mfNordic library released on Codeplex

As part of the development effort for the home monitoring system I implemented a .net micro framework library for interfacing to a Nordic semiconductor NRF24L01P radio module. I have released the source code on https://mfnordic.codeplex.com/ under the MS-PL license.

Using the library

var radio = new Nrf24L01P(SPI_Devices.SPI1, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D0, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D1, Pins.GPIO_PIN_D2);

The Nrf24L01P class needs the SPI port, the chips select, chip enable and interrupt line that the physical radio device is connected too.

The radio can be left with the default settings or can be configured via properties. Below are some example properties.

 radio.Features = radio.Features | Feature.AckPayload | Feature.DynamicPayload;
 //Note the number of address bytes must match the configured/default radio.AddressWidth property
 radio.TransmitAddress = new byte[] {0,0,0,0,0};
 radio.Mode = Mode.Receiver;
 radio.Channel = 125;

The class will raise events when data is transmitted or received or errors occur. These events can be hooked, each has an event argument that contains relevant context information.

 _radio.OnDataReceived += RadioOnDataReceived;
 _radio.OnTransmitFailed += RadioOnTransmitFailed;
 _radio.OnTransmitSuccess += RadioOnTransmitSucess;
 _radio.OnDataReceiveFailure += RadioDataReceivedFailure;

 static void RadioDataReceivedFailure(object sender, DataReceiveFailureEventArgs e)
 {
  Debug.Print("OnDataReceiveFailure occured on Pipe: " + e.Pipe);
 }

 static void RadioOnDataReceived(object sender, DataReceivedEventArgs e)
 {
  Debug.Print("RadioOnDataReceived occured on Pipe: " + e.Pipe + " " + e.Payload.Length + "bytes received");
 }

The NRF24L01P supports up to 6 logical radio data pipelines, all sharing some basic settings namely:

• CRC enabled/disabled (CRC always enabled when Enhanced ShockBurst™ is enabled)
• CRC encoding scheme
• RX address width
• Frequency channel
• Air data rate
• LNA gain

The library exposes the data pipelines via an indexer. This allows properties and methods of individual pipes to be accessed.

 radio[Pipe.Pipe0].AutoAcknowledgment = true;
 radio[Pipe.Pipe0].DynamicPayload = true;
 radio[Pipe.Pipe0].Enabled = true;

Acknowledge packets can be queued on a given pipe line using the QueueAcknowledgePacket method.

 radio[Pipe.Pipe0].QueueAcknowledgePacket(new byte[] {0,1,2,3});

In transmitter mode packets can be transmitted using the Transmit method. The Boolean parameter indicates if the packet should be transmitted with an expected acknowledge from the receiver.

 radio.Transmit(new byte[] { 0, 1, 2, 3 }, false);

Finally to power the radio devices RF section up.

    radio.PowerUp = true;

To enable the  radio device, which will set the CE signal to the device, which will active the RX or TX mode of the radio device.

 radio.Enable = true;