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Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:03 pm
by Jay C
Ryansway wrote:
So now, what are the DIP switch settings you are using?
Not at all your help was appreciated. With sparkfun on the otherhand, I'm not overly impressed that I've spent 2 days chasing ghosts, they should at least set the mode to "slave" and "9600" which I've now done. At least those settings would more closely match the older model.

There's obviously still something not set correctly, because I can only get it working in Zterm. Nothing XP has got can connect to it (discovers and delegated to com port works, but nothing else). And in mac, even the Arduino IDE serial monitor is saying the device is 'busy' and it can't connect to it, same with proce55ing, which is saying the same thing.

On XP, the Arduino IDE serial monitor opens, but nothing comes out, and the "red" connect light doesn't go on. HyperTerminal and a custom RealBasic app, I had no luck either.

[/quote]
Not so fast you are almost there. When you say XP won't connect to it:
ref guide wrote:7 COMMON PROBLEMS and QUESTIONS:
My Bluetooth client can see the FireFly and its serial service, but I can’t connect:
This is most likely caused by a security setting on your client. FireFly does support authentication by default if the client requires it (using default pincode of “1234”,) but for ease of use, you may want to turn security off on your client. Some clients have these setting off by default, others have them on. To check and disable security:

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:13 pm
by Ryansway
Unfortunately I did all that because it's in the trouble shooting section of the spec sheet.

Failing that, I changed the COM port numbers to 8 and 9 (they were 10 & 11). That didn't work either. It's been suggested Arduino IDE might have issues with com port numbers over 10, so I eliminated that possibility.

Restarted the device, no luck. Restarted XP, no luck. Turned off FIFO buffers, no luck (turned it back on again).

Explored every possible configuration of HyperTerminal, no luck.

Perhaps there new ones only work with Vista :(

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:51 pm
by Ryansway
I downloaded TeraTerm ver 2.3.2

It only lets you select com's 1 - 4, the program doesn't scan to see what com ports are available, and you can't change the numbers yourself. It looks like quite an old program, one that sparkfun suggested I try.

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:46 pm
by Jay C
I'm kind of at a loss. With my BT dongle it uses the Toshiba BT stack. I can assign the USB BT dongle whatever com port I want (it's com40). This configuration is complete separate from Hyperterm com port settings. In the BT manager I can also configure the pin.

So what I do first is connect/pair the USB dongle to the SMiRF. I don't have to do this, I can set the BT to connect any time the BT is opened. All this does is establish a "virtual" com port. Hyper term doesn't know it's going over a wireless connection.

My hyperterm settings are
115200, 8, N, 1 and Flow control to None
No echo, no extra LF, ANSIW emulation
VT100 Term

You are almost there, don't give up. Have you disabled the security?

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 7:26 pm
by Ryansway
Jay C wrote:I'm kind of at a loss. With my BT dongle it uses the Toshiba BT stack. I can assign the USB BT dongle whatever com port I want (it's com40). This configuration is complete separate from Hyperterm com port settings. In the BT manager I can also configure the pin.

So what I do first is connect/pair the USB dongle to the SMiRF. I don't have to do this, I can set the BT to connect any time the BT is opened. All this does is establish a "virtual" com port. Hyper term doesn't know it's going over a wireless connection.

My hyperterm settings are
115200, 8, N, 1 and Flow control to None
No echo, no extra LF, ANSIW emulation
VT100 Term

You are almost there, don't give up. Have you disabled the security?
Regarding security. Yes, the device has been set up with "no passkey". The "is required" is set to zero by default.

I used your exact HyperTerminal settings, except 9600 baud per the changes I made, no luck.

The BT stick I'm using, works fine with the WT11, and I guess since XP can discover the FireFly and assign it com ports, then that part works ok as well. Even the device manager can see it, and it can provide information about the device, like 'device instance=BTHENUM\etc', 'power state mappings, S0->unspecified - S1->unspecified etc'.

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:23 pm
by Ryansway
This info regarding trouble shooting from the documentation:-
Code: Select all
From your PC desktop, click My Bluetooth Places, go to the Bluetooth Device configuration (or  Advanced Configuration) drop down menu, click on the client applications tab, Select the  Bluetooth serial port application name, and click on the properties button, if “secure  connection”, or “authentication”, or “encryption” is checked, un check it.
I've got XPSP2, and there is "nothing" anywhere, called "My Bluetooth Places".

There is "Bluetooth devices", it has a "properties" button, but it doesn't have a "client applications" tab.

So I'm wondering if in fact this device is only designed to work on Vista (I don't have that).

The device was set up without passkey enabled, there's nothing about "encryption" anywhere.

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:11 pm
by Ryansway
I've made some progress.

I downloaded an application, it is called "Docklight V1.7".

It connected to COM9, and it is receiving the data.

The red light on the FireFly lit up, and in the monitor the output looks like this:-

Echo<CR><LF>
Echo<CR><LF>
Echo<CR><LF>
Echo<CR><LF>

So, a couple of things.

When Docklight established the connection, and windows item popped up, and said "A bluetooth device is asking permission to be connected", or something like that. It then prompted for the PassKey, I typed it in, and the connection was established.

The Arduino IDE can't see COM9 (assigned as outgoing FireFly-6758 SPP), only COM8 (incoming FireFly-6758), since Docklight can, I'm guessing there's a problem with Arduino, and proce55ing, HyperTerminal, and realBasic.

Because the earlier versions of BlueSmirf are known to work with Arduino, wiring, proce55ing, HyperTerminal, and realBasic, then it's more than likely the problem is that the new version of BlueSmirf (FireFly) isn't compatible with Arduino, Proce55ing, Hyperterminal, wiring and realBasic.

And that's a BIG! problem.

I need a device thats backwards compatible, and this one obviously is not. I've spent 3 days trying to get this to work, a BT device should only at the very most, take 5 minutes to setup.

If anyone else is having the same "joys" with this incarnation of blueSmirf, please contact me.

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:47 pm
by Jay C
Ryansway wrote:So, a couple of things.

When Docklight established the connection, and windows item popped up, and said "A bluetooth device is asking permission to be connected", or something like that. It then prompted for the PassKey, I typed it in, and the connection was established.
This tells me you have not disabled security. Otherwise you wouldn't need the passkey.
Ryansway wrote: The Arduino IDE can't see COM9 (assigned as outgoing FireFly-6758 SPP), only COM8 (incoming FireFly-6758), since Docklight can, I'm guessing there's a problem with Arduino, and proce55ing, HyperTerminal, and realBasic.
There shouldn't be 2 com ports for 1 connection. This is very confusing. What BT stack are you using. 1 built into XP or the Toshiba one? Success doesn't depend on the terminal software, it depends on your BT configuration. Are you using a BT dongle or is it built into your MB? Can you see a BT connection manager or the like?

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 12:26 am
by Ryansway
Does XP even have a "My Bluetooth Places"? That's where security is "supposed" to be disabled. I've searched everywhere, and can't find anything called "My Bluetooth Places" in WinXPSP2

The FireFly settings, Passkey is set at 0 by default, that hadn't changed when I looked.

When I initially added the device, I made sure encryption and passkey were disabled.

I'm using a BT dongle, which apparently works fine using Docklight.

The WT11, uses COM6 and COM7, so I'm not sure why FireFly using COM8 and COM9 would be any different?

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:53 am
by Jay C
I think you get MyBlueTooth Places when you install the driver they mention in the instructions, it's software dependent.

Also, I had a look at my com ports managed by my BT software. It has 10 com ports set up and a control panel to add virtual com ports (to say map com 40 to com 4).

I'll leave you alone, I don't think I'm helping much. I bought my SMiRF over 2 years ago and the company name was called Blue Radios so maybe Sparkfun switched hardware. The new company is Roving Networks. Is this the one you have? http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc ... ts_id=8332 It's different from either of the other two as it uses a Philips chip.

Jay

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 1:58 pm
by Ryansway
Thanks for your help, I bought the SKU#: WRL-00582, thinking the more expensive version would be a better choice. I would have rather had the older version, because there's plenty of literature around the web to fall back on.

I couldn't find any mention of a "MyBlueTooth Place driver" anywhere, I double checked the lynxmotion site and the only software they refer to there is for the dongle, but I didn't buy a dongle because I've already got one.

If it's necessary to use a proprietary dongle in order to get this thing working, then they haven't made any obvious statements to that effect. It also presents a problem because I need to be able to use the bluegiga WT11 which does work with the dongle I've already got, whereas, WIDCOMM appears to only support a limited range of devices, plus, they've got notes about other dongles not being supported.

Undeterred, I downloaded the "WIDCOMM" software from Broadcom, but the installer told me there were no Bluetooth devices detected (the dongle is plugged in). It then presented the option to "Cancel Installation".

I downloaded "MaxStream X-CTU" and it could not read from either port 8 or 9.

I tested Docklight again, and it reads the data off Port 8 with no problem. But, when I closed the program, then opened it a second time, and tried to connect to COM8, it was unable to and got a Windows Error #1168. So, I'm not sure if the "trial" version of the software is the problem, or something else.

I ran that scenario a few times, rebooting the computer, reinstalling FireFly, somethings it would work once, twice, or three times, but always eventually it would fail.

So, I think 4 days now has been pretty generous. It's now time to send it back, and they can issue a refund.

I wouldn't recommend this device to anyone considering it.

Communication problems solved

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:30 pm
by Fratsen
Hi all,

I had an issue with the communication using my blueradios module as a wireless serial port

After a long time having troubles, I found the cause of all the trouble:

The voltage on which the RX and TX signals from the microcontroller were 5 volts, whilst the blueradios module works with 3.3 volts.

I decreased the voltage on my microcontroller (arduino mini) to 3.3V and then the problems were gone!

I hope some more of you struggle with the same and are helped with this post

Bluesmirf help

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:43 am
by Level1
ATTENTION!! The Roving Networks bluesmirf (gold) and Sparkfun's BGB203 bluesmirf (silver) DO WORK with any OS that has a COM port and can use a terminal program.

As far as the hardware is concerned, all of the bluetooth modules we sell are compatible with each other, but do sometimes use different command sets. All one needs to get a link going from PC to bluesmirf is a terminal emulation program and that is it. We suggest something like TeraTerm.

All these devices do is replace the serial cable.

IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE Please email techsupport@sparkfun.com OR call 303-284-0979 x125

Thanks.

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:20 pm
by davidserrato
Im using bluesmirf, it works at 115200 but i want to change it to 9600 and i get no responce at +++ on the windows hyperterminal. what can i do?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:24 pm
by sys_spud
davidserrato wrote:Im using bluesmirf, it works at 115200 but i want to change it to 9600 and i get no responce at +++ on the windows hyperterminal. what can i do?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Be sure to check the reference manual. I just recently got one of the "new" BlueSMIRF Firefly modules and got it running with Arduino Decimillia. There is a window of time, defaults to 60 seconds I think, when you can connect with the Command Identifier $$$ (three dollar signs). If you are connected via HyperTerminal in Windows XP, you immediately get a response of CMD back. Then you can enter a D - (dee minus) to display basic settings, including baud rate. It should be defaulted to 9600 baud. You can change this and store it to memory so it will survive power down by using the command: su,96. Then do another D - to check it. Some of the earlier posts on this thread say to use 115,200K for baud rate and None for Flow Control. I did not get my Hyperterminal communicating with BlueSMIRF until I changed Flow Control to HARDWARE.

I found that you can pass characters from Hyperterminal while in Command Mode ($$$). The string sequence is P, <some char(s)>. This will pass characters up to a CR/LF and you can use it to test a sketch on the Arduino.

I'll try to write up a more extensive report for the forum when I get some time.