BlueSmirf Blues

Wireless & IoT
1

I just received my Bluetooth dongle and BlueSmirf module. After some fiddling around I got everything hooked up and talking (the light on the BlueSmirf turned from green to red, and the bluetooth software said it was paired, connected, etc.)

Problem is the smirf doesn’t seem to be doing anything useful. I can’t get it to respond to the +++ sequence or any of the AT commands (using Hyper Terminal), and my remote device isn’t able to send or receive data. I have jumpered the CTS/RTS terminals, but with a wire on the terminals, not solder.

Does anybody have an idea here? Or even a reliable way of testing the whole rig to see if it’s operating properly or isolating any problems?

Any thoughts will be gratefully appreciated.

Thnaks, Bob

2

did u manage to solve the problem? I am having the same problem and dont know what to do… :frowning:

it was working fine on my old laptop, but the laptop got busted and i had to buy a new one, now when i test it with the same bluetooth dongle and the same bluesmirf circuit it does not work… does not even respond to +++

3

I just got my bluesmirf christmas present in and got some time to tinker with it. I initially saw the same kind of problem.

i tweaked my hyperterminal settings, and started seeing ‘OK’ responses from the smurf.

in the hyperterminal connection properties, click the settings tab, click the ASCII settings button, then check ‘Echo typed characters locally’

not only will you be able to see the characters you’re sending the little bugger, it’s responses will suddenly start showing up as well.

(no clue why this did it for me… )

good luck!

4

I was having trouble getting my BlueSmirf to do anything. I had the RTS pin strapped to the CTS pin and was trying to connect using 9600,N,8,1 from Hyperterminal. Sending +++ was getting no response. The only was I finally fixed this was by wrapping TX and RX together - then +++ started working and I could use AT commands. If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that such commands are only recognized if they originate from the wired side of the device, not the wireless so wrapping TX and RX together fed those commands back into the wired side even though they originated via bluetooth.

5

I appear to be having something like the same problem. I wrote a little program to talk to an OOPic through the BlueSmirf device. That appears to be working fine. However, when I use HyperTerminal to try to send AT commands to the device, behavior is as such:

When I first connect, if I send +++, I receive an OK. Not subsequent messages are responded to in any way, regardless of what they are. Also, the +++ will screw up any further communication through my custom program until I toggle the power for the OOPic. That latter part doesn’t bother me, since I don’t intend to do much with the AT commands. However, I want to reduce the power consumption (which I currently am reading to be only 10mA, which is less than the normal consumption I see in the documentation).

I have RTS jumped to CTS, and I tied the Tx and Rx together. At first, I thought the Tx - Rx tie actually did something, but I was fooling myself.

Are there any further suggestions?

6

I was able to get the Bluesmirf and the OOPic-R to work. I haven’t tried to use it with Hyperterm, but i do use Bluetooth in order to have my Windows Mobile device communicate with the OOPic. I also program the OOPic from my laptop using Bluetooth.

Feel free to check out my how-to at:

http://www.wimobot.com/Assembly.aspx

and go to the section marked “Hooking up Bluetooth”

Hope that helps,

Brian

7

I’ve been successfully configuring my Bluesmirf’s over bluetooth with no problems without having to connect rx/tx; in fact I’m not sure I can use that trick because mine are from the batch of cheap test-failed units SF sold recently and I’m not sure those lines are working yet! :smiley:

What I discovered whilst playing (and what the AT command manual explicitly confirms) is that Hyperterm is buggy!

HT wouldn’t work from an initial connection; it wouldn’t even let me reconfigure the serial settings (the appropriate button is greyed out). Once I told HT to disconnect and then reconnect everything started working fine and the configuration button is enabled. I have to do this everytime I restart HT too.

So I don’t bother with HT anymore, because my linux palmtop with minicom is much less troublesome :smiley:

8

some where in the blueradios AT commmand document it says that there problems with hyperterm and blueradio device especially if you have installed and resintalled a few bluetooth stacks.

that may be the problem. try using other terminal

9

Hey guys, I just got my BlueSMiRF today. I was having trouble with Hyperterm but decided to try some different settings. For the properties of my Sparkfun connection I chnaged the Hardware control to off. Bingo it works fine.

Hope this helps others trying to use Hyperterm.

Jay

10

Sorry to get back this post but someone here may have find an answer to my problem.

I actually able to connect to the bluesmirf module but +++ command or AT commands are not responding.

I shortcut RX/TX and i get an echo when typing in terminal but after typing ‘+++’ and a carriage return, nothing happen.

My ZTerm is connected at 9600 bauds, i’ve tryied a lot of things but probably miss something.

Can someone help me ???

Regards,

Cedric

11

Try 115200 Baud.

12

Very clever ! It is working … :smiley:

All tutorials were saying to configure it because delivered configured at 9600 bauds but it seems that it changed … too bad there was nothing with it to explain at least how to connect … no doc … poor support but great users on the forum :twisted: !

13

I downloaded the document from BlueSmiRF. Although it’s not spelled out in big bold letters it’s in there :slight_smile: Good to see you have it working, mine still works flawless.

Jay

14

Same problem with a recently purchased bluesmirf. Connects ok using zterm, but only spits out a pile of gibberish, like this

ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ®L÷Ç

Connected to an Arduino, set at 115200, red light comes on, nonsense comes out :frowning:

15

Ryansway:
Same problem with a recently purchased bluesmirf. Connects ok using zterm, but only spits out a pile of gibberish, like this

ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ®L÷Ç

Connected to an Arduino, set at 115200, red light comes on, nonsense comes out :frowning:

Red light is a good sign. What are your other settings data, parity, stop? The gibberish means your PC is expecting 1 thing but the SmiRF is sending something else.

You should be 8,N,1

Jay

16

Jay C:

Ryansway:
Same problem with a recently purchased bluesmirf. Connects ok using zterm, but only spits out a pile of gibberish, like this

ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ®L÷Ç

Connected to an Arduino, set at 115200, red light comes on, nonsense comes out :frowning:

Red light is a good sign. What are your other settings data, parity, stop? The gibberish means your PC is expecting 1 thing but the SmiRF is sending something else.

You should be 8,N,1

Jay

Thanks for reply, 115200 / 8,N,1 and I tried every other possible combination as well.

On XP using the Arduino 10 IDE serial monitor, the bluesmirf doesn’t connect at all, tho it has been set up / discovered / assigned ports … etc

I tested an Arduino BT, and it worked first pop, so the serial monitor / com set up’s are working fine.

On a clean mac, I created serial ports for the bluesmirf, and using zterm got the red light, but then only got glibberish per above. Tried every possible combination of configurations of zterm.

I set up the Arduino to send out the word “Echo” every few seconds, which gives this character “Ç” the “®L÷” characters, are a 10 character numeric output triggered by one of the digital pins attached to a pull up.

So it’s almost as if the encoding is wrong, but I’ve checked every possible combination for that as well in zterm.

17

Also, the device shows up (PC and Mac) as “FireFly” with the password “1234”, it has the blue antennae.

18

Ryansway:
Thanks for reply, 115200 / 8,N,1 and I tried every other possible combination as well.

On XP using the Arduino 10 IDE serial monitor, the bluesmirf doesn’t connect at all, tho it has been set up / discovered / assigned ports … etc

I tested an Arduino BT, and it worked first pop, so the serial monitor / com set up’s are working fine.

On a clean mac, I created serial ports for the bluesmirf, and using zterm got the red light, but then only got glibberish per above. Tried every possible combination of configurations of zterm.

I set up the Arduino to send out the word “Echo” every few seconds, which gives this character “Ç” the “®L÷” characters, are a 10 character numeric output triggered by one of the digital pins attached to a pull up.

So it’s almost as if the encoding is wrong, but I’ve checked every possible combination for that as well in zterm.

Ok, so your connection is this?

Arduino <—> SmiRF <---- — ---->Mac

You have substituted a blue tooth enable Arduino (sorry never used any of the Arduinos)

ArduinoBT <---- — ---->Mac

So we know that the BT comms are working. So take out the BT link and try a serial connect to Arduino the same way you have the SmiRF connected. It seems to me that there is a physical issue with the serial. Double check your connections from the RX TX pins to the SmiRF pins. Make sure it’s grounded and tie RTS and CTS pins together. If the serial works from Arduino to Mac then … well, let’s see the results of your tests first.

FWIW,

Jay

19

Jay C:
Ok, so your connection is this?

Arduino <—> SmiRF <---- — ---->Mac

Tried both

Arduino <—> SmiRF <---- — ---->Mac

Glibberish instead of ascii

and

SmiRF <---- — ---->Mac

No response when XXX typed in.

Jay C:
You have substituted a blue tooth enable Arduino (sorry never used any of the Arduinos)

ArduinoBT <---- — ---->Mac

I "tested" an Arduino BT, not substituted it. I only use the ABT in windows, it took 5 minutes to discover, setup and connect, and worked flawlessly. The Bluesmirf I've tried both PC and Mac, the Arduino serial monitor on the pc does nothing, the Arduino serial monitor on the mac tells me the com port is busy

Jay C:
So we know that the BT comms are working. So take out the BT link and try a serial connect to Arduino the same way you have the SmiRF connected. It seems to me that there is a physical issue with the serial.

Both pc and mac? Both can see and use the Arduino BT, but both have issues with the bluesmirf, it's more likely the problem is the module I've been sent, which calls itself "FireFly" contrary to the documentation.

Jay C:
Double check your connections from the RX TX pins to the SmiRF pins. Make sure it’s grounded and tie RTS and CTS pins together. If the serial works from Arduino to Mac then … well, let’s see the results of your tests first.

FWIW,

Jay

I was told to put the smirf on a different clean 5v power supply, did that too and nothing changed. Have also tried RTS+CTS, nothing changed.

There’s no problem with Arduino ↔ Mac, or Arduino ↔ PC, I’ve got 4 Arduino’s including a BT, they work perfectly.

I added a smirf to an Arduino Lilypad, set the com at 115200, told it to send the word “Echo” every few seconds so I’d have a beacon to locate, and only in zterm on the mac, does the work “Echo” show up as a “Ç” character, like the protocols of the smirf are all wrong.

20

Ryansway:

Jay C:
Ok, so your connection is this?

Arduino <—> SmiRF <---- — ---->Mac

Tried both

Arduino <—> SmiRF <---- — ---->Mac

Glibberish instead of ascii

and

SmiRF <---- — ---->Mac

No response when XXX typed in.

Um, no. Connect the Mac directly to serial of Arduino (take the BT and SmiEF out of the picture for now). Once you get that part working, then add the SMiRF back in and we'll go from there.

Arduino <—> Mac

Jay