XBee Pro 50mW RPSMA - Series 2 (ZigBee Mesh) - Sparkfun part: sku: WRL-10419, can not be used for Two-Way telemetry

XBee Pro 50mW RPSMA - Series 2 (ZigBee Mesh) - Sparkfun part: sku: WRL-10419, can not be used for Two-Way telemetry.

If you are looking for two way telemetry using a pair of this module “XBee XBP24BZ7”, then better do not buy it at all, I purchased one pair and suggesting, based on my findings.

For transparent serial communication between the airplane and the ground station, you need to configure one of the mudule as XBEE COORDINATOR AT" and the other one as “XBEE ROUTER AT”.

The the X-Bee configured as “COORDINATOR AT” will be at the ground station and the other one which is configured as “ROUTER AT” will be in the airplane.
My findings are;

1. The speed of data flow from Rouert AT X-Bee to Coordinator AT X-Bee is very fast and have no issue.

2. The speed of data flow from the Coordinator AT X-Bee to Router AT X-Bee is very very slow and not acceptable.

When I tried to use with APM, It was very very difficult to read and write waypoints from the ground station.
First I suspected if there could be any hardware issue in one of the X-Bee but it was clear when the problem got shifted when I swapped the configuration of the two X-Bees “XBee XBP24BZ7”

I tried on different bauds and even newer and older firmwares of this X-Bee “XBee XBP24BZ7” but same problem.

However there is no such issue in “XBee Pro 60mW Wire Antenna – Series 1 (802.15.4)” sparkfun.com/products/8742

Digi needs to take care of this issue promptly if they really want to keep this product selling.

Recorded video, describing this problem:
vimeo.com/41900865

 

Views: 1998

Tags: X-Bee

Comment by Brian on May 10, 2012 at 8:00pm

I suspect you have the XBees miss-configured.  I use these extensively for telemetry (including right this moment), andI don't have any problems if they're configured correctly.  They can be difficult to configure.  Most important is to make sure that the PAN ID is set the same on the pair, and that the destination ID on each one is set to the ID of the other.

Comment by Jack Crossfire on May 10, 2012 at 8:52pm

They can technically do 38400 in both directions.  That was never using the mesh networking features & only manually synchronizing packets.

Comment by Rana on May 10, 2012 at 9:38pm

Brian,

I really do not agree with you, perhaps you have not watched the video. You can see me configuring and you can also see the PAN ID.

I am only concerned with "XBee Pro 50mW RPSMA - Series 2 (ZigBee Mesh)" and not with rest of the X-Bee's.

If you still convinced that you are right on your statement then point out my mistake.

Comment by Rana on May 10, 2012 at 9:41pm

Jack, my comments in your reply are similar to what I have replied to Brian.

I have spent really lots of time and came to this conclusion.

I have another set of X-Bee's “XBee Pro 60mW Wire Antenna – Series 1 (802.15.4)”, there is absolutely no issue  in those.

Comment by Cliff-E on May 10, 2012 at 10:02pm

Interesting. I'm using Digimesh (not zigbee mesh) and can run at 56K. The problem I have is exhausting buffers, e.g. overwriting packets since it's a mesh (work related)--investigating if I can get the APM to write out API mode packets.

Have you tried switching to another firmware version--LIRC you can go P2P, Zigbee [mesh], or digimesh on those units. Also, if you are using the Sparkfun non-USB explorer boards, change the pull-up resistor setting in XCTU to 7FFF (on), otherwise you'' get garbage.

Also if you are sending actions, make sure you are not requesting any datastreams (turn them off, send your actions, then turn them back on)--that will usually tie up the buffer on the APM side.

Comment by Serge on May 11, 2012 at 1:04am

Hi Rana,

I did not watch the video (sorry), but I recognize your problems. Try using the ZNET firmware instead of XBEE, and disable flow control; set  (D7 - DIO7) to 0.

This gave me the desired results.

Bests, Serge

Additional article here: http://t413.com/news/fast-2-way-xbee-series-2-data

Comment by Rana on May 11, 2012 at 5:03am

Cliff, I have tried all the firmwares which are applicable but same problem. I am using Sparkfun X-Bee explorer.

Comment by Rana on May 11, 2012 at 5:13am

Serge, 

I want Digi to take care this issue in may be newer firmware version.

No change in speed of data flow from Coordinator AT to Router AT, even after setting address of Router AT, into Coordinator AT.

Comment by Rana on May 11, 2012 at 5:15am

Serge, I tried to upload the ZNet 2.5 firmware but after uploading the firmware, I can not read the device.

I have reverted back to the previous firmware.

Comment by Serge on May 11, 2012 at 5:27am

Hi Rana,

when configured as coordinator; the address is always SH:0x0 SL:0x0. Please try to set the Router node to that destination address. 

GL!

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