Custom Board makes high current in BLE Example

[Alan Ajit]

Dear Nordic,

We have a custom board and we just flashing BLE central peripheral example on it's 

works fine but when i test its current consumption its shows around 1.5 Ampere 

I need some help to reduce the current consumption

[gzigzeo]

turn off debug log: in sdk_config.h  set #define  NRF_LOG_ENABLED 0,  that's for reducing power consumption by SoC itself.

but 1,5 A seems to much anyway, maybe that's some mistake in scheme or soldering. with that consumption you can find source of leakage even by checking temperature of elements. just leave the board working for some time, then turn off and check what element became warm. 

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

• Which exact example are you running on the board?
• Is the current lower if you run it on a Nordic DK?
• Which SDK version are you using?

[Alan Ajit]

That's some soldering issue its now 1 mA in Advertising time and 8 mA in Scanning time 

I think both this are little high i want to reduce maximum current 

In my application is from ble central and peripheral(relay) but i controlled its advertising and scanning 

and also i used UART,ADC and gpio in application 

I need some advise to reduce maximum current

SDK 15 used

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

The current when scanning could be correct. The current will depend on your scan interval and scan window configurations, and is you use DCDC regulator. The current for when the radio is in receive mode lay between 5.4 and 12.9 mA.

1 mA in advertising mode could also be correct if you do SAADC sampling, UART and other things. Both SAADC and UARTE peripherals have a run current of ~1.2 mA due to use of EasyDMA.

The nRF51 series current consumption guide has a good overview of what you should do to reduce current consumption of your nRF51 devices. Most of the concepts will also work on nRF52 series.

For SAADC, there is a low power mode available, that will significantly lower the current consumption if you have a low sample interval. There is also an example available on our GitHub.