Chat between xBees

XBee & XBee Gateway XBee - DigiMesh
1

I hope this is the proper spot for this post.

Should it be possible to perform simple minded chat between a pair of Xbee pros2b s (XBP24BZ7) using Adafruit adapters and FTDI cables? No joy here.

I am following the tutorial in the Faludi book. All of the configuration goes fine using either AT commands or X-CTU. I promise that the parameters have been reset to factory default and only the three parameters as on pp 51-53 have been changed.

Zigbee router AT 22A7 firmware is in one device and Zigbee Coordinator firmware 20A7 is in the other. I tried the 2070 versions with the same results.

I have used all four combinations of hyperterminal and X-CTU terminals. There is no difficulty communicating with either radio in either terminal program, but not a bleep between them.

The green LED lamp blinks full time on each. Nothing ever from the red lamp. The radios are about 8 feet apart.

The adapters and cables have been used before and communication with the modem from the terminal package is no problem.

Is there a trouble shooting guide that leads one to a solution using the configuration data visible from X-CTU?

Thank you,

JC

2

Hi JC,

I assume you looked at the troubleshooting section on pg. 55. Those are common hangups.

Unless I misunderstood, you said the green LEDs flicker on each end when you send data. That sounds like the radios are communicating. I would then suspect the UARt serial settings. Are the BD values the same. By default they are ‘3’ (9600 baud).

Do me a favor and post your config files for each (*.pro from XCTU).

Keith

3

The pro files are attached.

I see that the channel is 13 for both devices. It took many restarts and ATNR commands to get these to match

4

The Green light on the Adafruit adapter is the power indicator, the red is the activity lamp

http://www.ladyada.net/make/xbee/

5

JC,

You need to set each sides DL equal to the other sides SL. Example, you need to set the coordinators DL equal to the routers SL. You currently have it set to ‘CC’. You need to have it equal the 64 bit SL address.

Keith

6

Keith,

Wow, that worked really well. One could say almost instantly. Those are not the instructions in the tutorial I was so carefully following. Blindly following instructions may make one brain dead. Clearly the destination address should have something to link it to the device you are trying to speak with.

Thank you for taking the time to solve my problem.

John Carroll

I see now that I skipped a page of instructions that told me to record the addresses, not make them up. I would rather it just told me what was happening.

Thanks again

7

glad it’s working John. You can also enable a broadcast mode on the module by setting DL to ‘0000FFFF’.

good luck sir!

Keith

8

Actually, since you are running ZigBee (not DigiMesh), be careful with broadcast since under ZIgbee it can block data movement for up to 5 seconds. ZigBee really only works well with direct unicast by DH/DL or APi frames.

DigiMesh is much more graceful with broadcast, so data is only blocked perhaps 1/2 a seocnd.

9

Can someone tell me how to read the SL so I can set the DL properly from an XBEE. I am using Csharp and have not found it in any lanuage in my searches. I would love to braodcast and that would be great, however I need to return information back to my Coordinator about when the message came from. and I really do not want to braodcast this and have it bounce all over the palce for hours even after the Coordinator has received the data. Is it possible and if so, in any language please tell me how.

More information for clarity. I have a long distance for the xbees to travel, and there are a lot of them. So one xbee (Node1)needs to send a message out, so lets broadcast it. all the Nodes in the area pick it up, yeah, great.

How do those nodes know who it cames from?

I cannot figure out how, so lets braodcast it again, and Node1 receieves its own message back, yeah I can track for something like that, but why should I need to if this is a real network. I mean eventually the base will get the message and send out hey I got it, but in the mean time it will also receive a message, the same message from every xbee that is close to it.

on a network I want to send a file or message to a cetain person, we that does not get sent to every PC and server on the system, and they do not broadcast it out all over the place, and i can ad a new PC to a network, without having to reprogram the networks on every other pc around it.

So i know i am draggin on here, but I want to make a point that I cannot find the documentation to explain how to Read the response from the AT COmmands, everyone jsut says use X-CTU, great so a badly written tool is the answer, one that if I start it up and change my com port by plugging into another USB port, I have to restart the program. Like I said badly written, at least make the source code public, so we can fix it and learn from it. I thought this was open source stuff.

10

Products in the XBee family are easy to use, share a common hardware footprint, and are fully interoperable with other XBee products utilizing the same technology.

11

see the later chapters (9 and 10):
http://ftp1.digi.com/support/documentation/90000976_K.pdf