Serial weatherstation wireless via XBee (pro)

XBee & XBee Gateway XBee - 802.15.4
1

hello,

First of all: I am new here. i havevery little experience with these things. I am a weatherhobbyist and encounter the following problems. I have several remote weatherstations in operation. One of the is a Davisvantage Pro2 which transmits its signal over 130 m to a barn. I also have calibrated equipemnt with it and have found the Davis to be lacking. Temperatures are off by 0,5 C most of the time. So I was looking at somehting different (I simply liek different things) and may be better.

I came across the Peet Bros Ultimeter 2100. But it is acabled, serial device. It works at 2400 Baud. Specs of that, here:
http://www.peetbros.com/shop/custom.aspx?recid=29

In short:
GENERAL
2400 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. Flow control is “None” or “Hardware.”
Characters are ASCII hex digits (0-9, A-F).
All fields are 4 bytes except 2 bytes where indicated in the Complete Record Mode.
Most significant digit first.

So, my questions. Cam I just hook up the XBee Pro module on it on one side and on the PC on the otherside (like I would have done with a cable?).

Also, it would be better if I could hook up the sensors only to the XBeePro (sonot the station console) and hook up the receivingside of the Xbee to theconsole, so the console would draw power from the powernet and not teh solarmodule I plan to use with it.

Does anyone know if the cabled sensors would send their signals to the XBee(Pro) or do I have to connect the station console to it and then connect the conole to the XBeepro?

I have read that the standard lets you use it for years on a battery. That would be a godsend! Is this also true for the more powerconusming XBeepro?

I have seen ranges ofkms but you need to use Yagi etc. In Europe, i am only allowed to use the Pro at 10 dBi. With the standard antenna and a line of sight, what range can I expect?

I have to program the XBeePro and setit to "“0” I read to get it at no more than 10 dBi. Does it need o be powered all the time in order to retain this value or is it a ROM and once set, does it keep this value.

I am asking a lot of questions, sorry if it took too much time. I have read a lot and spend many hours on this. I did not find anyone trying the same with the station, so that is why. Looking at the specs it seems doable…

Thansk in advance!

2

Hello Jay,

It is possible to use XBees to replace a wired serial connection, Digi sells RS-232 modules that do that.

Regarding your second question, depending on what kind of sensors you have attached to the console. If they are IIC, SPI, serial or digital, you will still need a MCU to get the data and then send it. A Programmable XBee module can be a good solution for this. Let me know if you need further information. Best regards,

3

Hej sebastian,

Thanks for the reply. Digi came up with a solution and I found their help/support great. But I wonder if this is the best solution…

The international RS232 XBee PRO adapter part number is XA-A14-CS2P. The USB version of the PRO International is XA-A14-CE1P-J.

I found out I need the console according to Peet. So there we need to have a serial version. I think on the computerside of things, where I do not have a serial port, I can use the USB receiver.

Do you know if I have to configure the XBee’s (they use non volatile memory I rthink) and then can use it like it is a cable and Peetsoftware 9or thrid party software) will recognise this?

Thx,

Jay.