TIDUEM7A April 2019 – February 2021
In addition to metrology accuracy testing, functionality testing was done on the TPS3840 SVS device. For the TPS3840 testing, the board is powered by connecting an external power supply directly to DVCC (a jumper should not be placed on J2 to properly power DVCC directly) and the output voltage of the power supply is slowly varied from 3.3 V down to 1.9 V. The threshold voltage at which the MSP432 MCU is reset by the TPS3840 device, which is referred to as the negative voltage threshold, is logged. After the negative voltage threshold is reached, the power supply output voltage is slowly increased from 1.9 V back to 3.3 V. The voltage at which the reset is released, which is equal to the negative voltage threshold plus hysteresis voltage, is logged as well.
A few functionality tests were also performed on the TPS7A78-based cap-drop supply of this design. In the first test, the output voltage from the TPS7A78 was measured as the AC mains input varied from 75 V to 270 V. The TPS7A78 was connected directly to DVCC for this test by placing a jumper between the LDO_OUT and DVCC positions on J3.
In addition, the power supply was tested to verify that 50-mA loads could be powered. This test was conducted when DVCC was connected directly to the TPS7A78 output with an AC mains input of 230 V. Under normal operation, the design consumes between 14–18 mA, which is well below the maximum output current for which the cap-drop was designed. To create a current consumption of 50 mA from the design, four of the five LEDs on the board were turned ON, which led to a system current consumption of around 50 mA. With the board set to consume about 50 mA from the cap-drop supply, the output voltage from the TPS7A78 was measured.
The resulting DVCC voltage from doing an OR of the TPS7A78 power supply with the auxiliary power supply at header J1 was also tested. This test was performed by placing a jumper between the DIODE and DVCC positions on J3. The measured voltage is less than the output voltage from the TPS7A78 because of the voltage drop across the diode used to OR the power supplies. For this test, an AC mains input of 230 V was used and the system was operating under normal conditions, which would consume from 14–18 mA.