Peak Current Consumption (Power Profile)

[roland_vs]

Dear all,

The ESP8266 has a rather bad data sheet where typical current consumption is mentioned and peak/max current is not characterized at all.

I have looked through all documentation and cannot find any document that clearly shows the peak current (I see mention of 300,320,500 mA from the Internet). Assuming that 350mA is almost right, is there anyone that has some kind of power profile of the chips behavior:
- AP mode
- Connected
- Sleep
- Packet transmit at maximum power
etc.
Or maybe a nice set of test code so I can record the power profile myself and report it back to this forum...

Usually people add 470uF to the 3.3V rail and that should do the trick...but I would like to be sure.

R

[Beta_Ravener]

I have accidentally stumbled upon answer to your question when looking around for options on powering ESP8266 from battery. It seems that the guys at Esperiff already did this and if you look into datasheet (which is strangely hosted by adafruit and has "confidential" all over it) page 10, you'll probably find what you are looking for. Here's the link: https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheet ... nglish.pdf

[roland_vs]

@Beta_Ravener:

The datasheet can also be found at the Espressif website and other places, but as you can see in the table these are only typical values and no mention of maximum values. There are numerous reports that the current is well over 300mA, but not accompanied with the time interval.

I will explore this subject further...

Thanks anyway,

Roland

[Beta_Ravener]

Ah sure, I know what you mean now. I have too seen a video with those spikes, guy tried there different (larger and larger) caps before smoothing them out eventually. Here it is (talking about peaks around 3:00 and caps at 4:00): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SdyImetbp8 . So considering his experiments, the 470uF cap won't do much.

I'm also interested in exploring different power modes on the ESP, so while at it I could try to create some graphs with and without capacitor. I just currently don't have much time to tinker with it so it might take few days.