Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by christopher on September 30, 2010 at 9:38pm

? anyone

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Permalink Reply by Neil Baker on October 26, 2010 at 3:08am

Just ran across this post. A little info can be found below if your still looking to use this setup.

http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/xtend-modules

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Permalink Reply by Chris Card on October 29, 2010 at 5:11pm

I don't know if you have a solution yet.

The X-Tend radio won't easily work with the X-Bee adapter kit. There are so many physical differences that it would not be worthwhile.
The pins also function differently from the X-Bee.

You can buy the x-tend serial interface board separately [Digikey p/n XTIB-R-ND].

The development kit has two interface boards.
You will want at least one of those interface boards to configure the radio.
The x-tend radio is a robust device.
For 900 MHz it is fast! 10 mSec latency if you don't use AES, & a 115.2Kbit/sec data rate.
You need 5V & 730mA to transmit at 1Watt, the interface board needs 9volts.

Depending on the data rate required, I would start with X-Bee pro 900. It's a lot less expensive.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Keller on November 1, 2010 at 5:15pm

I have a pair of xtend modules that I'm currently trying to get working with the mega. Even though they are 5v modules they don't seem to work when wired directly to the telemport. I'm guessing some kind of logic level conversion is required. Any light shed on the issue would be appreciated and I'll post if I figure it out.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Card on November 1, 2010 at 6:57pm

Hello Jon , I Would be happy to provide what information that I can to
help you solve the communication difficulties.
The problem (wild guess) is probably just with the XTEND serial port
setting , such handshake line RTS CTS...

The Digi/Maxstream modules may need some changes to be made to the
configuration settings using the X-CTU configuration utility.
I suppose I should star by asking you a couple questions regarding the
module set-up.
Do you have the interface board from Digi?. [Digi call it a
development board & its also called an interface board.
Which version of XTEND radio or Development Kit do you have? ie.
XT09-SI or XT09-DK ??

In the mean time , I'll review the operating manual during this week,
& I'll dig the configuration files for my last X-Tend project.

Regards
C Card

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Permalink Reply by Jon Keller on November 1, 2010 at 8:02pm

Thanks for the reply Chris,

I do have two interface boards, I purchased the developer kit a couple of years ago. One module is labeled "XT09-SI" and one is labeled "XT09-MI", two different antenna types I'm assuming.

The settings I'm using from X-CTU (apart from baud rate, which I've changed to 115200) are completely default, so you could be right about a hand shaking issue.

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Permalink Reply by Ravi Gaddipati on November 1, 2010 at 8:36pm

Try sticking to 9600 baud. I tried 115200, but it never works. I am using one packaged module w/ a RS232 interface and one bare module on a carrier board (nothing special, just a 5V supply).

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Permalink Reply by Jon Keller on November 1, 2010 at 9:08pm

I tried 9600 with a basic program that prints to Serial3, still no luck. I know the modules work because they work with the dev boards, and with my gumstix.

Is Serial3 a 5v ttl?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Card on November 2, 2010 at 5:10pm

It operates between 3 volt and 5volts.
Data I/O voltages = supply voltages.

If Vcc = 3 volts then data in/out are 3 volts.

If Vcc = 5 volts then data in/out are 5 volts.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Card on November 2, 2010 at 5:05pm

Hi Jon, I just had a breif look at the operating manual.
The -SI = RPSMA antenna connector
-MI = MMCX antenna connector
So,in X-ctu, using the XT-09 "9XTEND 9600/115K HOPPING" function set, VERSION "206C"



There are seperate Baud settings for the serial interface and for the RF data transmittion rate.
The default settings are : 115200 BPS for the RF data rate [ BR=1 ] and
: 9600 BPS for the serial port data rate [ BD=3 ]
Also the RTS ,pin 10 GPI1, is by default turned off [ RT=0 ] , not active
CTS is an output so that won't stop data from coming out.

BTW... The Default TX power level is set to 1 Watt [ PL=4 ] (I would lower this while working indoors.)
At 1 watt the current draw is ~730mA

When changes to the radio parameters are made, one has to be sure to WRITE [ WR ] so the chages get stored in non-volitile memory. Otherwise the settings will revert to the pervious [stored] settings.

Both of the Radios should have the same data baud rate and RF data rates.
The RF data rates MUST be the same for the to comunnicate.
If the serial baud rate is greater than the RF baud rate, a buffer over-run could result, and data would be lost.
Data would be lost ,but data, garbage or not, would still emerge.

To start: I would load default settings, changing only TX power level to 10mW [ PL=1]and the RF [ RF=0 ] and Serial [ BD=3 ] baud rates to make them both 9600.

Don't add masks or assign a VID or any address settings

With the interface boards and the loop-back adapter that came with the development kit on the you can verify that
the settings work by using the range test.

If the radios work with the interface boards the will work with a uP. Provided the logic levels are compatible
The I/O signals are VCC-0.7V for high level.

The only pins Req. for basic opperation are 1.GND 2.VCC 7.SHDN=HIGH and 6.DI or 7.DO to opperate.
Any other unused pins are left unconnected.

The data line coming in to the Xtend module should be high (Vcc) when idle, (no data).

I'll check in tomorrow.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Keller on November 4, 2010 at 2:42am

Hi Chris, Thanks again for the info.

Still no luck unfortunately. I did what you suggested, Set both Data Rate and Baud Rate to 9600bps in xctu, and used the the test program which prints out on Serial3 to see if any data is coming through, nothing received.

I thought maybe the SHDN would be required (although leaving this pin unconnected on the gumstix works fine), so I tested it by using one of my dev boards as a breakout board, wired up the vcc, gnd, tx and rx. The tx light starts flashing as soon as the program on the mega starts running, which tells me that data is being sent out. But the receiver gets nothing.

I have tested both modules with the dev boards and loop back connector, they work fine with 0% packet loss.

There doesn't seem to be much configuration to the serial port on the arduino, I assume that the default is 8N1, and from what I've read there is no flow control implementation that would need to be disabled or anything, so I'm a bit stumped. The only config line this program has is Serial3.begin(9600), is that all thats required?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Card on November 4, 2010 at 7:14pm

Hi Jon.
I have no practical experience with ardunio though,I have some arduino stuff around here somewhere, but haven't yet tried it out.

...Went to Arduino home page... I saw an example at http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ASCIITable
It uses ... Serial.begin(9600) , I'm sure that the port is a (usart) hardware serial port. I realize that different ardunio boards will
have different ports & such.
I cannot make recommendations on the initialization & config settings for arduino until I do a quick study...It was my intention to start getting into the arduino stuff this some time winter.

So, The fact that the Xtend<=>Gumstix work and Xtend<=> PC loop-back works is good.

The manual says that the SHDN pin must be pulled to Vcc for operation. Sorry if I missed that in my last post.
You may have gotten lucky in the Gumstix test

If the serial port output from a micro-controller or a PIC , for example,[i've done this one] was inverted the radio might respond to 'data flow' but the data would be garbage, and the characters may be non printing characters.

I have weird had problems (other devices) with serial ports that turned out to be a problem with bad compiler settings.... or some
other seemingly unrelated thing.

So verifying each of the hardware components ( radio, micro-controller, ect) individually is useful to set one's mind at ease
when trying de-bug hardware/software.

If you can..., Connect the Arduino to a PC serial port to verify proper Arduino serial port operation.

As I mentioned above, I'm new to arduino, but I intend to start using them soon. So it's no bother for
me to help try figuring out this part of the equation, as I will invariably learn from these efforts.

BTW, Jon, which Adruino board are you using?

By4Now

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