Basic point-to-point with XBee-PRO XSC

Hi - I’m completely new to this and was sent over here from the Adafruit forums in the hopes of getting some help with a basic point-to-point setup.

I have 2 XBee PRO XSC 9600 modules, each seated in an Adafruit Xbee Adapter. One will be connected to my Arduino project (but is currently only connected to +5V and GND), the other is connected to my Mac via an FTDI USB cable.

I have configured both XBees to the same VID (which I believe is the same as the PAN…), and have set the MY to 1000 and DT to 1001, and then opposite on the second module. I have confirmed that these settings stuck by connecting to each via the terminal, and that connectivity works just fine.

Now, when I connect the XBee modules, I get a steady green LED on both. The one connected to the terminal spits out a steady stream of increasing four hex character pairs (00000000 … 0000046F0 …). If I “interrupt” it with a “+++” sequence, it happily pops into command mode. When that times out, it goes back to spitting out random characters.

Typing random characters into the terminal doesn’t cause the red LEDs on either module to flicker.

What am I doing wrong here? The ultimate goal is to simply have the Arduino output data to the XBee, and the second XBee to receive that data and output it to the terminal application via FTDI cable.

I just started working with the same modules, and what looks like a similar interface board (Karlsson Robotics) this afternoon.

I had the same issue of incrementing numbers - I found another post mentioning a different pinout for the S3B modules, which uses the old RSSI pin as a configuration input, and having an LED connected caused the device to power up in a test mode that generated the incrementing numbers. Cutting the trace to the LED fixed the problem, and I was finally able to connect using X-CTU.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to get the two devices to connect to each other…

Hmm… interesting. I didn’t have any issues connecting via terminal (I found X-CTU was a bit random, but it did work as well).

I did a bit more reading and will try this later to confirm, but it appears that the DT value actually has to be the same on all modules, not unique as I previously understood. I’m hoping that will solve the issue. I’ll report back here later either way.

All, you are using the XSC S3B modules and related firmware which is designed for Customers who are or were using the XStream product. If you hold the CONFIG line low in power up, it will be put into what is called Pitching mode. You can get out of Pitching mode by resetting the module and disconnecting the CONFIG or Command line.

Thanks! That led me down the right path, and I figured out that for the Adafruit Adapter specifically to work with this module, I simply has to remove the RED RSSI LED from the adapter board. Everything works beautifully now.

I am happy to hear that you got it resolved.