Actual power consumption of the Bluefruit LE SPI Friend?

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foodini
 
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Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2012 2:08 am

Actual power consumption of the Bluefruit LE SPI Friend?

Post by foodini »

I keep rebuilding the same circuit with different microcontrollers because one will draw too much power, the next will be too big, the next doesn't work right with..... blah, blah, blah.

My main problems are power and size. I need to keep total power draw to an insane budget. My microprocessor is killing off 20mA, the GPS: 40, SD card reader: 6-12, ms5611: 6, 6-axis accelerometer: 7. And I'm trying to stay under a 80mA budget. As you can see, I'm not quite going to make it, but maybe I'll be close enough. I realize that BLE is intended to draw as little power for broadcast as possible - but that doesn't mean that a breakout board is going to have a low total power draw. I'm going to be sending a 130 byte message at 20Hz or better. What can I expect this board to draw, in total, while in operation?

Thanks...

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mikeysklar
 
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Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:10 pm

Re: Actual power consumption of the Bluefruit LE SPI Friend?

Post by mikeysklar »

@foodini,

Did you come across the "Current Measurements" page for the Bluefruit LE UART. I realize you are using the SPI model, but these will at least give you directional data for the different draws on the BLE side (Fast vs Slow advertising and Connected Mode).

https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing- ... asurements

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