Since I have completed my project to transmit serial date over Xbee from parts purchased through sparkfun and confirmed it work( with tons of help from you guys) I now want to find out how to go about getting all three seperete units in one transmitter board. On the receiver end I have data in to xbee and goin out through bluetooth so I would like to make this one board as well. Is there anyone willing to hold my hand through how to make this happen. Keep in mind im by no means as up to speed on the PCB side of the house. Below is a list of the parts i have in the receiver and transmitter.
Why Xbee AND Bluetooth? Can’t you use the Bluesmirf modem directly on the weatherstation? 2 methods of wireless communications seems to be a bit overkill.
And the Bluetooth SMiRF? What is on the receiving end of the Bluetooth link? Wouldn’t an XBee Explorer USB (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8687) work to connect to a pc or smartphone?
What I have is a weather station hooked to a XBee Explorer Serial with a Xbee Pro Series 1 sending serial data 1 mile back to the receiver which is a XBee Explorer Serial with a Xbee Pro Series 1 receiving the serial data and piping it to a blue SMiRF bluetooth module that broadcast it to my PDA or laptop. The way its set up it works but I want to all the different pieces incorporated into one board, one for the transmitting unit and one for the receiving unit. I did find this http://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/?s=uart_sb that should take care of the receiving unit but im still looking for some insight on how to go about having the transmitting unit. what i need there is the optical data PCB and the Xbee Explorer Serial made into one board.
comanche9:
… what i need there is the optical data PCB and the Xbee Explorer Serial made into one board.
Huh? optical data PCB? How does that relate to your weatherstation? I’m confused. What’s with flashing light?
Whatever device it is, can’t you hack into it and bypass the RS232 connector (which I presume is the reason for the Xbee Explorer Serial) by connecting the XBee directly? Maybe there is an MAX232 or similar chip in there. At worst you would need to do some levelshifting then.
If you ditch the Bluetooth link in preference for the USB port connection then you already simplified the design on the PC/PDA side. The link I provided would allow the XBee to communicate directly to your PC. But whether that is possible for your PDA aswell I wouldn’t know. It would need to function as a USB host.
I have it working now with multiple boards, it is made to use out in the field with a pda. What im needing is a company that can put three different boards into one board. Thats with me sending them what i have and them doing a CAD for the boards, make the boards, and fully assemble the boards and ship me back a completed board. Anyone know of a company that does thos for about ten boards?