Moderator Comment by Brian on April 22, 2011 at 6:38pm

900mhz requires a ham license, right?

3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on April 22, 2011 at 9:57pm

Nope. It's the frequencies of cordless phones...

Comment by James masterman on April 22, 2011 at 10:14pm

Just a heads up to anyone with this kit or just buying the parts separately. When soldering the little female headers onto the airborne xbee adapter, be careful not to use too much solder, they tend to suck up the solder which makes it impossible to plug in the xbee board afterwards. I killed one like this.

The best way I found was to plug the female headers into the xbee first and then solder onto the adapter. Seems to prevent the solder from clogging the female headers.

Moderator Comment by Brian on April 22, 2011 at 10:15pm

Hmmm, I didn't think the 900mhz part was where the license was required, it's the power/distance. But Cool!

Comment by Bertrand Duchiron on April 23, 2011 at 8:05am

I also almost kill one, like James, but I desolder the header and I am waiting for a new one.

Comment by CheBuzz on April 23, 2011 at 9:32am

Wow.  This is close to or more than 100% markup.  Digi sell the modems for $29 each.  I can't imagine the boards and antenna costing more than $20.  Seems a bit shameful.

Comment by Ante Vukorepa on April 23, 2011 at 9:40am

No they don't.

http://store.digi.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Prod...

 

$39, straight from Digi.

Get your facts straight.

Comment by Don Brooks on April 23, 2011 at 9:45am

That's the wrong modem CheBuzz. The wire antenna xbee 900 is 39$, the RPSMA is 42$

The USB adapter and xstream adapter for APM are 25$ each. Antennas are $10. That's $141, if you want to add shipping from 3 different places, and equipment that isn't programmed and tested, you're still going to break the $165+shipping that DIY is offering. Not to mention that if you get it all from the same place, you get a bunch of support, and you're supporting them who are working their butts off to provide some very advanced application support, free software and people to discuss with.

Comment by Joel on April 23, 2011 at 1:14pm

This is exactly what I had in mind for a communications system....those Xbee USB boards are awesome for a UAV set up where the AP has to talk to the computer!

 

Comment by CheBuzz on April 23, 2011 at 4:49pm

Oh yes, you are right.  I was looking at the extended range 2.4GHz Xbee Pro instead of the extended range 900MHz Xbee Pro.

 

A precursory BOM for each of the boards put them about $6.  This is for units of 1.  Things get a lot cheaper as you go 10, 50, 100, 250, etc.  So $81 for the modems, let's say $15 for the boards since PCBs are going to cost about $1 each, and $10 for the antenna (taking your word for that, didn't search for them), it's still seems a hefty markup (+50%).

 

If I'm wrong, I'd like to have it pointed out to me by somebody that knows otherwise.

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