Very high current Issue with RF52832

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Jørgen Holmefjord — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 11:41:56 GMT

The supply to the additional components of the nRF5x DK is separated from the nRF5x chip and should not affect the current measurement. Check out the Current Measurement section in the nRF52 DK User Guide.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Mabbas — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 11:13:56 GMT

Thanks for your reply. If I use nRF5x DK the built in debugger would not effect the current measurements ? Because if debugger is connected then it will also need some power.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Jørgen Holmefjord — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 11:04:07 GMT

For current analysis, I would suggest using the Power Profiler Kit. You can read more about it in this blog post. If you want to measure current consumption of custom board without our nRF52 DK, you will need a J-Link debugger for connection between your computer and the PPK. You can also use it with our nRF5x DKs, which have built-in Segger OB J-Link debugger. The nRF5x DK is also a great development tool for use with our SDK.

Most examples in our SDK includes a project for IAR Workbench, in addition to Keil and GCC.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Mabbas — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 10:49:02 GMT

Hello Jorgen,

Can you please suggest me a board that can be used for current Analysis of nrf52 (chip only) and please suggest what kind of debugger is required?. We want to buy it. Another question can i use IAR workbench for developing the software for nrf52 chip?

It will be really thankful to you.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Jørgen Holmefjord — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 09:39:00 GMT

If you are using Arduino code on the board, I have no idea what you should expect of current consumption when using BLE. All the information above was written assuming you were using code/examples from our SDK. The sleep current is given in the nRF52832 Product specifications. You can check out the ArduinoLowPower library, which have support for nRF52. Note that we do not support Arduino, and that this support is provided by third-parties for our chips.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Mabbas — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 09:03:25 GMT

Hello Jorgen,

The Multimeter is able to measure average current and i have tested with other equipment. I have a question: How much current i should expect if i use sd_power_system_off() ?

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Jørgen Holmefjord — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 07:29:21 GMT

It may be that your multimeter is not able to see the average consumption of the chip and only report the spikes of the radio current. I would suggest you get a dedicated power profiling kit or some other tool suited for this kind of power measurement. The online power profiler includes all current consumed by the IC, including the radio current. Please see the detailed description below the summary, and also read the linked blog post describing the measurement method. If you want, you can upload a hex-file of your application, and I can quickly check the current cunsumption for you. If it is as high as you say, we need to look at your code to figure out why.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Mabbas — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 14:54:54 GMT

I am measuring the current using Multimeter. I don,t know about the DC/DC power mode i am simply using the Nrf 52832 breakout board and configured the chip to have 26 byte adv data , odBm power and adv interval 500ms. I think the current calculated is the power only consumed by chip and it did,.t includes the power consumption radio. Am i right?

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Jørgen Holmefjord — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 14:46:08 GMT

According to the Online Power Profiler, you should be able to achieve ~28 uA with these settings. You need to answer my other questions for me to help you further.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Mabbas — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 14:16:49 GMT

Hello Jørgen,

Thanks for your reply. THe advertising interval is 500ms. The Txpower is set 0dBm. I am getting about 7.25 mA for it.

RE: Very high current Issue with RF52832

Jørgen Holmefjord — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 13:13:36 GMT

Hi Mabbas,

The current draw when radio is active can be 10 mA, or even more, depending on your configuration. The average current consumption on the other hand, should be much lower. You can check the expected average current consumption using the nRF52 Online Power Profiler.

Even with shortest possible advertising interval and max output power, the calculator show average consumption of 629 uA with a payload of 26 bytes.

Follow up questions:

How do you measure the current consumption? I would recommend getting our Power Profiler Kit if you do not allready have good equipment.
What are the advertising interval and output power for your device?
Are you using DC/DC power mode? (Note that your board must have additional components for this to work)
Do you put the device in system on/idle mode in your code?

This post is a great staring point for reducing your current consumption. It is written for nRF51 series, but most of the principles apply to nRF52 series as well.

Best regards,

Jørgen