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Unable to connect to the PPK

Hi,

some time ago we ordered 3 PPKs. I tried one under a Mac with VmWare / Win7 with a PCA10040 board. It was working but I got surprising graphics. When I came back from holidays, the PPK was no more detected and the menu under Virtual Machine->USB & Bluetooth doesn't reveal a board. It is similar for the 3 boards. All have the DUT & Power switches at DK position. Changing the USB cable didn't help.

So I decided to use a PC with Win8. The PPK is not detected for the 3 boards. The SW installation ran correctly on the Mac/VmWare/Win7 and the PC/Win8 (Python 2.7.12 + SEGGER J-Link driver + python_packages.bat).

However when I run ppk.py I get the following error message:

Power Profiler Kit initializing...

Python version in use: 2.7.13

Checking installed packages pyside: 1.2.4 pyqtgraph: 0.10.0 numpy: 1.13.1 pynrfjprog: 9.6.0 Unable to connect to the PPK, check debugger connection and make sure the ppk is flashed. An error was reported by NRFJPROG DLL: -13 NO_EMULATOR_CONNECTED.

Do you have an idea what could be wrong? LED1 (green) is on, so the board seems powered.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Bernard

Parents
  • Hi,

    thanks for your reply. The nRF52 DK SB9 has been cut. From your remark I realised that both boards have to be USB connected. I was stupidly assuming that PPK power the DK so USB is not necessary for this board. Once both connected, I can start the program but I get strange results. I tried with the Mac/VmWare/Win7 and a PC/Win8 (see annexed pictures). Results are very different but could be similar at a different moment. They correspond to a connected device via BLE with a connection event period of 30 ms. When I close the connection, the device return in advertising mode with a 100 ms period. However, nothing change in the consumption.

    What should I do to get better results?

    PC:

    image description

    Mac:

    image description

    Thanks for your comment concerning "DUT On/Off". So I used DUT Off on the PC/Win8 (the supported platform) but still got current around 50 mA. This occurs only after around 30 seconds. I have a low current in the beginning. However, the application works all along, connected to an iPad, and periodically communicating with a connection event period of 30 ms.

    SB9, SB11 & SB12 are not soldered.

    What could be wrong with my config?

    Today it seems to be repeatedly around 10 seconds. The first 10 seconds the current is very low (below a noise of +-600nA). The 10 seconds are measured after the calibrating pop-up window disappeared. Then, the current has an average value of 52.5mA, a max of 55 mA. Closing the connection with the iPad (so turning the device in advertising) doesn't change anything.

    The measured values with a resistor (10.6Ω) are much better understandable:

    image description

    One can see the 3 pulses for the 3 advertising channels and an OS kernel activity each ms. The advertising average current is 7.2 mA for a duration of 2.6 ms. This is very different to the 50mA measured by the PPK.

    If I click Stop, it takes around 1 minutes for the display to stop (same for trigger). The trigger level seems to be useless: if I set the trigger to a very high level (1000000µA=1A), the display still updates with values between 51 and 55 mA.

Reply
  • Hi,

    thanks for your reply. The nRF52 DK SB9 has been cut. From your remark I realised that both boards have to be USB connected. I was stupidly assuming that PPK power the DK so USB is not necessary for this board. Once both connected, I can start the program but I get strange results. I tried with the Mac/VmWare/Win7 and a PC/Win8 (see annexed pictures). Results are very different but could be similar at a different moment. They correspond to a connected device via BLE with a connection event period of 30 ms. When I close the connection, the device return in advertising mode with a 100 ms period. However, nothing change in the consumption.

    What should I do to get better results?

    PC:

    image description

    Mac:

    image description

    Thanks for your comment concerning "DUT On/Off". So I used DUT Off on the PC/Win8 (the supported platform) but still got current around 50 mA. This occurs only after around 30 seconds. I have a low current in the beginning. However, the application works all along, connected to an iPad, and periodically communicating with a connection event period of 30 ms.

    SB9, SB11 & SB12 are not soldered.

    What could be wrong with my config?

    Today it seems to be repeatedly around 10 seconds. The first 10 seconds the current is very low (below a noise of +-600nA). The 10 seconds are measured after the calibrating pop-up window disappeared. Then, the current has an average value of 52.5mA, a max of 55 mA. Closing the connection with the iPad (so turning the device in advertising) doesn't change anything.

    The measured values with a resistor (10.6Ω) are much better understandable:

    image description

    One can see the 3 pulses for the 3 advertising channels and an OS kernel activity each ms. The advertising average current is 7.2 mA for a duration of 2.6 ms. This is very different to the 50mA measured by the PPK.

    If I click Stop, it takes around 1 minutes for the display to stop (same for trigger). The trigger level seems to be useless: if I set the trigger to a very high level (1000000µA=1A), the display still updates with values between 51 and 55 mA.

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