MultiNav Pro+ Power Kit - can it run all three modules simultaneously?

Sarah Jackson•June 23, 2026

Hey all, working on a tracker build and I'm planning to stack the GNSS module, the sensors module, and the BLE module together powered off the MultiNav Pro+ Power Kit. My question is basically whether the super-cap system can actually sustain all three running at the same time without the voltage rail sagging or triggering some kind of brownout. The specs mention 1100-something for the super-cap system but I don't have a clear picture of the continuous current budget when everything is active - GNSS at 18Hz, BLE transmitting, and the sensors array polling at a reasonable rate.

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Barbara Taylor•June 23, 2026

Ran a similar stack last spring and the supercap held up fine during normal operation, but you'll want to watch your GNSS acquisition bursts - that's where I saw the rail dip the most, especially if BLE is actively advertising at the same time. Stagger your init sequence if you can so they're not all spinning up simultaneously, that alone smoothed things out for me without any extra hardware changes.

Adam•June 23, 2026

@Sarah Jackson yeah the staggered init advice in this thread is solid and matches what I've seen too. The Power Kit is spec'd to run the full Developer Bundle stack — that's literally what it's designed for — so sustained operation with all three modules shouldn't be an issue. The supercap capacity at that energy level gives you the headroom you need for continuous draw.

The place to be careful is exactly what was mentioned: GNSS cold acquisition is a current spike, not a steady state. At 18Hz with BLE advertising simultaneously you're hitting two periodic transmitters at once, and if they happen to align on the same millisecond you'll see the biggest dip. Staggering startup buys you a lot, and if you want to go further, delaying BLE advertising until after first GNSS fix is confirmed keeps your worst-case peak current lower during the most vulnerable window.

Sensor polling is pretty benign by comparison — that array draws very little relative to the RF modules, so don't worry too much about tuning that side of things unless you're running extremely aggressive polling intervals.

Karen Johnson•June 23, 2026

Barbara's point about staggered init is solid - I'd also add that if you're seeing persistent sag under BLE + GNSS concurrent load, throwing a small ceramic cap (100uF or so) right at the GNSS VCC pin helped me a lot on a similar build, basically acts as a local reservoir for those acquisition spikes. The supercap system itself has headroom but it doesn't respond instantly so local decoupling is doing real work there.

Charles Moore•June 23, 2026

Both tips above are solid - I'll just add that the 1100mF supercap rating is total capacitance but your effective headroom depends heavily on your input source impedance and how fast the cap can actually deliver into a sudden load step, so don't treat that number as a guarantee of clean rails under burst conditions. On my last build I ended up putting a 10 ohm NTC right before the GNSS module just to soften the inrush a bit, worked alongside the local ceramic decoupling Karen mentioned.