. does it lower the range? In other words, at what cost does this reduced current consumpion come?

Thank you.

Hi Kamil,

Yes it is possible, especially with Bluetooth projects.  I think the simplest way to do this is to use a different build configuration for each part as the build configuration can have separate Includes and Symbols and the Resource Configuration of the project can be used to exclude files from each build configuration.

I have tested that this will work using the SOC-Thermometer project as an example. 

1. I first created the project for the BRD4306A that includes a BGM13P22F512GA and I verified it built correctly.  Then I renamed the build configuration (right clicking the project folder and selecting [Build Configurations] > [Manage...] and then I selected the existing build configuration and [Rename] and gave it the name [GNU ARM v7.2.1 - BGM13P22] and then I did a clean and rebuild to verify the project still built correctly.

2. I went back into the build configuration management and selected [Clone] and then gave the new build configuration the name [GNU ARM v7.2.1 - BGM13P32] and verified it built correctly.

3. Then I added the part specific files to the project for the BGM13P32 and I put them in separate folders so that the Resource Configuration could be applied to it.  This step also involved creating folders under hardware/kit/module/config (bgm13p22 and bgm13p32) and moving the 'sl_module_bgm13p22f512ga.h' file into the bgmp13p22 folder.  Right click each part specific folder and select [Resource Configurations] > [Exclude from Build...] and then check the box to exclude the folder from the build in which it will not be used.

4. Set each build configuration to Active and then open the project properties and edit the [Includes] to contain the correct paths for the part specific folders added to the project.

5. I ended up getting build errors because certain files could not find the include files they needed.  This ended up being a somewhat tricky issue to figure out.  It turns out certain files in the Bluetooth projects have overrides for the project settings.  These files have the wrench icon on them:

Examining the files properties it turns out the optimization level is set to Optimize most (-O3) instead of the project default setting of Optimize for Size (-Os) (could be Optimize More (-O2) or some other settings depending on the project).  But this ends up causing a problem in this scenario because all of the project Includes and Symbols end up getting cleared out when the new build configuration is created.  The fix for this is to right click the file and select [Resource Configurations] > [Reset to Default...] which will add back all of the Includes and Symbols, but it will also reset the optimization level to the default.  So after resetting the files to the default values, I recommend editing the project properties and changing the Optimization level back to most (-O3).

With the above changes, both build configurations are working for me and they are for the two different target parts.

I hope the above guidelines help.  Let me know if you have any questions or issues.

Thank you,

jpitt

 

Thank you @jpitt for the nice write-up.

I don't think you even need to use Resource Configuration. AFAIK, the only thing different between two modules is the ' sl_module_bgm13px2f512ga.h ' file, which is defined in 'sl_module.h' file. You can remove (unlink) these two files from the project, since they are already included when you write all the include files in the preprocessor, change the preprocessor define from BGM13P22F512GA=1 to BGM13P32F512GA=1 and it will include the correct one.

In the application app you can use #if BGM13P32F512GA in order to correctly define ble stack variables, such as change PA input from DCDC to VBAT and enable AFH.

I realised that we have to manually change from S=8 to S=2 in peripheral device. And gecko_msg_le_connection_phy_status_evt_t event's phy field will be 4 for both S=8 and S=2, so there is no easy way to detect it.

So anyway, the solution is to call

gecko_cmd_le_connection_set_preferred_phy(
    connection.handle,
    0x08,
    0xFF);

in the peripheral device.