Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 02:22:32 GMT

Thanks a lot for the help! Really appreciate it

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

haakonsh — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:10:46 GMT

Hey Kevin, sry for the late reply.

That schematic looks good.

Alternative Pre-certified modules:

Fanstel BC840

U-Blox NINA-B301

Laird BL654

BR,
Håkon Holdhus.

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 05:40:49 GMT

Hey Håkon, curious if you can take a look the circuit above and see if there are any problems with it. Thanks!

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 05:59:07 GMT

Hey Håkon,

I have decided to use another module (E73 for now). I have attached their schematics below and modified the external circuit using sample circuit #2 as a reference. Can you help me take a look and make sure the wires/components I added make sense?

One thing to note here is that I am not using VUSB to supply any powers. It's there to detect the presence of USB power source so that I get the charging event through USB module.

Best,

Kevin

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 15:17:03 GMT

Sounds good. Thanks for the help!

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

haakonsh — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 08:10:03 GMT

Yes, you need to source another module. See our list of Third-party modules. I've notified HolyIOT about the issue, but I don't know if they will fix or how much time it will take. You can contact them directly and ask them yourself. They will probably fix the issue and sell you their new revision directly if they are able to.

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 16:39:53 GMT

Hey Håkon, unfortunately this is one of their off the shelf modules. Would source another nRF module my only other option then for a low power consumption IOT device? It seem to be a design error on the HolyIOT part and there’s no way to override their module connections

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

haakonsh — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 14:22:01 GMT

Set BOARD_ENABLE_DCDC_HV=n in your prj.conf file. You also need to remove L4 and C19, and connect VDDH to VDD with a short wire. That should put the board in a good state, though there might be permanent damage to the REG0 stage. Also note that max input voltage is now 3.9V instead of 5.5V.

BTW, was this module designed for you by HolyIOT or is this one of their off-the-shelf modules?

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 10:05:09 GMT

Thank you!! That does seem to be the issue. Is there any way to turn VDDH/REG0 off through config options or firmware since I don't have easy control over the how the custom module was designed?

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

haakonsh — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 09:34:26 GMT

Hey Kevin,

Your VDDH net is floating. When VDDH/REG0 is enabled, left floating, and more than ~2.5V is supplied to VDD, then current will flow back into VDDH/REG0 and REG0 enters an undefined state.

See Circuit configuration no. 4 for QIAA aQFN73 for reference.

BR,

Håkon Holdhus.

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 14:18:27 GMT

Hi Marte,

I've tried to cut down the options and the code to a minimum. The options in my prj.conf file are

CONFIG_SERIAL=n

CONFIG_NETWORKING=y

CONFIG_NET_L2_OPENTHREAD=y

(Run on DK about 10uA; on custom module about 1mA)

If I set CONFIG_NET_L2_OPENTHREAD=n instead, it will give me about the same power usage on DK (about 10uA), but I get much lower current consumption on my custom board that lowered to about ~30uA.

Running the boards as SED devices didn't really make a difference in this minimal example for me since I'm assuming the board is not making any active connections.

What's really bizarre is that if I supply the custom board with a much lower voltage on nRF_VDD (the cutoff seems to be about 2.5V), it seemed to have triggered something off. The voltage on the custom board is now running in the ~50-70uA range. This will only happen after I do a reset after the voltage set. Please see the following graph for reference.

Best,

Kevin

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

Marte Myrvold — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 08:54:55 GMT

Hi,

Have you configured the DC-DC?

[quote user=""]What is strange is that when I try to run the same program with OPENTHREAD turned on for the nrf52840 DK, the current seems to be back in the uA range[/quote]

Can you specify what the current is on the DK?

Have you enabled sleepy end device on the nRF52840 module, and is what you are measuring the sleep current or when it is doing something?

Best regards,
Marte

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 18:31:37 GMT

Hi Marte,

Is there another reason you might think of why this is happening? Setting CONFIG_CLOCK_CONTROL_NRF_K32SRC_RC didn't seem to help. Thanks again!

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

zhangxka — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:24:47 GMT

Hi Marte,

Thanks for your reply! It does look like it has an external 32 KHz XTAL. Please see the schematics of the custom module below:

RE: Custom nRF52840 module high power consumption with OPENTHREAD turned on

Marte Myrvold — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 11:07:19 GMT

Hi,

Does the module have an external 32 KHz XTAL? If not, please try enabling the RC oscillator in your prj.conf:

CONFIG_CLOCK_CONTROL_NRF_K32SRC_RC=y

Best regards,
Marte