High current (about 2mA) with UART service

[Andrii]

Hi. I use the nRF51882 and Arduino ide for developing. My main goal is turn on and off the Led thru the Bluetooth interface. But when I use the UART service for it I have a very high current. It's about 1-2 mA (The function waitForEvent is included). Maybe you have an example for how can I do this without the UART service? Thank you.

[Hung Bui]

Hi Andrii,

Could you let us know a little bit more on how you communicate between the nRF51 and the Arduino board ? How is the protocol, who is the transmitter who is the receiver ?

Note that when UART is in receiving mode, it would requires 1V2 regulator and HFCLK, which can add up to 1mA.

Also how did you measure the current consumption, make sure you do a power reset after you do flash programming so the chip gets out of debug mode.

[Andrii]

Hi. Thank you for answer. I use the nRF51882 like a independent device. I connect to the chip only the power 3.3V , GND and Led to pin 13. I use Arduino ide like a programing and debuging place. I not use the nRF51882 with Arduino board. Actually I don't need the UART interface. I need to connect the Bluetooth core to periphery ( in my case it's control pin thru Bluetooth). But I don't know what service Can I use except the UART service? I can change my question a little. What service can I use to connect the Bluetooth core to periphery for minimizing the current of my chip. I don't need UART. I use it like crutch in my code =)

[Hung Bui]

Hi Andrii,

I assume you are using gcc as compiler ? And you have an external programmer ?

You can either turn off the physical UART on the chip when you use ble_app_uart or you can have a look at the ble_app_blinky example, in that example we only turn off an on an LED. There is an example app for it provided on Google play also. Make sure when you do current measurement, you do a power reset before.