I have 2 xBee 900MHz with diydrones shields and if I don't remember to unplug the plane side xbee connection when I power up then it sometimes gets bricked where the blue and red lights stay on. I'm getting really good at debricking them in under a minute but I'm wondering if this is normal :-/
I'm using the latest firmware in X-CTU.
Is this normal?
Replies
Sorry for the necro on this thread, but I was wondering if anyone had the old ardrupilot firmware that was used to prevent the boot up bricking of the Xbee radios?
I have a similar problem. I summerized at the following link.
http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topics/pc-doesn-t-recognize-neither-...
After reading your messages I realized that it might also happened due to improper powering on and shut down.
Anyhow, I tried to unbrick XBee, now PC recognizes it when I plug it into the usb port but MAVLINK doesn't connect to it. Also PC does not recognize APM board. What may be happened? Did I fried something? Is there any way of introducing them to PC and MAVLINK again?
One thing I have noticed, is that if you don't 'disconnect' the APM Planner by clicking on the disconnect icon it seems to increase the frequency it occurs. I also have more occurrences when powering the APM via USB.
I have quite a structured startup and shutdown process now and it only seems to brick when I don't follow the process.
1) Power up the plane and XBee
2) Fire up APM Planner
3) Connect the USB adapter to the laptop.
3) Wait 10 seconds
4) Connect via the APM planner.
For shutdown:
1) Click disconnect in the APM Planner
2) Shutdown the plane (you want to do this cleanly without accidentally applying power again for a short time).
3) Remove the USB cable on the laptop.
When I follow this process, all is good. Occasionally when I forget or do it out of sequence, I brick an XBee.
I haven't isolated exactly why this is but I suspect there may be scenarios where the APM is still running but the XBee has lost its power so signals are still being sent to the XBee.
I wondered if a hardware solution might be to add a small capacitor to the power supply of the XBee so it keeps running for a slightly longer period of time than the APM. This would also 'smooth' over any bumps that might be caused by a dodgy connection or power supply.
I've got two or three modems where the RSSI light on the usb explorer board stays lit all the time and they don't work. Might my modems be "bricked"?
I don't know if its normal but I have 2 xBee 900 MHz and both bricked during configuration. My project: botmite.com
Assuming you're using APM and not the original ArduPilot, that almost always means that you've got a loose connection in the cable connecting them to APM. If a signal comes to the Xbee while it doesn't have power, it will corrupt the firmware.
Once I switched to the custom Xbee cable, I never had that problem again. Those cables should be back in stock next week.