excess TX power when advertising

RE: excess TX power when advertising

Einar Thorsrud — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:35:22 GMT

Hi,

[quote user="bios-bob"]were this not the case, my sleep current wouldn't be as low as it is....
[/quote]

I understand. So what I am wondering about is if you have some debug pins or similar that you sometimes toggle on start and stop of the advertising event?

[quote user="bios-bob"]is it possible when i re-enable UART upon awakening (following quickly with a switch to the HFXTAL over the next ~400us) that the MCU finds itself in a "bad internal state"....[/quote]

I cannot rule out anything with what I know now but I am not aware of any errata or similar that match this.

RE: excess TX power when advertising

bios-bob — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:33:06 GMT

so far, so good on my new DK v1.0.0 board.... let's close the ticket for now....

RE: excess TX power when advertising

bios-bob — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:13:35 GMT

when active, my application has access to a few debug pins, an LED, and a TX-only UART; when my application goes to sleep, these peripherals are disabled.... were this not the case, my sleep current wouldn't be as low as it is....

is it possible when i re-enable UART upon awakening (following quickly with a switch to the HFXTAL over the next ~400us) that the MCU finds itself in a "bad internal state"....

i'll try this on my new DK v1.0.0 board....

RE: excess TX power when advertising

Einar Thorsrud — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 11:59:55 GMT

Hi,

In a nutshell, you sometimes see a 5 mA increase in the current consumption during the whole radio event, including when the CPU is active polling for HFXO to start. Can you say anything about the difference between when you see it an not? Are there any differences in the state of your application?

I cannot think of what in the nRF itself would add 5 mA to the consumption, so my gut feeling would be that it could be something external. Do you for instance use GPIO pins to debug, or similar, and could it be that for instance a LED is lit or something else happens during this time?