nrf52840-dongle how to get console?

Hi all,

I’m trying to reproduce steps described in https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/pull/13146 to play with nrf52840-dongle board. I’m using WSL with Ubuntu 18.04 and gcc-arm-none-eabi-9-2019-q4-major for compilation. Flashing is done on Windows using nRFConnect v3.4.1-Programmer. For testing the HTerm 0.8.5 for Windows is used. tests/leds shows the RIOT is working on the board - all LED are blinking. But any of the examples with console (gcoap, gnrc_networking, hello-world) don’t work - COM port is available and openable, but nothing is printed out. Please help, what is missing/wrong with that setup?

Are there multiple COM ports and do you get a new one if you plug in the dongle? Since you are using hterm, did you set it to send LF (line feed) on enter? The RIOT shell will only process your input once it's received a new line character.

On Linux, it should give you a /dev/ttyACM0 device and you should be able to open a terminal with

    make BOARD=nrf52840dongle term

You should also see a new device appear in dmesg.

Best, Benjamin

Hello Benjamin,

Thank you for your help, I have found the issue: the used terminal program must control the DTR signal while sending data. pyterm used on Linux does that, while Windows terminals (HTerm in my case) shall be explicitly configured for that. Perhaps it makes sense to mention this somewhere in the board description…

Best regards, Alexander