Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

[agrelogix]

Hello, 

First time posting, Here are the details of my setup, I would greatly appreciate any help from anyone at this point.
I have purchased 2 nrf52 development kits with 2 power profiler kits to go with them. I am trying to measure the current / power consumption of a lithium ion battery CR2477 in a small test circuit.

1 NRF52DK with 1 PPK plugged together / stacked.

1 external circuit / hardware in breadboard.

1 CR2477 coin cell lithium ion battery (3.0 V).

1 Computer with NRF Connect wand power consumption app installed. (V. 2.3.2 for NRF connect, and 2.0 for the power) 

The NRF52DK has jumper SB9 cut, and SB12 joined (as SB12 is for external source)

I have 2 jumper cables running from the battery holder, to the PPK External supply. 

I also have 2 jumpers running from External DUT to power the breadboarded circuit.

After I've connected the DK to the computer (PC) it asks for a firmware update, I agree and continue. I select the COM port to use and select start.

It seems to work from here, and we'll get to that in a bit. But after pressing start, the system disconnects or drops into an error for no apparent reason. Please see image below:

I'm not sure if the quality is good enough, however the text under the red highlight it says: "Corrupt data detected, please check connection to PPK"

At this point nothing has changed, no cable has moved, and I checked various micro usb cables connected to the DK. 

The issue persists. 

Another screenshot of the logged info can be found below: 

I'm not sure if this is a known issue, but we're in a tight deadline to test our circuits for power consumption / battery life and it's a bit troublesome that it doesn't work as expected. 

I would greatly appreciate anyone's help. I have this setup up and ready to run if anyone has any suggestions or need more information from the device / me.

Thank you in advance

[wlgrd]

After reading your comments, it is quite apparent that the software does not find the correct PPK firmware, and assumes you have an old version/ installed or is erased. To me, it seems like it is programming the DK. 
OR, something is being messed up from soldering bridges on the DK. Being that you are using an external DUT, no bridges on the DK should be soldered. External supply is only connected to the PPK. The only preperation for the DK is the current measurement bridge that should be cut. 

Have you ever had it working before? For instance, does it work in the standard configuration, i.e with the ppk connected to the dk, nothing external, USB connection to the DK? 

You should also try to do an erase before launching the application, which will ask you to flash. Verify that it is the PPK that is erased, by observing your DK acting normal (just flash it with e.g. a blinky example and watch LED's still flashing after erase).

If you do an erase, then flash the firmware yourself (find the firmware at C:\Users\<user>\.nrfconnect-apps\node_modules\pc-nrfconnect-ppk\firmware\) and the PPK app still reports the need for flashing a new firmware, then we know for sure something is wrong with the connection/flashing/reading.

Also, is it so that you are acquiring average (top chart) samples without any problem, and it fails after starting trigger? If so, there is something really wrong with the SEGGER interface. I have seen this before if trying to push more than we can out of the ppk, overflowing buffers on the on-board debugger. This can also occur on the PC-side if using an old version of the SEGGER software/libraries. 

I might have more input, but it would be nice if you test these things first. And as a final note, do _not_ use trigger if you are after correct power profiling. It will make the measured average less accurate due to lost average data, as stated in the user guide.

[agrelogix]

Thank you for the response,

I will be removing the solder bridge on SB12, to answer your question, I did test the most basic form of use (followed by the introduction video PPK youtube) And it worked. 

At this point I have not yet flashed anything onto the DK or PPK, we started using this PPK purely for power consumption measurement purposes.

I will get to testing all these suggestions, will get back to you with results as soon as I get them. But to answer your SEGGER question, As soon as the ppk is connected and the COM port selected, I do press start and it does acquire something. Not 100% sure the acquired data is from my DUT, but it gets something that repeats every 4 seconds. After a minute or two, the log displays the "corrupt data detected" message and stops the acquisition. Buffer doesn't buffer anything unless I select a window to view, and the trigger doesn't seem to properly adjust (please see image attached above, where external trigger is set to 15 uA and the log displays 1 uA.) However I am using the newest version of NRF Connect. 

Thank you for the complete response, I will get back to you as soon as I get any results. 

Sincerely, 

Agustin

[Bjørn Kvaale]

Great! The infocenter can be slightly difficult sometimes. The best way to copy a link is to right click on the "preparing the development kit board" & press "copy link address". That way, you know you have the correct url. The url at the top is not always correct.

[wlgrd]

This is for measuring current on the dk, not when you are doing measurements on external circuits. Actually, no preparation is needed at all when measuring externally, since the DK is only used for j-link connection

[agrelogix]

Thank you

[agrelogix]

I have removed the jumper on SB12, and also removed the battery as external supply. I am now testing my DUT using the DK.

Connections are as follows:

USB cable connected to DK

Connections from External DUT (P16 of PPK) to DUT

PPK Switch SW2 on DUT Select External

PPK Switch SW4 on Power select DK

My DUT is powered properly and works as expected, but when I run NRFConnect, and start the acquisition, I still do not see the right consumption and it still crashes. My device draws around 300 uA for 3.5 seconds when activated, and 14 uA at rest. I do not see this reflected on the screen. 

I would like to ask you for help regarding the other points:

You should also try to do an erase before launching the application,
which will ask you to flash. Verify that it is the PPK that is erased,
by observing your DK acting normal
(just flash it with e.g. a blinky example and watch LED's still flashing after erase).

If you do an erase, then flash the firmware yourself
(find the firmware at C:\Users\<user>\.nrfconnect-apps\node_modules\pc-nrfconnect-ppk\firmware\)
and the PPK app still reports the need for flashing a new firmware,
then we know for sure something is wrong with the connection/flashing/reading.

I do not know how to do the "quoted" text above, I'm not sure how to erase the board, nor re-flash the DK or PPK. I would greatly appreciate your assistance with this if possible.

Thank you Kindly for your help!

[wlgrd]

You can use nrfjprog (our cli tool) or download our programming app through nrf connect (install apps) and do both erase and program from there.

The fact that it crashes worries me, as I have never seen it semi-working like this before. Does it run fine without you starting triggering? Also, did you try and flash the DK with a Blinky to verify it is not running the PPK firmware? Just drag and drop an example from the SDK to do that :) 

[agrelogix]

Thanks for the follow up information. I have used the NRFConnect v2.3.2 (programmer - v1.0.0) and uploaded the firmware located at the folder you mentioned previously. 

I still get the same problems, the PPK disconnects with the following error

I found a similar issue or what seems to be a similar issue that pertained the version of the command line tools, so I downgraded to a previous version. But no dice. I still get the same error. 

Another thing to note, when the DK is used as DUT I should be getting a graph (according to your youtube channel) similar to the following: 

So I'm wondering if the Hex in the main folder may also be corrupted? 

Thank you again for your continued support.

[wlgrd]

No problem. So you're saying you don't get data using the DK as DUT either?? Again, are you absolutely certain that the DK is running it's firmware, e.g a blinky example when measuring with the PPK? 

Also, do you have cables/external debugger available?

[agrelogix]

Hi,

Purchased another full kit (DK and PPK) I flashed the BLE blinky to the DK and then ran the PPK application, and I do see data using the dk as DUT. But only if I use the internal regulator as the power source. 

However if I also use the DK as DUT but use an external battery as the power source, I don't get data. The battery is a 3.0 V Panasonic CR2477 coin cell battery. 

I have plenty of them here, aside from being new, voltmeter says it's a good battery. 

With either of these setups, the PPK application in windows and mac still freezes or stops doing acquisition with the same error (cprrupt data) 

[wlgrd]

Been away for a while, sorry for the late response. 

I find it hard to see what's actually happening here, since replicating your setup (per my understanding) causes no errors and things are working fine. I will do more testing to try and replicating your problem. Can you take a picture of your setup?