Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 11:38:18 GMT

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?

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

Bjørn Kvaale — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 10:03:20 GMT

Will you need simultaneous current & voltage measurements from the battery? From what I've understood from this conversation, it seems that you need to power the PPK via the nrf52 dk, via a usb cable to the PPK or via an external power supply, but not a coin cell battery.

An "easy" solution would be to run an example on the DK that has an almost constant current draw from the battery. I have written a blog post on this here. It is absolutely not an ideal way of doing this, as I am using the multimeter to measure the current.

Instead, you could consider running a nordic example that has a "repeatable" current profile. That way, you should be able to connect up the ppk to the board & take current measurements without using a battery. Then, you could hook up the battery to the dev kit, run the same example & measure the coin cell voltage via the ADC.

You would need some kind of timer that starts the application after a given number of seconds to be able to synchronize the current measurements with the voltage measurements afterwards.

This is all just conjecture & I am not sure it will work, but it could be worth a shot!

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Tue, 26 Jun 2018 13:20:09 GMT

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)

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 15:17:50 GMT

Thank you. I will reconvene with my team leader and see what our next course of action will be. Any recommendations on what else I could try for longevity test of my battery?

Thank you again

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 07:23:01 GMT

Should the battery power the PPK?

It does, but quite frankly, it shouldn't. Right now, the external power supply (to the DUT) powers the PPK. The same power is used for the External DUT, so I understand your confusion. This means that you cannot do a longevity test of your battery by connecting it through the PPK, but the power consumption numbers are not affected by the PPK also being powered by the external supply.

Connecting the external DUT:

Yes, positive to positive, negative to negative. The PPK needs to power the DUT in order for our measurement circuitry to work. We are thinking of adding the "amp-meter method" as well, i.e in series with the DUT. This is more useful, since we can more easily adjust the voltage to the DUT through the PPK's regulator.

Will any firmware on the DK affect the PPK?

No. You can have any firmware you like on the DK, it wouldn't matter. It can even be empty. The only thing the PPK uses the DK for, is the on-board debugger circuit that the DK has. You are right, this is not covered in the docs. We might add a note for it.

Really sorry to hear that you haven't succeeded with making any of your PPK's work, and I would love to have some hands on to try and figure out why these fail.

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 19:48:24 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for your response, my duties have me else where. However I did manage to try different cables in previous tests and obtained the same results.

I do have a question in the meantime, as soon as I power the ppk board from an external battery (coin cell using an attachment) the PPK board does fire up (turn on) is this supposed to happen? I do understand that in order to measure consumption of the DUT, it has to go through the PPK, however if I don't plug anything to the DK or PPK except for that coin cell battery through the external supply, should LEDs turn on?

Another question, and this would be more of the connectivity to the DUT, I believe the documentation states it considerably obvious and directly but just want to be 100% sure.

Connecting the PPK to the DUT through P16, would connect to the DUT as if it was a battery, am I correct? as in positive to positive, and gnd to gnd?

Reason why I ask, is because when trying to measure current with an amp-meter (multi-meter) the connection has to be done in series to the DUT.

Also, I can simply have any program on the NRF52-DK like blinky or anything else and it will not affect the PPK's firmware / app to measure the power consumption on my DUT?

I don't believe this last question is covered clearly in the documentation, or I may have missed it somewhere. But would greatly appreciate your response!

Thank you in advance

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 09:11:28 GMT

I just opened three brand new packages with nRF52 DK and PPK. Just plugged in without any modifications (PPK on top of DK), plugged in my external DUT, set power select to external and provided 3V on the External supply pins of the PPK. Everything works on 3 out of 3 boards, both with nRF52DK and nRF52840 as segger host.

I also note that we have the exact same Segger version, so that shouldn't matter.

I have experienced USB ports that hasn't behaved, but since you are using two different computers, that shouldn't be the case either. What the USB cable, can you try to swap that with another one from a different vendor? We have seen really weird things when it comes to cable quality some times. Also, try the setup with absolutely no modifications, just to make sure that nothing has happened here. I then upgraded the debugger to v6.20i, and things still work. I have also tried using regulator and DK as power source for the external DUT: Both works.

If this is not solved any time soon, I suggest you do an RMA and also send the defective units so I can debug it further.

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 08:21:34 GMT

I'm at a loss right now. Just cannot see what could be different with your setup. For the external debugger cable, you can use these https://www.adafruit.com/product/1675 , but it shouldn't make a difference. I'm starting to wonder if some SEGGER OBD firmware update has made some changes that I haven't encountered here (nor heard of from anyone else). I will do some testing over the weekend and see if I can replicate. If nothing comes out of that, I guess you need to send us the boards, and we'll ship you a couple of new ones.

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 14:57:29 GMT

I've been running both OS X and Windows.

OS X specs:

- 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7

- 16 GB 2133 MHz DDR3 Ram

- 1536 MB Graphics

- macOS High Sierra 10.13.4

Windows specs:

- 1.50 GHz Celeron J3455

- 8 GB LDDR3

- 64bit OS

- Windows 10 Pro

Same errors on both, no abnormal resource usage on either.

Thank you

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 14:51:41 GMT

I'll provide some timorrow.

Okay, then faulty kits are highly unlikely. Give me the specs of your OS and preferably also cpu and amount of ram. Can you have a look at a process manager too see if there is any abnormal resource usage?

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 13:54:11 GMT

I have also uninstalled and re-installed NRFConnect multiple times, 2.3.0 and 2.3.2, including the "hidden files"

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 13:35:03 GMT

No Hubs, all direct. It is the same with both PPK's.

my external DUT is all analog (planning on using an nrf52 compatible board), no need to program it (yet) just need to check consumption of coin cell battery. in circuit.

Would appreciate those links.

Thank you

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 13:25:01 GMT

Are you using any hubs? Is it the same thing with both ppk's?
How do you program your external DUT then? You can use a DK as an external debugger, with just an extra cable (can find links later).

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 13:15:37 GMT

Hi,

I thought my response was posted yesterday, I apologize for that. Yes I do get data using the DK as a DUT. I have deleted the hex image in the DK using NRF Connect's programmer app, as well as flashed the ble_blinky program in the DK successfully. And I do get what the video I referred to previously got as a result.

However after a few minutes (between 1 - 5) the program crashes with error:

Corrupt data detected, please check connection to PPK.

PPK closed

I have used 4 different USB cables and do not touch the board while the acquisition is on.

I don't have any external debugger available... If you have a product number or link to it I may be able to get it depending on the cost and lead time.

Thank you

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 19:27:13 GMT

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?

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 18:43:21 GMT

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.

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 17:10:46 GMT

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 :)

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 16:22:31 GMT

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!

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 15:48:36 GMT

Thank you

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

wlgrd — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:59:43 GMT

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

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

Bjørn Kvaale — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:57:28 GMT

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.

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:52:29 GMT

I see that now, thank you for noticing, I arrived at that page and it seems opening different links won't update the URL. Here Preparing the board for PPK

Thank you!

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

Bjørn Kvaale — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:48:01 GMT

Are you sure that you have uploaded the correct link? It sent me to nrf connect troubleshooting.

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:34:48 GMT

Just to point out, I shorted the SB12 jumper because it's explained here that I need to do it for NRF52DK preparation procedures for the PPK.

Thanks

RE: Power Profiler kit disconnects and the NRF52DK

agrelogix — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 13:05:11 GMT

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