Irregulation of current peaks while toggling a single GPIO while measuring on PPK2 kit

[Dharmesh Patel]

Hello Team Nordic,

Greetings of the day!!

We are currently testing the current of our device with the PPK2 kit.

We use the ESP32 as MCU and we are switching Cellular Module i.e BG95-M3 mPCIe Module using the P-Channel High Side Switching, as you can see in the below image

The EN pin of the N channel MOSFET (in the above image) is controlled by ESP32 GPIO IO23.


We have programmed the MCU for GPIO toggling in the flow of GPIO high -> 1-second delay -> GPIO low -> 1-second delay -> GPIO high -> no delay -> GPIO low -> 1-second delay, with this program we are getting the exponential increase in device current for 36minutes of an interval, and after that device current came to ideal consumption and again starts increasing exponentially, as you can see in below image

We are not understanding this kind of behavior either is caused by the PPK2 kit or something else.

Could you help us for resolving this issue?

For your information, We have directly connected the PPK2 to the PC and also try with bootloader mode.

Is there any way to calibrate the PPK2 kit?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Regards,
Dharmesh Patel

[Dharmesh Patel]

Attaching a video for better understanding.

[Simonr]

Hi 

It seems like you're measuring current on something that is a bit too heavy duty for our PPK2. The maximum DUT admissible current according to the specifications is (in Ampere mode) 1A continuously, which this application seems to exceed, so my guess is that the PPK2 has been damaged by supplying it too much current.

If that wasn't the case, I would recommend checking if you see the same (increasing current) behavior on some other current measurement device (oscilloscope or multimeter).

Best regards,

Simon

[Dharmesh Patel]

Hi Simonr,
Thanks for your reply!

Please note that we are not measuring the continuous current more than the specification limit.

Our Cellular Module BG95 gets the peak current of 1.68A during the power-up event for 25miliseconds. I hope due to this peak current PPK2 will not get damaged.

Also, we are measuring the other device's current using the same PPK2 kit and it shows the right current.

Attaching the snapshot for your reference.

Regards,

Dharmesh Patel.

[Simonr]

Okay, are you measuring in Ampere mode or Source Meter mode (in source meter mode the maximum admissible current is 600mA). Also, as I mentioned I would recommend checking if you see the same (increasing current) behavior on some other current measurement device (oscilloscope or multimeter) as well to confirm that this is specific to the PPK2 or your device, as I'm not aware of an issue like this.

Best regards,

Simon

[Dharmesh Patel]

Hi,

We are using the Ampere Mode.
We have also cross verify this peal current with DSO as well.

Is there any calibration method for the PPK2 kit?

Regards,

Dharmesh Patel