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Xbee socket board

Posted by Reto on April 10, 2009 at 1:00am
XBeeBreakout-01-L_i_ma.jpgWhile testing my setup, it often disturbed me that the Xbee Pro doesn't have a led somewhere to show it's powered up.Since I mount it onto a ply through an Xbee breakout board like the one on the picture, I just soldered a small red led between the VCC and GND. Now I know when it's powered ok without having to setup all Xbee transmission line.Of course, the led doesn't tell me if the Xbee is transmitting/receiving.
Tags: xbee, power
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Comments

  • James Turner July 3, 2009 at 12:15am
    Thanks Reto and Thomas for your help. Time to get some ordering done.
  • Admin
    Thomas J Coyle III July 2, 2009 at 3:34pm
    James,

    I doubt that the 900MHz XBee Pro board will take much over 300ma.

    You can use the Selmaware AppBee-SIP ( http://www.selmaware.com/appbee/index.htm ) XBee breakout board that has a TO220 3.3 v 1 A regulator on it.

    Just a thought.

    Regards,
    TCIII
    AppBee Adapters for the XBee Modem
  • Reto July 2, 2009 at 3:34pm
    I understand that my setup is not really meant for the lightest airframe. It's in a 2m high wing trainer with 5.5kg total flying weight.
  • James Turner July 2, 2009 at 3:18pm
    I was hoping for something able to drop the ~11.1v straight down to the 3.3v @ around 1A on the same board as xbee to reduce component count but if I can't find anything then I'll certainly give those type of units a try. Thanks.
  • Reto July 2, 2009 at 2:27pm
    I power my Xbee directly from a DC/DC 5V/3.3V step down regulator board (I got 5 pieces from Ebay US). It's supporting 5A load and is itself powered from a separated 5V BEC (supporting 7A). The converter also powers the LS20031 GPS, an Arduino Pro Mini, and the FMA thermopile sensors (meant to run at 3.3V).
  • James Turner July 2, 2009 at 1:53pm
    Has anyone come across a breakout board with a built in regulator such as the LD117v33 ? I ask because the Xbee pro specs suggest the unit can require up to 800mA max but the only breakout boards I can find with built in regulators cannot support anywhere near that load and I don't want to reduce the transmit power level . It would be nice to have the regulator mounted externally along with the Xbee to reduce the size of heat sink required.
  • Reto April 13, 2009 at 11:51pm
    To be honest, I really wonder what could go wrong when assembling the Sparkfun breakout?
  • ian April 13, 2009 at 5:04pm
    Thanks for the comments Jordi. Since I already have 3.3V levels on my uC though, I was mainly curious about assembly differences. Given the negative comments on the sparkfun site regarding assembly: did you find the adafruit pcb to be less problematic, or the comments on sparkfun not to be relevant for you? You mentioned having 10 of these pcb's, so I assumed you were quite comfortable with assembly
  • Reto April 12, 2009 at 2:45pm
    Thanks Jordi for adding this comparison detail. I'm sure the Jordixbee breakout board will be a handy alterntive!
  • Developer
    Jordi Muñoz April 12, 2009 at 10:01am
    Sparkfun red board, is nice if you want to interface easily to USB (i mean the computer), but it doesn't have power regular and TTL signal converter, and is a lot more expensive than Adafruit... And extra point of adatruit is that you can modify it to easily interface with ardupilot...
    Later i will develop my own XBee board, and open source it...
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