XBee has a brain fart?

Wireless & IoT
1

Rigged a quick XBee relay setup. Transmitting XBee with a digital input button, receiving XBee with a transistor and 3.3 volt relay off the pin that goes high from the transmitting XBee’s button.

Everything works as hoped/expected, yet if I hit the button 20(ish) times the transmitting XBee’s LED stops flashing regularly, it flashes dimly when I depress the button, but it doesn’t seem to send. Then after 10 seconds or so, it’s as if it tries to catch up and send what it hasn’t. Any ideas? After this 10-20 seconds everything goes back to working for a while then the same thing happens. Cheers!

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2

This problem was solved by switching the transmitting XBee’s power source to 2x AA’s rather than 2x D’s which it had previously. The receiver was always powered with 2x AA’s. Not sure why that matters, but the problem’s gone now.

3

Sounds like the battery voltage dropped too low and the XBee reset.

And 2 D or AA cells is only 3V where as the XBee wants 3.3V.

Do use your DMM to measure the Voltage at the XBee to ensure that it doesn’t drop below the minimum Voltage is the XBee document.

4

you need an LDO regulator for 3.3V and batteries that, after x hours of use, are still at x volts DC under load, where x is 3.3 + the LDO headroom spec.

Such as 3 cells or a 6V photo battery.

Also, a DVM won’t show the pulsed current draw/voltage drop, for a few mSec, due to the transmitter if if this is an XBee PRO.