I am new to electronics and I am starting my first major project, well it’s major for me anyway.
I have just purchased a Sparkfun WiFly shield to use with my Arduino Uno but I do not know how to set it up.
I can find code snippets on the internet but I wondered if there is an initial setup for the shield before anything further is done. Could somebody point me in the right direction, I would be very grateful. Ideally I would like to set it up to the point where it will connect to my home wireless network.
Also I have read a post that says I have to connect the TX pin to pin 2 and the RX to pin 3, this is straight forward but it then says connect the VDD-BATT on the WiFly to 3.3v but I don not know where or what the VDD-BATT is, I cannot see this on the board. Then it says connect GND to GND, would that be correct? :?
Just to update this post I now have it partually working. This means it’s plugged in and flashing but when I upload the SpiUartTerminal I get the following:
SPISPI UART on WiFly Shield terminal tool
This is a tool to help you troubleshoot problems with the WiFly shield.
For consistent results unplug & replug power to your Arduino and WiFly shield.
(Ensure the serial monitor is not open when you remove power.)
Attempting to connect to SPI UART…
Nothing I do changes this and I cannot see how I can move on from here. Any suggestions no matter how simple or difficult you think they might be will be welcome.
I have tried using the user guide but that’s only helpful once you are past this stage.
Just for information purposes I am using Mac OSX 10.7.3 an Arduino Uno and the WiFly shield.
Something you guys may want to do is get this thing into Adhoc mode by it’s self. What this means is you will be able to connect to the wifly with a laptop wireless card (or desktop) and configure a few things using telnet to port 2000. Do a quick search into putting it in adhoc mode and see if a new wireless network called “WiFly(bunch of numbers)” shows up in the area. This will confirm a few things then you’ll probably want to check out WiFlyHQ library and specify the right pins RX/TX in the code which can be any pins you’re using for RX/TX. This post should help you out http://itp.nyu.edu/~afk257/akoz/2011/12 … dhoc-mode/
also helpful connecting to adhoc mode to verify everything works at the hardware level is this post.
I have the Arduino Mega 1280 and the sparkfun wifly shield. I too have been working on this for the last two weeks without complete success.
However, i Have added the libraries from the website from sparkfun(above) Alpha 2 and had to wire it to the wifly seperately. You use the VIN on the shield and the VIN on the mega not the VBB?? you are refering too. Not ontop of the arduino either… I had to use the pins on the wifly shield 10, 11, 12, 13 and manually wire them to the mega 50, 51, 52,53 (see forum that i had linked) from there i was able to follow the sparkfun link and get TeraTerm and firefox to acknowledge that something was being sent. That is as far as I have been. I cant get the darn thing to say “Hello” for some reason. I am stuck there now and searching the post like you. Hope this gets you somewhere. If you get the LED to blink, let me know because that is what i am trying to do. I just wanted to be at a neighbors house and send the commands from a computer and turn on something wirelessly at my house. From there i wanted to control a robot wirelessly. All help here would be great too.