I’ve used the KRC-86B bluetooth module in several projects. It is tedious trying to figure out which one I am about to connect to, because they all have the same name, so it would be great to be able to rename it. It would also be nice if the name meant something.
This is a summary of this instructable. Things have changed a little since it was written, so this little post summarizes the state of play at the moment. It is still well worth watching the video in the instructable and reading the comments.
To rename the module you need to modify one of the settings stored on it. This is done using the SPI interface that is part of the module. I’ve documented the pins in the image below – on the module itself they are marked as NC.
So all you have to do is to send commands over SPI! This might sound a little daunting, but actually it is quite simple. The CSR8630 chip on the module was developed by Qualcomm, and they developed windows software to do the heavy lifting. The software is called BlueSuite. Qualcomm no longer provide this, but you can get multiple versions here. You should use the latest version there, which is bluesuite.win.2.6_installer_2.6.11.1937.zip.
Next you will need a USB to SPI converter. I used this one:
You will need to figure out some way to attach this to the KRC-86B. Check the actual pinouts on whatever USB adapter you use.
- Install the BlueSuite software.
- Connect the 3V3 pin to Vcc on the module
- Connect a 10k pullup resistor between Vcc and SPI_EN to enable the SPI interface on the module.
- Connect MISO to MISO, MOSI to MOSI, CLK to CLK and CSB to CSB.
- Plug the PLC1688 (or whatever) into your PC.
- Run pstool (which is what is installed by the BlueSuite installer). It should detect the module and you can just hit OK. If it doesn’t detect it, troubleshoot your connections.
- Make a backup of the module – File>Dump
- Search for name
- Change it
- Check it changed to what you want using your phone
And that is it. Pretty simple.
Many thanks to sjowett. I spent years searching for this.
Hello,
I have a question regarding the USB to SPI converter.
Could you please let me know if you can use any USB to SPI converter to rename the KRC-86B module or do you have to use the CSR USB to SPI converter?
Thank you in advance.
This is the only converter I have tried. I don’t see any reason why you can’t use a different one.