MDBT50Q-RX
by Raytac Corporation
This USB dongle/key type thing is a little unusual - it isn’t a BLE adapter that you plug into a computer to add wireless capability. (If you do want something like that, our Bluetooth 4.0 USB Module will do the job nicely.) Instead, this is basically a minimal nRF52840 wireless microcontroller dev board on a stick. You can program it in Arduino or CircuitPython and it’s completely standalone. This could be useful for some situations where you want to have a standalone BLE device that communicates with a USB host but without dealing with the operating system’s BLE stack.
Each MDBT50Q-RX dongle comes pre-programmed with the TinyUF2 bootloader, which makes loading code onto it very easy (note that only the ones from Adafruit do this, its a special-order item). To enter the bootloader, hold down the dongle’s button while inserting into USB. The button can be used in Arduino/CircuitPython as an input. There’s also a single blue LED indicator. It’s all very simple but we could see situations where perhaps this acts as a beacon, a OS-less BLE interface or bridge, or a compact development board for experimenting with the nRF52840.
The blue LED is connected to P1.13, set that pin to be an output and pull low to turn on the LED
The button is connected to P0.15, set that pin to be an input with an internal pullup - when pressed the pin will go low.
Of course the best way to program these chips is with the Nordic SDK. This chip also has some basic Arduino support, CircuitPython support, and is supported by MyNewt.
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Have some info to add for this board? Edit the source for this page here.
CircuitPython 9.2.1
This is the latest stable release of CircuitPython that will work with the MDBT50Q-RX.
Use this release if you are new to CircuitPython.
On nRF boards, CircuitPython 8.2.0 and later require UF2 bootloader version 0.6.1 or later. Older bootloaders cannot load the firmware. See Update UF2 Bootloader below.
Built-in modules available: _asyncio, _bleio, _pixelmap, adafruit_bus_device, adafruit_pixelbuf, aesio, alarm, analogio, array, atexit, audiobusio, audiocore, audiomixer, audiomp3, audiopwmio, binascii, bitbangio, bitmapfilter, bitmaptools, board, builtins, builtins.pow3, busdisplay, busio, busio.SPI, busio.UART, codeop, collections, countio, digitalio, displayio, epaperdisplay, errno, fontio, fourwire, framebufferio, getpass, gifio, i2cdisplaybus, io, jpegio, json, keypad, keypad.KeyMatrix, keypad.Keys, keypad.ShiftRegisterKeys, keypad_demux, keypad_demux.DemuxKeyMatrix, locale, math, memorymap, microcontroller, msgpack, neopixel_write, nvm, onewireio, os, os.getenv, paralleldisplaybus, pulseio, pwmio, rainbowio, random, re, rgbmatrix, rotaryio, rtc, sdcardio, select, sharpdisplay, storage, struct, supervisor, synthio, sys, terminalio, time, touchio, traceback, ulab, usb_cdc, usb_hid, usb_midi, vectorio, warnings, watchdog, zlib
Features: Bluetooth/BTLE
Absolute Newest
Every time we commit new code to CircuitPython we automatically build binaries for each board and language. The binaries are stored on Amazon S3, organized by board, and then by language. These releases are even newer than the development release listed above. Try them if you want the absolute latest and are feeling daring or want to see if a problem has been fixed.
Previous Versions of CircuitPython
All previous releases of CircuitPython are available for download from Amazon S3 through the button below. For very old releases, look in the OLD/ folder for each board. Release notes for each release are available at GitHub button below.
Older releases are useful for testing if you something appears to be broken in a newer release but used to work, or if you have older code that depends on features only available in an older release. Otherwise we recommend using the latest stable release.
Update UF2 Bootloader
Latest version: 0.9.2
The bootloader allows you to load CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino programs. The bootloader is not CircuitPython. You can check the current version of your bootloader by looking in the INFO_UF2.TXT file when the BOOT drive is visible (FEATHERBOOT, CPLAYBOOT, etc.).
It is not necessary to update your bootloader if it is working fine. Read the release notes on GitHub to see what has been changed. In general, we recommend you not update the bootloader unless you know there is a problem with it or a support person has asked you to try updating it.
On nRF boards, CircuitPython 8.2.0 and later require UF2 bootloader version 0.6.1 or later. Older bootloaders cannot load the firmware. To check the version of your board's bootloader, look at INFO_UF2.TXT when the BOOT drive is present. To update the bootloader, refer to the "Update Bootloader" page in the guide for your board, or start with this page.
After you update, check INFO_UF2.TXT to verify that the bootloader version has been updated. Then you will need to reload CircuitPython.