• Hi Robin, thanks for sticking with me on this.

    Do we know the limits on the current measuring meter. Do we have a spec sheet indicating it's limits? e.g. can it measure down beneath milliamp to microamp?

    It can go from milli down to microamps.

    'You can call setSleepIndicator(LED1). LED1 will then be lit whenever the device is not sleeping'

    http://www.espruino.com/Power+Consumptio­n
    

    Does the Red LED1 illuminate ever?

    It does when I have the chip "doing stuff", but then does go off after setDeepSleep(1).

    As it was indicated that all five bullet items, post #4 were confirmed, it is known that power save mode will not work using USB.

    Yes - thanks, had noticed this when trying to test sleep while connected through the Web IDE :-)

    'to instruct to power down (like explicitly telling the wifi to power down)'
    This may be the clue, although I am not able to say definitively, as I'm unable to locate specific documentation on the Blue LED and it's indication under battery usage.

    I see that the blue led is faintly lit on the top surface and another blue led on the undersurface. It does seem that there might be some ongoing power to the 8266 chip.

    I have tried reflashing the Espruino and then upgrading the Esp8266 chip. Has not changed the power consumption.

    http://www.espruino.com/Reference#Wifi
    Has the powersave parameter been supplied an argument to test that as an option?
    http://www.espruino.com/Reference#l_Wifi­_setConfig

    Interestingly, that is not an option for me. I get an error when trying to setConfig on wifi:

    >var wifi = require("Wifi");
    ={
      connect: function (a,b,c) { ... },
      disconnect: function (a) { ... },
      startAP: function (a,b,c) { ... },
      stopAP: function (a) { ... },
      scan: function (a) { ... },
      getIP: function (a) { ... },
      setIP: function (a,b) { ... },
      getAPIP: function (a) { ... },
      setAPIP: function (a,b) { ... },
      setHostname: function (a,b) { ... },
      ping: function (a,b) { ... },
      turbo: function (a,b) { ... },
      debug: function () { ... }
     }
    >wifi.debug()
    ={ wifiMode: 0, connected: 0,
      socks: [  ],
      sockData: [
        "",
        "",
        "",
        "",
        ""
       ]
     }
    >wifi.setConfig();
    Uncaught Error: Function "setConfig" not found!
     at line 1 col 6
    wifi.setConfig();
         ^
    

    Typically, the user defined ones are LED1 and LED2, Red and Green. I'm making the assumption, and I feel that from your comment above you are in agreement, that the Blue LED is indicating the WiFi is attempting to turn on. As we know LED's can be power hogs, even when dimmed, this is likely causing the high current draw. But I'm not able to provide a solution on how to resolve that, just yet.

    Thanks - it looks like setDeepSleep might not be appropriately powering down the wifi, or the wifi leds.

    See note beneath heading 'Saving Power' regarding pinMode.
    http://www.espruino.com/Power+Consumptio­n
    I suppose it might be possible that one or more of the output pins are taking on a state, not being explicitly defined. Maybe (a bit redundant though) setting every pin to a known state might provide a bit more peace of mind.

    Will certainly try this if no further progress. I suspect based on https://www.electro-tech-online.com/arti­cles/achieving-low-power-on-adafruit-tri­nket.830/ that this would only account for a few micro amps.

    Thanks again for your help. Hoping we can get to low power sleep at some point.

  • Sat 2020.02.22

    'Hi Robin, thanks for sticking with me on this.'

    Ahhhh, you wouldn't know this, but I have a bit of a selfish reason to do so. Eventually, I'll get around to battery powering, then this will come in handy!

    'Interestingly, that is not an option for me. I get an error when trying to setConfig on wifi'

    Had a hunch that the note regarding ESP8266 might reign here, and your trial seems to confirm that. It is still good info though.

    Unless there are other power users that see this in the short term, there (most likely) is enough here for @Gordon to pipe in, but as he is a bit underwater with the Bangle KickStarter, it might take a few days. In any event, he may need to take a break from flashing those ~1000 units, and welcome this as a nice diversion!!

    p. 73 indicates that the designated mimimum is achievable:

    http://www.espruino.com/datasheets/STM32­F411xE.pdf

    So, my hunch is that as we know the LED full on is 33mA and it is currently dimly lit, that it's ~3mA draw is likely the culprit.

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