I’m having trouble getting X-CTU to recognise my Xbees. I am using the Sparkfun Wireless Shield along with Xbee Series 2 chips. My setup is Arduino Duemilanove Dev Board → Sparkfun Shield → Xbee Chip. The jumper is set to UART.
When I open X-CTU and set the Baud to 9600, other settings default (NONE 8 NONE 1) and Enable API = Checked, I get the message:
Communication with Modem…OK
Modem Type = Name unknown (ID = 4294967248525372)
Model firmware version =
Interestingly enough, the RX light on the Arduino dev board blinks a couple times when I click on Test/Query. But the diodes on the Sparkfun shield have no activity.
I’ve forum searched and nothing I’ve tried has worked yet. When I disable API, I just get the message “Unable to Communicate with Modem”. Has anyone had this problem or know of a solution?
I’m having trouble getting X-CTU to recognise my Xbees. I am using the Sparkfun Wireless Shield along with Xbee Series 2 chips. My setup is Arduino Duemilanove Dev Board → Sparkfun Shield → Xbee Chip. The jumper is set to UART.
When I open X-CTU and set the Baud to 9600, other settings default (NONE 8 NONE 1) and Enable API = Checked, I get the message:
Communication with Modem…OK
Modem Type = Name unknown (ID = 4294967248525372)
Model firmware version =
Interestingly enough, the RX light on the Arduino dev board blinks a couple times when I click on Test/Query. But the diodes on the Sparkfun shield have no activity.
I’ve forum searched and nothing I’ve tried has worked yet. When I disable API, I just get the message “Unable to Communicate with Modem”. Has anyone had this problem or know of a solution?
Thanks in advance.
Often that means the baud rate is wrong, as the prior poster said or the RS232 voltages are marginal. One or more of the Sparkfun boards has serial data interface with diodes in series with the data and that’s unreliable as has been posted.
waltr:
Try all the other Baud rates with the API box checked and un-checked.
This was the first thing I tried. Every combination of baud, API check/unchecked.
I think I know the problem though. The Xbee product manual for Series 2 and Series 1 chips state that "VCC, GND, RX, TX, RTS and DTR pins must be connected for firmware updates (or X-CTU communication I’m assuming). And in the Arduino Duemilanove schematic, the RTS and DTR pins from the FT233RL are both going into the same RESET pin on the Duemilanove. I don’t think this will allow for me to do a firmware update using the dev board.
I read a forum post of one guy that connected RTS to 3.3V and DTR to ground, apparently he was able to update the firmware that way. Will try tomorrow.
The XBee Wireless Shields do not allow you to connect to the computer through the Arduino. In order to do that you need an XBee explorer. Because there are a few different XBee Shields from different manufactures, they each have different functions. Ours does not allow this functionality. Sorry for the confusion. If you have any other questions of the shield please contact tech support