Voltage drop when measuring with VL53L0X

[till_1994_2025]

Hi everyone,

I’m working with the VL53L0X sensor and I noticed that when it starts ranging, the supply voltage (of my board with the VL53L0X, the Vcc pin) drops from 3.389 V down to 2.544 V.

In this setup, the VL53L0X is powered from the 3.3 V pin of a NodeMCU V2 board (powered via USB from my computer). The 3.3 V rail on that board comes from an NCP1117ST33T3G regulator, which is rated for 1 A output current.

I also tried powering the NodeMCU using a 5 V / 2 A phone charger instead of USB, but the voltage drop still occurs.

The sensor is mounted on an Adafruit VL53L0X breakout board, similar to this one .
According to its schematic, it includes a XC6206P332MR regulator that provides 3.3 V @ 200 mA.

So my question is:
Is this voltage drop caused by a large current consumption from the VL53L0X during ranging operations, or could there be another cause (e.g. the onboard regulator, wiring, or setup)?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Zhiyuan.Han]

Hi 

VL53L0CX average power consumption is 19mA, and the peak current is 40mA, so in theory if your power regulator can provide 200mA, that should be enough.

I checked power regulator XC6206P332MR  is LDO, and input volage is 3V3, target output voltage is 3V3, this is strange set up, maybe you can try to bypass the regulator or connect a 5V as input for XC6206P332MR.

Br

Zhiyuan.Han

[till_1994_2025]

Hi, thanks for your reply!

You're right, it's a strange setup.
Tomorrow I’ll change the supply voltage of the board that contains the VL53L0X.

Then I’ll post the results I get.

[till_1994_2025]

Hi!

I tested powering the sensor with 5V (and then using the LDO to convert it to 3.3V), and now the voltage drop is about 0.02 V when the sensor is taking measurements.

The measurements I’m getting seem to be the same as before from what I’ve seen so far, I still need to continue testing.

Thanks