ProMicro (formerly SuperMini) nRF52840 builds of MicroPython

[mycodedoesnotcompile2]

Hello everyone,

As I discover this tiny but very amazing community of MicroPythonistas, I put up this automated build workflow for ProMicro (formerly known as SuperMini) cheap (but useful) devices:
https://github.com/mycodedoesnotcompile2/micropython_promicro_nrf52840

Thank you for your feedbacks !

[Josverl]

Thanks for sharing,
I finally managed to figure out how to replace the bootloader on one of these clones.

[ricksorensen]

Thanks- I like your implementation of machine_bitstream.c. Limited testing on my end with a XIAO NRF52840 (Sense) seems to work fine with NeoPIxel. Have you tested it much? Is that implementatoni only for the NRF52840?

Thanks again.

[Josverl]

I think you may have me confused with someone else.
Are you perhaps referring to #15482 ?

[ricksorensen]

I had not seen that one- this particular board seems to build off that one though. Thanks for the reference.

[jkorte-dev]

Thanks- I like your implementation of machine_bitstream.c. Limited testing on my end with a XIAO NRF52840 (Sense) seems to work fine with NeoPIxel. Have you tested it much? Is that implementatoni only for the NRF52840?

Thanks again.

I have tested the bitstream driver with different nrf52840 boards (nice Nano, adafruit feather nrf52840)..It is limited to nrf52 because the clock frequency is hard coded. I decided to do that in my PR because clock frequency cannot bei changed on nrf52.

[Josverl]

Would is be useful to include information on the used softdevice in sys.implementation._softdevice="s140_nrf52_7_3_0" or similar ?
full disclosure : I know next to nothing about softdevices.

Also I notice you firmware identifies as sys.platform ="nrf" , whereas fi the SEEED_XIAO_NRF52 uses nrf52 for sys.platform (aka the port)

  print(sys.implementation)
   #  (name='micropython', version=(1, 28, 0, ''), _machine='XIAO nRF52840 Sense with NRF52840', _mpy=7942, _build='SEEED_XIAO_NRF52')
  print(sys.platform)
  # nrf52

[Josverl]

never mind -in v1.29.0 the port has been normalized to "nrf"

[mycodedoesnotcompile2]

Thanks @Josverl, your comment informed me that v1.29 was out and that I had to patch it in order to achieve compilation.

Here is the v1.29 changelog for nrf: https://gitlab.com/alelec/micropython/-/tags/v1.29.0:

nrf port:
- add support for building C++ user modules
- adapt port configuration and startup for nrfx v3
- rewrite GPIOTE pin IRQ handling for nrfx v3 API
- update peripheral drivers for nrfx v3 API
- fix nRF9160 secureboot build for nrfx v3
- modernize Pin.irq to use shared mp_irq infrastructure
- preserve SPI config across init calls
- add I2C timeout parameter and fix disable on error
- Makefile: update nrfutil deploy rules for latest nrfutil
- boards: change all boards to use "nrf" for sys.platform value
- boards: use 64 byte raw-paste buffer on PCA10031
- switch to CMSIS 6
- properly configure asyncio at the makefile level
- move manifest.py from modules/ to boards/ directory
- boards: increase stack to 6k for nRF51x22 boards with 32k RAM
- mphalport: run events at least once in mp_hal_delay_ms
- restore interrupt-based I2C with nrfx v3
- enable machine.mem_backup via POWER GPREGRET registers
- modules/machine/uart: fix ioctl to return the polling value

I had to make this modification: mycodedoesnotcompile2/micropython_promicro_nrf52840@d1959d9 following the move manifest.py from modules/ to boards/ directory change.

Micropython v1.29 for ProMicro is here: https://github.com/mycodedoesnotcompile2/micropython_promicro_nrf52840/releases/tag/v1.29.0