SparkFun Forums

[PeterPIC]

Hi

I'm new to this stuff (have a bit of PIC experience) - so I'm experimenting with a pair XBEE's (S1)

I have an XBEE dongle and a Redboard with an Xbee Shield

I have XCTU installed and the Xbee Dongle causes me no problems - finds the Xbee etc no trouble at all. But, I can't find the other Xbee on the Shield - despite being able to locate the appropriate COM port XCTU just won;t find the radio.

I swapper radios over and I can confirm that both radios can be found on the dongle. I've also uploaded the Xbee sketch and confirm that the radios can communicate between XCTU and the Serial Terminal on the Arduino IDE. I tried for find the Shield Xbee on XCTU with the sketch loaded but that just says the port is in use.

I also tried changing the position of the DLINE / USART switch on the shield - to no effect.

I'd really like to be able to use XCTU for both radios (for configuration) but as it is, looks like I will need another Xbee Dongle to do that?

Can anyone advise?

Thanks
Peter

[Garethmoffatt]

If I have understood correctly, you need to configure each X bee on the dongle first. Once both are configured, put on on your Arduino and the Arduino will talk to the dongle. You can't us xctu over the air to configure the X bee that is plugged in to the Arduino.


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[Valen]

If you send the command ND (node discover) in command mode (the +++ OK mode) then it does a scan of all units on the RF-link. You should get a list of data of all Xbees on the same channel and PAN that are in the air. (The format is in the manual on page 41 and 74: http://ftp1.digi.com/support/documentation/90000982.pdf ) You do not need an Arduino or PIC or whatever connected to the remote Xbee, just have it powered up. If you don't get a reply then you probably don't have the correct PAN ID, channel and adress settings. Placing them too close to each other can cause transmission/reception problems.

If you need help then it is wise to download the settings of each Xbee to a text file with XCTU and upload them here. Then we can look at what settings you may or may not have done wrong.

[Valen]

...You can't us xctu over the air to configure the X bee that is plugged in to the Arduino.

As an aside. You can send remote configuration commands to the other Xbee in API packet mode with the terminal function of XCTU. But obviously you need a working connection between them first. And this is way beyond what a beginner should attempt in his first trials as in this thread. It is way too hard.

But you probably meant the radio configuration tab in XCTU. That can indeed only be used for the Xbee on the dongle (or on the shield with Arduino in between acting as a USB-to-serial translator.) It cannot work over a wireless link. Only local Xbees.