nRF52832 with LIS2DH accelerometer not powering up from battery

[Coz]

We created a custom made board with an nRF52832 and an LIS2DH accelerometer. The board is working fine when it is being powered from a power supply with 3V but when it is connected to a battery it does not power up. I found out that if I do not initialise the accelerometer (TWI driver) in the code then the board powers up fine with the battery. 

Both the accelerometer and the micro are being powered up directly from the battery with 3V. The board size is about 12mm in diameter (circular board).

I also found out that if a 47uF capacitor is placed after the battery output, close to the board, then it powers up just fine. The board is fitted with two 4.7uF ceramic capacitors which are required by the LIS2DH design. 

We do not have the space for a 47uF capacitor on the final design. 

Has anyone else come across a similar issue or knows how to fix it? Any help greatly appreciated.

[AmbystomaLabs]

You will never get it to work reliably with just a 4.7uF.  Just look at any CR battery spec for confirmation.

There is plenty of material in the devzone on CR battery designs.  Also, TI did a nice whitepaper on the subject which you can find on their website.

Playing around with your startup might get the board to boot as Turbo noted, but it will never give you a reliable product.

You need more capacitance on the board and pay close attention to your max TX/RX duty cycle as you write your code.