USB Dongle nrf52820 / ABsniffer not working

1

Hi All

I am having problems getting my dongles to work. I purchased 2 nrf52820 dongles from ebay.

Here is the facts:

  1. Product details here: https://blog.aprbrother.com/product/april-usb-dongle-52820

  2. OS Details
    Linux charl-pc 5.10.105-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Mar 11 14:12:33 UTC 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux

  3. Confirmed device is detected using lsusb
    Bus 003 Device 014: ID 1915:520f Nordic Semiconductor ASA nRF52 USB Product

  4. Confirmed device detected as ACM device dmesg | grep tty. New entry always added after reconnecting device.
    [ 8260.426702] cdc_acm 3-1:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

  5. More detail on using usb-devices for output.

D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1
P:  Vendor=1915 ProdID=520f Rev=01.00
S:  Manufacturer=Nordic Semiconductor
S:  Product=nRF52 USB Product
S:  SerialNumber=E**********B
C:  #Ifs= 2 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr=100mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=02(commc) Sub=02 Prot=01 Driver=cdc_acm
E:  Ad=82(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=  64 Ivl=16ms
I:  If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=cdc_acm
E:  Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms
E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms

  1. Ran the echo "AT\r\n" > /dev/ttyACM0 command and did NOT receive any OK response. Also tried setting the baud rate using the stty -F /dev/ttyACM0 115200 command. Tested with all available rates listed for AT+BAUD [9600, 19600,38400,57600,115200,230400].

  2. LED’s on the device do not light up ever. SW1 and SW2 do not respond when pressed.

I suspect that the devices will need to be re flashed with the ABSniffer Firmware.
Do you know where I can get the firmware downloaded from?
Unfortunately the nrf52820 is not supported for the Nordic Sniffer Firmware. :sob:

Any other ideas welcome too.

Best Regards

2

We’ve replied you with email from eBay. Please check it.

3

Hi aprilpea

Thank you for responding so quickly. I really appreciate it. :smile:
I will respond here then everyone can benefit to learn.

Suggestions offered in email

  1. Install pyserial by running pip install pyserial.
    I managed to install this successfully however could not find miniterm.
    So I installed miniterm separately.

  2. Then use miniterm to connect to the device using the below command.
    miniterm -e /dev/ttyACM0 115200
    This is failing for me with permission error. Even when run with sudo.
    Error: Failed to execute child process “/dev/ttyACM0” (Permission denied)
    I suspect it could be be an issue with this OS so will test on a windows system or maybe test with a clean Ubuntu install.

Clarified

  1. The dongle is indeed flashed. Confirmed as you can see the CDC-ACM device in the dmesg | grep tty output.

  2. LED’s and switches are not used in the ABSniffer firmware. These are used if you want to write your own firmware.

Questions

Thank you for clarifying these things in the email.

  1. Is it at all possible to make the ABsniffer firmware available or maybe the source code? It would go a long way to modifying and making my own firmware for this unit.

Best Regards

4
  1. Is it at all possible to make the ABsniffer firmware available or maybe the source code? It would go a long way to modifying and making my own firmware for this unit.

Sorry. the firmware is not open source. Please refer nordic’s nRF5 SDK or nRF Connect SDK to develop your own firmware.

5

Hi aprilpea

Thank you for confirming. Would you be able to make the firmware available to the community so that they can re-flash the dongles if required?

Best Regards