Inquiry regarding nRF24LU1PA dongle repair, antenna design, and Crazyradio PA hardware reuse

[universish]

Hello Crazyradio Team,

First of all, thank you for your amazing contributions to the open-source community.

I am currently working on a personal hardware project to repair a broken Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse USB dongle. The dongle uses the nRF24LU1PA microchip. To bring it back to life, I have started drawing a custom PCB in KiCad. However, I am seeking some expert guidance regarding the schematic.

Could you provide some advice on selecting the correct passive components and their exact values for this microchip? Additionally, I have limited experience with RF design and would highly appreciate any guidance or resources you could share regarding the antenna implementation.

More importantly, I have a theoretical and practical question regarding your Crazyradio PA hardware, which also utilizes the nRF24 series:
If I were to use your KiCad/Gerber files to manufacture the Crazyradio PA PCB (via a service like PCBWay) and populate it with all the passive components and the RF amplifier—but without your nRF microchip—could I solder my Microsoft dongle's original nRF24LU1PA chip onto that board? Assuming the firmware on my chip is intact, would the Microsoft chip work harmoniously with your board design and RF front-end to function as the original MS dongle?

Lastly, I would like to kindly ask for your permission to use your open-source hardware design files for this personal repair and experimentation project.

Thank you in advance for your time and support.

Best regards,

[universish]

[enyanil]

Hi,

Sounds like a fun project! We unfortunately currently don't have the capacity to support issues that are not connected to our products. Could you help me clear up if this is connected to one of our products? In that case, I can help direct you to one of my colleagues with more radio knowledge when they come back from vacation in a couple of weeks. Otherwise, someone from the community might be able to help as well!

You can find the public files for the Crazyradio PA here and here.

[universish]

This is an issue that’s indirectly related to your product, not directly. Yours is the only USB dongle device on the entire internet that uses the nRF24LU1+ chip. Among all the open-source projects, only your project can help me.
I’m designing the circuit and PCB using KiCAD. I’m almost done, but I need some advice from an expert. I need to ask a few questions about the antenna and some extra components used in the antenna line. I’ll wait for the experts who are willing to help to return from vacation. I didn’t know they were on vacation. I’m sorry. I hope they relax, shake off the stress of the whole year, and come back refreshed.

[universish]

Could your team of electronics engineers please review my project? Is that possible?

[universish]

https://codeberg.org/universish/RF-LU1Plus_USB_Dongle

[ataffanel]

Hi, I am not sure about the passives and other question about a foreign design but I can answer for the Crazyradio: Crazyradio-PA may be the wrong design, but if you where to acquire a Crazyradio (the original one), it is very likely the microsoft nRF24 would work. We have once received boards with nRF51 preprogrammed mounted by mistake and these Crazyradio where seen and behaved like a dongle for a gamepad manufacturer.

This was working because the nRF24 is not very flexible io-wise: every board will use the same pins for USB, crystal and radio. So simple boards will virtually be all compatible.

So the easiest for you might be to source an nRF24LU1P board: original Crazyradio and any other dongle that uses this chip would work (I think logitech also used it on dongles before the modern 'bolt' one).

The reason why Crazyradio PA will not work is that it has a Power Amplifier on the radio line, this radio amplifier uses at least one GPIO for RX-EN that needs to be driven well in order for the LNA to work. This means that it will not be compatible with unmodified third party firmware.

[universish]

Please:
https://codeberg.org/universish/RF-LU1Plus_USB_Dongle