XBee Evaluation Kit Mess

Last week I went to a ZigBee workshop in Hannover where I was able to get some basic information about ZigBee, IEEE 802.15.4 and Rabbit micro controller. It was a very interesting workshop.

On the workshop I got this RCM4510W evaluation kit containing an USB connected XBee module, two Rabbit controller boards with a mounted XBee module and some additional parts you need to run your first applications.

Unfortunately I was not able to get the whole kit which is based on XBee modules working. This is not the first time that I get an „evaluation kit“ where I have massive problems to get it up and running. It seems to be very hard for some companies to provide a kit that contains components (hard and software) that are tested to work together out of the box. Maybe it’s because after the kit was initially put together parts are taken from the current production without further checking their compatibility with the kit.

In this case first of all it was impossible to flash the Rabbit controller which was part of the kit. After applying updates to development environment and drives I was able to flash one controller just to learn that the sample application does not accept the (older) firmware of the onboard XBee module.

While it was no problem to update the USB based module that also came with the kit, trying to update the modules found on the controller boards failed using this USB-to-serial-with-XBee-connector.

What’s really confusing in case of the XBee modules is the mix of firmwares, API/AT mode and modem types. In case of a ZigBee compatible device you have to set up the modem to be coordinator, router or endpoint.

Maybe things are getting more clear when I get deeper into this stuff. I will keep you updated…

 

A new blog

Embedded systems and especally communication for this devices is a subject that’s fascinating me since years. In the last time gadgets started to communicate with each other and the whole world (internet).

I think that this will get more important in the near future. Techniques like Bluetooth or ZigBee are already used by many of us or start to emerge. Concepts like mesh networking  and protocols like IPv6 are developed to allow a huge amount of devices or sensors to communicate. I will try to keep an eye on theses developments and give some information her.

Even though my native language is not english I will try to write my posts in english. I hope that it is good enough to be understood by my visitors. However some posts may be written in german.