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Using external power supply to power the Nordic Thingy 91?

witch_mountain

Hi! I'm new to using the Nordic products and I wanted to be able to power my Thingy 91 device without the use if the USB and with a separate external power supply. On the board I saw that the P3-P5 set of connectors can be used for power domains. So I wanted to clarify that if I wire pins in connectors P5 and P4 to 3.3V and 1.8V and ground, respectively, then I would be able to turn the Thingy 91 on (while also power is being supplemented from the battery and the switch on the Thingy is turned on as well). I've also attached an image of the connectors straight from the user guide. Thank you guys!!

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  • 0

    Hi

    Could you elaborate a bit why you don't want to use the USB port? The thingy's are nice products to show of samples but they are not the easiest to work with if you try to do something else due to their limited GPIO access.

    You would need to connect to the board before the PMIC as it should control the charging of the battery and output the correct power domains and I don't see any good place to solder a wire. If you have a steady hand you might be able to attach wires to the Vdd and GND of the USB connector, but then again I would just use a USB cable.  

    Regards

    Runar

  • 0 in reply to runsiv

    Hi! There's not a substantial reason as to why I don't want to use the USB. I was just curious if the Thingy 91 is capable of being externally powered without the support of a USB cable to a computer. 

    Could explain a bit more on the VDD and GND i/o pin, how they work, where they are located on the board, and what considerations I should have while I work with those? I've seen from some other posts to set the VDD pin to 1.8V since this will power the nRF91 chip. Also, how would you connect the board before PMIC? 

    Thanks!

  • +1 in reply to witch_mountain
    witch_mountain said:

    Hi! There's not a substantial reason as to why I don't want to use the USB. I was just curious if the Thingy 91 is capable of being externally powered without the support of a USB cable to a computer. 

    No worries, often we see people asking for solutions for issues that will not solve their original issue, so I like to understand their motivation. I would say this is one of those it is possible in theory but it is not practical do it due to the mentioned limited GPIO access. If you are not connected over USB, you have the battery to keep the device powered on, and in the worst case you can get a usb cable without the data wires if you only want to charge the device. 

    witch_mountain said:

    Could explain a bit more on the VDD and GND i/o pin, how they work, where they are located on the board, and what considerations I should have while I work with those? I've seen from some other posts to set the VDD pin to 1.8V since this will power the nRF91 chip. Also, how would you connect the board before PMIC? 

    The different ports with 1.8V, 3.3V is connected to different outputs of the PMIC and if you connect to them it will power the different chips connected to that power domain. You will however then lose the PMIC which is supposed to control the charging of the battery and that is why I would not recommend to try to power the device from these ports. If you don't care at all about the battery then it would not matter in regards of the battery but without having HW a my speciality i suspect you will also bypass some of the protective components as you are not powering the device as intended 

    witch_mountain said:
    Also, how would you connect the board before PMIC? 

    I think I would try to attach to the vdd and gnd connectors on the USB port. From what I recall there are really not any good place to attach anything outside the usb port

    Regards

    Runar

  • 0 in reply to runsiv

    Wow, thank you so much for answering my questions in such detail! I understand that connecting directly to the 1.8V and 3.3V of the PMIC would mean I lose access to the battery charging and potential protective components. My only issue with this is the location of the PMIC on the board and then where the 1.8V and 3.3V pins are (I'm a pretty visual learner so the layout of the Thingy confuses me compared to other microcontroller boards I've used beforehand)?

    If I were to connect directly to the VDD and GND ports of the USB do you still lose the PMIC? Just so I can visualize this a little better, where exactly on the board would those ports be? 

  • 0 in reply to witch_mountain

    Hi, 

    witch_mountain said:

    If I were to connect directly to the VDD and GND ports of the USB do you still lose the PMIC?

    No then you will have access to it. It would honestly be just the same as using the usb connector and I can't see any good reason why you would not just it then, or use a custom usb cable only containing power and gnd

    Regards

    Runar

  • 0 in reply to runsiv

    Hi Runar,

    Thank you so much for you help! This really clarified a lot of the power management and supply questions I had about the Thingy.

    Have a great day!

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