SparkFun Transceiver Breakout – nRF24L01 (RP-SMA)

Description

The nRF24L01 module is the latest in RF modules from SparkFun. This module uses the 2.4GHz transceiver from Nordic Semiconductor, the nRF24L01+. This transceiver IC operates in the 2.4GHz band and has many new features! Take all the coolness of the nRF2401A and add some extra pipelines, buffers, and an auto-retransmit feature – very nice!

This board features a reverse polarized SMA connector for maximum RF range. Please remember, you will need a mating RP-SMA 2.4GHz antenna (listed below).

Because of lower costs and better performance, we recommend the nRF24L01 over the original nRF2401A modules.

This unit has an onboard 3.3V regulator and has 5V tolerant IO lines. This makes it very flexible, but you will need to power the unit with 3.3V or higher voltage for the regulator to perform properly.

Note: We now populate these boards with the nRF24L01+. The ?+’ version of the IC has improved range, sensitivity, and data rates. The command set is backward compatible with the original nRF24L01.

Features:

On-board 3.3V LDO Regulator (3.3 to 7V supply allowed)
Reverse Polarized SMA Connector for external 2.4 GHz Antenna
100m Range at 250kbps
250kbps to 2Mbit Data Rate
Auto Acknowledge
Auto Re-Trasmit
Multiceiver – 6 Data Pipes
32 Byte seperate TX and RX FIFOs
5V tolerant input pins
Software selectable channel from 2400MHz to 2525MHz (125 Selectable channels)
Minimum number of external components
Pins broken out : VCC, CE, CSN, SCK, MOSI, MISO, IRQ, GND
Lots of application notes and support on Nordic Semiconductor Website

Documents:
Schematic 
Eagle Files 
Hookup Guide 
Nordic VLSI website 
nRF24L01 with RPSMA Dimensional Drawing – Please note this does not show the RP-SMA connector 
nRF24L01 Datasheet 
Great Nordic tutorials 
mbed Example 
Example PIC Code 
GitHub
Sparkfun product page