nRF9160 Low Power Example

[GNotman]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to evaluate the nRF9160 for one of our projects.

One key requirement is the power consumption when using eDRX.

I have tried profiling the at_client sample, but the lowest I've manged with the nRF9160DK is about 900uAs.

Additionally, the power profile does not seem to show the expected paging windows when eDRX is configured.

Is there any low power example, or documentation which can help me with this?

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

 

I have tried profiling the at_client sample, but the lowest I've manged with the nRF9160DK is about 900uAs.

Most of this is due to the UART RX being enabled, which will keep the peripheral clock tree running in sleep. Disabling the UART will lower the floor current, but will also make this specific example non-working.

Is there any low power example, or documentation which can help me with this?

Unfortunately, we do not have a power optimized example showing the lowest consumption possible at this stage in the engineering phase. The closest is the asset_tracker example, where you can enable power optimization (PSM or eDRX), but you will also need to tweak other parts, such as disabling serial in both secure_boot and the application itself.

 

Kind regards,

Håkon

[GNotman]

Hi Håkon,

I had some more time to work on this finally.

Yesterday, I was able to reduce the current down to ~120uAs (@3.75V) when powered through the P24 header.

This was done by adding both of the following lines to the 'secure_boot' prj.conf file.

CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=n
CONFIG_SERIAL=n

Previously, I had reported that adding only the 'CONFIG_SERIAL=n' caused the bootloader to fail and not to load the application.

Also I believe the differences in our measurements are likely due to the SB44 mod to remove the leakage from U25.

[isurki]

Hi!

I've followed this thread and I'm able to reduce the current down to 35uAs. but disableing the uart trhow the conf file. Is there any other way to disable any peripherals while running the aplication? I need to shut down all peripherals for a periode of time, and after that time has passed, I need to wake some of them up to use them. I don't know if there is a way or not.

I would appreciate your help,

kind regards,

Ainara