Supply current fluctuation

[crodriguez]

Hello to all!

Working on my project I detected some current fluctuation when ESP32-C3-mini is connected to a WiFi AP. So, to figure out where the fluctuation is coming from I moved to the ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1 with ESP-IDF v5.3.1 flashing the wifi station example and ... surprise here it is again.

Captura desde 2024-09-30 12-23-13.png (30.34 KiB) Viewed 532 times

The setup to measure the current is quite simple. In the 3.3V pin I have place a shunt resistor (1 Ohms) and I measured the voltage drop.

Captura desde 2024-09-30 12-21-54.png (97.18 KiB) Viewed 532 times

It can be seen 60-70 mA jumps continously, this only occurs when connected to wifi. Thus, my guess is that ESP-IDF WiFi library but I am not sure if there is any configuration that could make the consumption stable. Any hints?


Thank you in advance!

[ESP_Sprite]

Nope, it's the nature of the beast: transmitting data or beacons or whatever takes current, and the ESP32 needs to do that at certain times. You can add capacitors or filtering if it affects the rest of your circuit, but the fluctuating current use itself is inevitable.