I’m new to all this stuff and have a small project I want to do.
I have
2x Xbee S1
2x Xbee Shield
2x Uno
Connecting one at a time onto my PC, the arduino is detected fine, but I can’t talk to the shield. I get the error message in X-CTU on both boards. I’ve seen something about diode issues on the shield, but I’m not sure it’s really an issue in my case since I can’t even get to the transmit receive between two radios part lol.
The switch is set to UART and I soldered the pins onto the shield. I get power LED, etc.
I have searched many places and tried a lot of fixes. I don’t see why the diode issue would be a problem for me since I am not even trying to transmit data yet, just trying to get X-CTU to see my Xbee.
I still get an error while using the shield. Power LED is steady and DIO5 is blinking green. Some people say it won’t work with the shield (then why do they sell it?!) while others seem to get it up and running first try.
waltr:
X-CTU requires both the TX and RX (Din & Dout) connections to the XBee.
There are a couple of fixes for the diode problem.
1- ensure that the XBee’s internal pull-up is enable on the RX (Din) line. The pull-up is required to put a logic high on the XBee’s input.
2- Replace the diode with a resistor divider. 5V from the arduino divided to 3.3V at the XBee input.
3- Replace the diode with a level shifter (SparkFun has one that uses J-FETs).
waltr - Thanks for the help so far.
I was under the impression the pull-up is enabled by default. Is there a way to verify if it is? Will I need to purchase some sort of serial/usb board for the xbee so I can take the arduino out of the picture at least to create the initial connection?
The XBee pull-ups are typically enabled as the default but may not be on. You can try adding an external pull-up, 10k to 20k will work, to see if this is the issue.
If so then this only connects the XBee to the arduino and NOT to a PC so X-CTU will not work unless the arduino board has a jumper to connect the XBee’s serial lines to the USB chip (not the Atmega processor’s serial pins).
I use RS232 and USB XBee boards from Digi Int for connecting the XBee’s to the PC.
SparkFun has a USB XBee explorer board that I think now has the diode problem fixed.
Here is their board to connect an XBee to your PC’s USB port:
I used the Xbee USB board from Adafruit (I ordered theirs just because I can get it in 1-2 days since they are in the same city as me). I was able to get all my radios updated to the latest firmware relatively easily.