NRF9160 Achieving low power consumption

[thomallain]

Hi everyone,

I am testing the NRF9160 DK and I want to test the low power mode.

I found and tried the solution detailled in this blog about how to measure PSM idle current. The problem I am facing is that using the merged file from the blog I achieve ~6µA, but compiling the project from the same blog I have a current around 1mA.

I measure the current using an amperemeter and the power is coming from an external power supply. I used the same "test conditions" for both the merged file and the project. I have a nRF9160 DK PCA10090 v0.9.0. 

I flashed the merged file using the Programmer tool from nRF Connect. On the other side,I compiled and flashed the project using Segger Embbeded Studio. I also took care to change the CONFIG_SERIAL=y to CONFIG_SERIAL=n in the proj.conf file of the project before compiling, but to no use.

How can I achieve the consumption I got with the merged file but with the project ? Is there another parameter to change in the proj.conf file ?

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,

Thomas 

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

 

 

How can I achieve the consumption I got with the merged file but with the project ? Is there another parameter to change in the proj.conf file ?

Did you also disable serial in the spm/prj.conf? If not, the spm will start up the uart, causing higher sleep current.

 

Kind regards,

Håkon

[thomallain]

Hi, 

Where can I find this file ?

Kind regards,

Thomas

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

 

Here: ncs/nrf/samples/nrf9160/spm/prj.conf

 

Kind regards,

Håkon

[thomallain]

Hi,

It did the trick, now I can get ~20µA. 

Thank you for your help !

Kind regards,

Thomas

[Håkon Alseth]

Great to hear that the current dropped!

Always happy to help out.

 

Cheers,

Håkon