The DIY Drones telemetry kit, which proved more popular than we were ready for and quickly went out of stock when we released it back in April, is now back in stock. It now offered at a lower price ($150, a savings of $15 from the previous price) and includes a cable to connect the airborne Xbee module to the APM board.
This kit works great with both APM and Arducopter. Both modules are pre-configured and ready to go, right out of the box. Orders placed now will ship on Monday.
Comments
@Cliff
Like I said, the multiple issues we've seen on SOR forums was corrected by adding level shifting up. It has nothing to do with power limits.
I've brought it up on Sparkfun comments section and I have been ignored. I'm guessing it's because I'm right. Can someone dive into the spec sheets and confirm / correct my findings? This seems like a rather bad oversight by the designers of these carrier boards that claim 5V logic levels.
But there are issues on some of the Spark fun boards--the non-USB dev boards have a diode that limits the output to around 220mA, and the xBee Pros need at least 250 (more likely 300). One finds the unit works on X-CTU but garbage data comes out on DOUT (as well as DIN) when reading between xBees. The easiest thing is to remove the diode and short the connection with a glob of solder, it's near pins 7&8 IIRC. I had to do it on 10 boards and they've been working flawlessly since. Unfortunately, the diode was a safety mechanism so be careful on how you hook up your circuit(s).
Anyone on here using API mode and the AIO/DIO ports on the xBees? I'm looking at how difficult the protocol is as I'm using AT commands to poll those port (DIO0->3) currently and it's a bit slow for my tastes...
healthyfatboy: The pics are not series 1 nor 2. The series 1/2 had printed in big letters on the board 'Series X'. These are the newer ATMEL versions. A lot like the Series 2, but much better. I thought they stopped selling the 1/2's (?). A big difference is that reading from the AIO's on these require a logic Vref be hooked into pin 14 in order for them to register values, where as the Series 1/2 didn't need it (was always 5V Vref).
@Thomas,
I see no level shifting on the DOUT of the Adafruit adapter, http://www.ladyada.net/images/xbee/xbee11sch.png which is Bill's concern. I did not check the Parallax one.
Sooooo many XBee modules exist and it is wise to carefully choose the right references.
The choice can be based on antenna type, RF power, supply voltage etc...
About configuration, you can either bind 2 xbee loosely or tightly, depending on XBee registers.
Choosing between short addressing and long addressing is also something to decide, or to consider irrelevant.
http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/xbee-telemetry-kit-for-use-in?xg_...
I looked at the specs and it's hard to tell but is this Series 1 or 2? The datasheet in the DIY Drones store said that it was firmware upgradable to handle mesh networking but there's an article on Digi's website showing that Series 1 isn't able to handle mesh networks anymore.
I hope these are Series 2 as that would be the most useful to me but I can't tell. Do you know Chris?
@Bill,
The Adafruit Xbee adapter does level shifting and has a 500ma regulator. The Parallax Xbee adapter does level shifting, but does not have an adequate voltage regulator for the Pro.
Regards,
TCIII
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