Zigbee Network Setup for transmission from End Device to Coordinator ONLY via Router

XBee & XBee Gateway XBee - Zigbee
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1

A similar question was asked before but that differed a little bit.
I want to use xbee-S2C modules in my commercial product which uses Zigbee protocol. As there is a limitation on xbee modules that only 14 child nodes can be attached to a Coordinator device which is too low in my case. So in order to overcome this problem I thought each End device should talk to its assigned router (by setting dh and dl of end devices with router’s address).
Please note that end devices could be in range of coordinator but I would like they only communicate with respective router and routers forward that information to coordinator.

Is there a way I could use this topology for my xbee modules using xctu software preferably or programmatically? I have programmable xbee modules.
Or is there some alternative way to achieve a network of some 100-150 nodes?

Up till now I have succeeded in End device to Router communication but router is unable to forward that info to coordinator.

Also what is ZS (Zigbee stack profile) configuration parameter do? Should I keep it at default value?

I am using ZIGBEE TH Reg 4059 Firmware rev.

Thanks

2

Ok, some there are some points that I would like to say:

  1. Yes, if Coordinator is falling short of adding more EDs then you can keep on adding Router nodes to network. Each Router will can have 20 child/ED nodes.

  2. To communicate with Coordinator, you should fill Coordinator’s address in DH and DL of EDs irrespective of who is their immediate Parent node.

  3. For Zigbee Stack info, check this article:
    http://knowledge.digi.com/articles/Knowledge_Base_Article/Can-Digi-s-XBee-ZB-modules-communicate-with-other-manufacturer-s-zigbee-modules/

3

My question is why are you not using the 802.15.4 modules instead? Especially since you really didn’t want to rout data. That is all of your end devices were going to be in range of your Coordinator? The 802.15.4 modules offer no limit on the total number of end devices they support and have a higher throughput?

4

Thanks for your help asgm. I got it running by adding more routers.

5

To be honest, I didn’t design the application and I was only called later on to solve the issue. Using 802.15.4 seems like a really good idea as ZigBee doesn’t look like to be much more flexible.

Not all of my end devices were in range only a few of them. I haven’t used 802.15.4 before but I will definitely give it a try.

6

If you have nodes that are out of range, then you would need to use a Mesh protocol. Just understand that it has limits.