Update to XBee Evaluation Kit Mess

A while ago I wrote about problems I got with the XBee evaluation kit I received during a seminar. In the meantime (acutally only a few days after the post) I got new XBee modules.

These modules are reacting as expected when connected to X-CTU. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time for a deeper look at the modules. Since these modules are running the ZigBee stack I expect them to need a bit more configuration than plain 802.15.4 XBee modules. For this reason I’m thinking about exchanging them with XBee 802.15.4 modules.

BTW… Is it only me that finds the XBee module naming very confusing? You have ZB, ZNet, DigiMesh etc. I have the feeling they changed the naming over time. So even looking at Digis documentation doesn’t help.

I will also take a more detailed look at the Rabbit boards that are also part of the evaluation kit. I’m a big fan of Atmel AVR processors and Arduino boards. I didn’t know about Rabbit processors until the end of last year. But the Dynamic-C environment and corresponding library that promisses to have ready to use routines for many core tasks (even a webserver) looks very interesting.

Since a few weeks you can get a board featuring a Rabbit processor, ZigBee and Ethernet. It allows you to visually handle a whole ZigBee network using a web browser over ethernet. I’ve only seen a short live demo at the seminar back in october which looked very promising. If you are interested in more information you can take a look at the BL4S200 product page. Maybe I will have a chance to get my hands on this board later this year.

 

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…