Bees Shield v2.12 & Seeeduino v3.0 not working

Products & Technology Shields
#1

I’ve connected the Bees Shield v2.12 up with a regular old XBee Pro and a Seeeduino v3.0. I bought these a few years ago for a project I never quite got off the ground so I’m a bit behind the curve on using these.

I’m running the following code:

[code]#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
SoftwareSerial mySerial(7, 8);

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
Serial.println(“Goodnight moon!”);

// set the data rate for the SoftwareSerial port
mySerial.begin(9600);
mySerial.println(“Hello, world?”);
}

void loop() {
// run over and over
delay(1000);
mySerial.println(“Hello, world?”);
}[/code]

I get nothing when monitoring the Coordinator on a serial port and the XBees Shield configured per instructions with jumpers indicated like the wiki image. I did confirm that the code works without the Bees Shield by connecting the Seeeduino v3.0 to a Ladyada XBee breakout board and was able to see comms with the Coordinator so I’m thinking this is a shield problem. I tried it on a second shield as well.

The odd thing is the ON light starts by staying on, and the ASSOC light starts flashing like it’s acquiring a signal but then after about 5 seconds, it goes out. Are these boards not giving enough juice to the part? The wiki says it it’s compatible with 3.3v which is what the XBee needs.

#2

OK, as I haven’t heard anything here, I thought I’d do a bit more experimenting.

I mentioned I have an Adafruit breakout board (adafruit.com/xbee) that will work if I go through the breakout board that level converts the uC output (XBee input) pins to be 3.3v. This will work. If I use the same breakout board and go directly to the breakout pins on the bottom that are 1:1 to the XBee pins, it does not work. Is it possible the Bees Shield is not regulating the voltage to the XBee pins?

One thing I didn’t note was that I’m using an XBee Pro Series 2. Not sure if that is also a show stopper for this board.

I am also getting the same experience on a Seeeduino Arch. This is starting to point to the XBees Shield not getting the signals to the XBee correctly.

#3

Hey man. i did not get help to when i asked about interfacing the xbee shield v2.0 with arduino. I ended up removing the jumpers and connecting any of the pins on the tx rail (xbee shield) to the rx of arduino and rx of rail to tx of arduino using male to female dupont cables. When communicating, there should be a red light on the receiving xbee or both if they are both talking together. I did not use the software serial library. here is the sample code i used to turn on a light switch from one arduino to another with xbee:

Transmitter

[code]This code is in the public domain.

*/

// constants won’t change. They’re used here to
// set pin numbers:
const int buttonPin = 2; // the number of the pushbutton pin

// variables will change:
int buttonState = 0; // variable for reading the pushbutton status

void setup() {
// initialize serial communication:
Serial.begin(9600);

// initialize the pushbutton pin as an input:
pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
}

void loop(){
// read the state of the pushbutton value:
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);

// check if the pushbutton is pressed.
// if it is, the buttonState is HIGH:
if (buttonState == HIGH) {
//transmit a High command to the pumpkin and delay a second so that it does not receive more than one command
//per button press
Serial.println(‘h’);
delay(1000);
}
}
[/code]

Receiver

[code]/Xbee receiver
//This example code is in the Public Domain

int sentDat;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(2, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
if (Serial.available() > 0) {
sentDat = Serial.read();

if(sentDat == 'h'){
      //activate the pumpkin for one second and then stop
  digitalWrite(2, HIGH);
      delay(1000);
      digitalWrite(2, LOW);
}

}
}[/code]

If you need to interface multiple servos simultaneously give me a buzz! i used the Easy Transfer Library for that.

#4

Thanks for the reply. I’ll give that a try to confirm the board is working correctly.

That’s too bad you needed to add cables to the shield though. The whole point of buying the shield is to be able to plug an XBee into the socket with the shield on the Arduino and communicate without any additional wiring or cabling.

I’m thinking they’re missing something on that board per my experiment above. And it sounds as if they’re still missing it if they didn’t get right in the 2.12 version either. I wonder why it worked for them but not for us?

The silence from them is also a bit disconcerting. It’s almost as if they aren’t commenting on products anymore.

#5

Thanks TZ, I had no idea these boards were this problematic. i just bought two fo them and when i read your post i traced out the TX and RCV lines with a DVM. you should be able to pull the jumpers and connect the board directly to XCTU to configure your radios. then connect the jumpers back to pins 0 (rx) on the arduino to xbtx and pins 1(tx) on the arduino to xbrx and send serial from the arduino to the xbee. There is supposed to be a 5.0v buffer between the input of the Xbee. This is to keep all things serial/USB from frying the Xbee. if these boards do not allow comms between the uno and the xbee i might be screwed for my project…