High IDLE current consumption with "ble_app_beacon"

[nickagianFT]

Hi,

I have a PCA10040 DK and am trying to measure current drawn for a non-connectable beacon. After following the instructions in the infocenter about how to do current consumption measurements with this board, I supply externally 3.0V on P21 and hook up my Keithley DMM7510 on P22.

The current consumption during active mode seems to be very close to the theoretical value given by the online calculator.

However the current during IDLE is much higher than expected: I measure around 285uA average current.

The only thing I have changed from the default ble_app_beacon app is that I disabled the LEDs in the main() function.

How can I approach this?

Given that the excess current is relatively big, I assume it must be some module that is activated. I cannot find though which might be. I'm also thinking: can it be some leakage current towards the on-board Segger programmer? Although it seems to be high for leakage current.

Nikos

[Stian Røed Hafskjold]

Hi, I'm thinking that maybe the logging module is still active. It's active by default in many of the examples.

Go to sdk_config.h and set NRF_LOG_ENABLED to 0.

[nickagianFT]

Hi Stian,

thanks for your answer. It makes sense what you are saying.

I will then deactivate the module and measure again. I'll post again the results of course.