Ble sense|Mega2560 multiMaster to arduino NANO

[aka_tg2]

My project idea is for a robot car (MEGA 2560) that can accept gesture commands ( from nano 33 ble sense) while Mastering over an arduino NANO for peripheral sound effects.
In a nutshell I believe I need the MEGA 2560 to act as a slave and a master at different times while coexisting with BLE sense chip configured as permanent master but how?

So MEGA 2560 should always be a slave except when it needs to play a voice( send 5 bytes command to NANO ; no need to explain what the bytes are for), it should then revert back to a slave mode, awaiting 'receive_event()' while controlling the car inside its own program.
Different events during program excecution will need different voices so periodically MEGA 2560 needs to Master it up and somehow deal with BLE sense.

Some notes

• NANO is a permanent slave and will respond to an incoming 5 bytes on the bus.
  The low level data exchange is already tested and verified for
  MEGA 2560 to NANO as well as
  BLE sense to NANO

• The 33 ble sense chip is master only. master only, gosh darnit!

I guess I need to somehow isolate SDA SCL on the BLE sense chip during the time MEGA 2560 is mastering. This does not sound like a good solution.

[aka_tg2]

OK this is interesting

Arduino I2C Multi-Master Approach - Why and How

[DrDiettrich]

@aka_tg2

I need the MEGA 2560 to act as a slave and a master at different times

That's how I2C works. It has no defined master, each node can become a master whenever required.

In a multi-master environment bus collisions can occur. Please check which Arduino can handle such colissions properly, by breaking a transfer and reporting a failure. Then it's up to you to solve the colission by adequate code.

[aka_tg2]

@DrDiettrich

That's how I2C works. It has no defined master, each node can become a master whenever required.

I am glad to hear that. That part of it will work out.
So now how to deal with ble sense chip being Master Only.
Actually The ble sense chip in the diagram is using softwarei2c to implement master. 'Wire' did not work for me but I (hehe) don't remember exactly why. I remember compile errors such like "no such library exists" for
#include "wire.h";
only when ble sense board is selected in the IDE. I then looked around and saw

Trouble configuring Nano 33 BLE as an I2C Slave

Can't seem to get this new board configured as a slave. In looking at the Wire library (it's using the mbed OS underneath), there is a define that is not set "DEVICE_I2CSLAVE". Without this being set, it doesn't look like calling Wire.begin(...) with a slave address will do anything. But when I try to define DEVICE_I2CSLAVE, I can't seem to get things to compile. And I'm not even sure that is the correct solution. Has anyone been able to configure a Nano 33 BLE as an I2C slave? If so, can you sh…

So I believe the dual Master solution presented " [Arduino I2C Multi-Master Approach - Why and How]" will work (howbeit a lot of extra hardware connections.) If it is robust it should be worth it.
My point for discussing all of this here on this forum is the hope that everything I am
proposing thus far will actually work.
It is going to take considerable effort and time to put dual Master sharing together and test it. I don't mind as long as the desired result can be assured at the end of it.

Having said all that I still would love to hear anyone who knows how to use NANO 33 ble Sense with the wire library.

[DrDiettrich]

@aka_tg2

ble sense chip being Master Only

This means that it cannot behave as a slave. It has no I2C address and does not react on transmissions from other masters. It's passive unless a transmission is started in code.

[aka_tg2]

Ahh I see. Makes perfect sense.

Thank you DrDeittrich!

After some thought I'm thinking I will still need to use the multi master approach (prevent ble sense trying to use the bus while MEGA 2560 is Mastering) simply to guarantee no conflict.