nRF24L01p-data-link driver is a high-speed, optimized and reliable Raspberry Pi and Arduino driver for the Nordic nRF24L01+ Ultra low power 2.4GHz RF Transceiver.

Driver features and goals:

• High speed: up to 215 KB/s transfer speeds between 2 Raspberry PIs and 200 KB/s on the Arduino
• Reliable: driver is made according to the Nordic specification. This ensures correct timing between transceivers.
• Durable: Over one hour worth of packets sent (over 1 million) without a single dropped packet.
• Clear written API for easy use in your projects
• Tested on the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and Arduino Uno/Nano
• Clear examples so you can dive right in

The pin layout of the nRF24L01+ when you have the GND on the top right.

You can identify the GND pin as the 'white boxed' pin on the chip-side of the nRF24L01+ board.

First install the bcm2835 library

$ wget http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/bcm2835-1.42.tar.gz
$ tar zxvf http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/bcm2835-1.42.tar.gz
$ cd bcm2835-1.42
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make check
$ sudo make install

Enable Device Tree support for the bcm2835 library to work

$ sudo raspi-config
 under Advanced Options - enable Device Tree
 Reboot.

Install the nRF24L01p-data-link library

$ git clone http://github.com/jvdvleuten/nRF24L01p-data-link.git
$ cd nRF24L01p-data-link
$ make
$ sudo make install

Please refer http://pi.gadgetoid.com/pinout for the pin layout on your Raspberry Pi 2.

Connect the following pins of your nRF24L01+ to your Raspberry Pi 2:

Do not connect the VCC to the 5v output of the Raspberry Pi. This will destroy your transceiver.

1. Download this repository to your computer.
2. Copy all files from the repository in your Arduino/Libraries folder.
3. Copy all files from Arduino/libraries/nRF24L01p-data-link/arch/arduino to Arduino/libraries/nRF24L01p-data-link/.
4. (Re)start the Arduino IDE
5. Go to Files -> Examples -> nRF24L01p-data-link in the top menu to view and run the examples

Connect the following pins of your nRF24L01+ to your Arduino Nano/Uno:

To improve stability a lot, connect a 10 uF capacitor between the VCC and the GND of your nRF24L01+ transceiver. Connect the +(plus)side of the capacitor to the VCC and the -(minus)side to the GND. Without the capacitor, our transceivers were not even working!

Note: Be careful not to short-wire the 3v3 and GND pins with a capacitor while your Raspberry or Arduino is turned on.

You can even solder it directly on the nRF24L01+ transceiver if you want to.

You can choose which CE and CSN pin are in use in the constructor:

// NRF24L01p nRF24L01p(CE, CSN);
NRF24L01p nRF24L01p(22, 0); // Default RPi2 as in the wiring example above.
NRF24L01p nRF24L01p(9, 10); // Default Arduino as in the wiring example above.

NRF24L01p nRF24L01p(22, 0);
nRF24L01p.init();

// Transmit
nRF24L01p.set_prim_tx();

while(1) {
	unsigned long data = rand();
	bool result = nRF24L01p.transmit(&data, sizeof(unsigned long));

	if (result) {
		printf("Package sent: %lu\n", data);
	} else {
		printf("Failed sending package.\n");
	}
}

NRF24L01p nRF24L01p(9, 10);

void setup() {
	Serial.begin(115200);
	
	nRF24L01p.init();
	
	// Receive
	nRF24L01p.set_prim_rx();
}

void loop() {
	if (nRF24L01p.rx_data_ready()) {
		nRF24L01p.read_rx_payload(&data, sizeof(unsigned long));

		Serial.print(F"Received package: ");
		Serial.println(data);
	}
}

Use the -lnRF24L01p and the -lbcm2835 flag to proper link the libraries to your project, e.g.:

$ g++ *other flags* -lnRF24L01p -lbcm2835 -o *output* *source*

Further examples can be found in the /examples/ dir:

• hello_word: Basic sending and receiving of a package
• high_speed: Transfer without ACK (fastest)
• high_speed_ack: Transfer with ACK (fastest and reliable)
• retry: Slowest speed transfer with indefinite retries

To compile and run examples:

$ cd examples
$ make
$ sudo ./high_speed (or other example)

0.1.1 - Ported to Arduino

• Create more and clear options for the API (channel, output, CRC encoding)
• Create more examples

nRF24L01p-data-link uses the following open source project to work properly on the Raspberry Pi 2:

• bcm2835 - C library for Broadcom BCM 2835 as used in Raspberry Pi

Want to contribute? Great! Fork the library and make a pull-request.

Copyright (C) 2015 Johan van der Vleuten

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.