Some clarity needed

XBee & XBee Gateway XBee - DigiMesh
1

Hi all.

I am looking to play with a few Digimesh units and a PLC and just want to make sure I am on the right track before I immerse myself into long hours.

My intention is simply to monitor the pins of the remote modules across the mesh

I have ordered a RS485 to XBEE module and my PLC has a RS485 interface.

So I know I have to configure each unit with an address etc and other info. So from there I install one of these modules on my adapter.

So here is the part I need clarity on.

I believe that by sending serial data in the correct format to the unit in the adapter via in my case RS485, I can read the value of one of the pins on say a module 3 hops away or if need be, write to it. That is I can turn it on or off using serial data?

Does that sound like I have a basic grasp? If this is the case then my biggest hurdle (but not impossible) is constructing the serial data in the correct format

2

Hi,

It is possible, DigiMesh modules have “Remote AT Commands” frames. So you must set your module in API mode because Transparent mode does not support sending remote at commands. I remark that Transparent (a.k.a. “AT”) doesn’t support sending because the do accept receiving remote AT commands, so only the device that will be sending the Remote AT Cmds need to be in API mode, the others can be in either API or Transparent mode.

Consult your module documentation on how to deal with API frames. Also, you have available here an API frame builder that is very useful when testing your frame builder.

With AT Commands you can set/get IO pins and all other parameters, but you can’t turn off the module. Regards,