Frustrated Newbie needs help

XBee & XBee Gateway XBee - Zigbee
1

First off, this is not homework, although I am a student in computer engineering.

I’m also a fair hand at programming and assembly, although i’m new to the arduino and the xbee line.

Second, if this is not the right forum for this question, please feel free to let me know.

I have been given a pair of xbee boards. Both are marked on the top:
XBee PRO S1
FCCID: OUR-XBEEPRO
IC:4214a-XBEEPRO
model:XBEEPRO
30009732-02

and on the back:
XBP24-AWI-001 revE
0013a200
40630d75

one is attached to an arduino sheild (the XBee_Sheild_v1.11 by seeedstudio)

one is attached to a red usb dongle marked with the name sparkfun.com

I was warned both XBee’s “are bricked”, and I’ve been all over the web finding different magic ways to un-brick them, with no change in my problem.

My needs are simple: I’d like to verify their setup so that they will communicate with each other, connect one to my laptop, and one to an arduino, and exchange data.

I have downloaded X-CTU, and it appears capable of connecting to the USB dongle
(
pressing the TEST/QUERY button returns:
Communication with modem…OK
Modem type = Name unknown (ID=42949672481228492)
Modem firmware version =
)

but this response does not change if the XBee is connected to the dongle or not. It also does not change depending on WHICH XBee is connected to the dongle.

In order to get this response I must select both “Enable API” and “Use Escape Characters”.

In the modem configuration tab of X-CTU, all buttons result in errors with varying flavors of “communications failure”.

The XBee does not respond to commands in the terminal tab.

Any help that you can give me in getting these XBees to talk to my laptop would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

2

Hello Brian,

I don’t know if this will help you, but my two cents are as follows…

I had more or less the same problems a few days ago and searched a lot on the web, no success until I discovered that I can connect the xbee module to the pc (laptop in your setup) also through the usb port of the arduino board.

I’ve taken a quick look at your xbee arduino shield

and it seems to support this way of connecting xbee to pc

I’m just not sure if you have also to remove the atmel chip from the arduino board for doing it, please search a bit about it before proceeding in that way

So, you can launch x-ctu with the xbee module in the xbee shield on the arduino and the pc connected to the usb port of the arduino board.

Sometimes the xbee usb shield works well, but the xbee pin connectors fail to do their work properly.

I found useful this way of trying to unbrick the module

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844:BlogPost:88961&commentId=705844:Comment:89003

I’m quite new too in this area, I hope this helps you somehow.

regards

i4a