# Negative current summation

**URL:** <https://forum.qoitech.com/t/negative-current-summation/326>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [March 6, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://forum.qoitech.com/t/negative-current-summation/326 "2020-03-06T17:02:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![miromicomw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@miromicomw](https://forum.qoitech.com/u/miromicomw)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://forum.qoitech.com/t/negative-current-summation/326/1 "2020-03-06T17:02:11Z")

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A couple of threads are dealing with measured negative currents. The answer is often: that is due to caps and pulse currents and the negative current is real. Fine. But what about a primary battery powered device? Maybe a current is flowing into the battery. But the battery isn’t rechargeable at all. So currents into the battery are not re-usable as capacity. Those in my opinion all negative currents have to be discarded instead of averaged with positive currents. What do you guys think?

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**Author:** ![bjorn.rosqvist](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/forum.qoitech.com/bjorn.rosqvist/32/238_2.png) [@bjorn.rosqvist](https://forum.qoitech.com/u/bjorn.rosqvist)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2020, 7:26am UTC](https://forum.qoitech.com/t/negative-current-summation/326/2 "2020-03-09T07:26:29Z")

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Hi,

The negative currents are artifacts of Otii Arcs voltage regulation so they would not appear in a primary or secondary battery use case. In the Otii case, when the load increase in a step, there is a overshoot and this is followed by an undershoot. If the step down is to a really low value (sleep) then this undershoot will result in a negative current measurement.  
So, to make the current and energy average correct, the negative current need to be taken into consideration.

Best regards,  
Björn

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**Author:** ![miromicomw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@miromicomw](https://forum.qoitech.com/u/miromicomw)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 2:12pm UTC](https://forum.qoitech.com/t/negative-current-summation/326/3 "2020-03-10T14:12:32Z")

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Hi Björn, thanks for the reply. Does that mean that

- a) a real battery as source wont show that undershots
- b) summing up the special behavior (over- and undershot) of OTII would result in the same numbers.

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**Author:** ![bjorn.rosqvist](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/forum.qoitech.com/bjorn.rosqvist/32/238_2.png) [@bjorn.rosqvist](https://forum.qoitech.com/u/bjorn.rosqvist)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 2:20pm UTC](https://forum.qoitech.com/t/negative-current-summation/326/4 "2020-03-10T14:20:03Z")

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Hi,

Correct.

Best regards,  
Björn