Issues with Xbee

So I have started to play with the new Xbee modules I got in.

First thing first, I downloaded the latest firmware for my two Xbee modules and updated those according to http://www.makingthings.com/documentation/how-to/update-xbee-settings-with-x-ctu/?searchterm=xbee%20firmware.

Worked really well. So I went ahead and flashed the MC back with heavy-1.3.1 and got that back up and running. Because of the problem mentioned below, I went ahead and did the general test of turning on a few LEDs on the application board via /appled to ensure there was nothing else wrong.

So here is the deal. I started to follow Sample Setup 3 in http://www.makingthings.com/documentation/tutorial/xbee-wireless-interface/sample-setup.
 Was able to send all of the commands to the transmitter module and also sent the commands to the receive module but did not get anything back from the potentiometer. The following is the setup...

So I have my receiver Xbee plugged into the Serial port on the MC via the MC Xbee interface board. I originally used this board to program the receiver too. I did add the capacitors and the transistor to the board.

I also have an Xbee breakout board from Sparkfun hooked up to a breadboard. Power for the Xbee transmitter is coming from the MC Xbee interface board via the 3.3v and GND connections to the breadboard. I also have LEDs plugged into the transmitter to show on/sleep and ao5 for association. Power is solid on trans but association on both boards blink. I'm not sure if this is the problem (should they be solid)?

Anyway, I have the potentiometer plugged into GND and 3.3V on either side and the "slider" plugged into the transmitter's AD0 pin. I have also entered all of the commands on the Sample Setup page plus I ran /analogin/[0-7]/autosend 0 because the receiver on the MC was sending the debug variables of each of the pins (did that to shut it up). Am running over USB to mchelper with the latest version of the helper program.

I'm wondering exactly what the problem is. I must have done something wrong. So here are the questions:

1) Should the Association LED on receiver and transmitter modules be solid?
2) Why does /xbee/io16 report any messages? Even when /xbee/get-messages is executed?
3) I tried hooking up the potentiometer to AD0 on the receiver (hooked to the MC) and could not get any values back from it). Why wouldn't that work?
4) I'm wondering if something bigger is wrong because sending /xbeeconfig/address for instance after setting the address to 12 does not reply with a value. Is this normal? Should I not be able to query the Xbee connected to the Make Controller and get values back?

Notes:

a) I made sure that the address was set to 12 for receiver and 13 for the transmitter.
b) Set PANID (while in X-CTU) to 550.
c) Set Channel to 13 on both Xbee modules.
d) Did not apply a profile (something I read while messing with Arduino + Xbee) on either of the modules. Is this necessary?
e) Xbee modules are running XB24 modem with 10A5 firmware (latest).
f) MC is running latest mchelper + heavy-1.3.1

Thanks in advance for your ideas. I greatly appreciate it as I bang my head up against the proverbial brick wall.

Just a few notes:

a) Tried both Xbee chips on MC Xbee Board. I was unable to receive an address or anything else via /xbeeconfig/[address or panid]. This should have responded with the settings.
b) I have verified again that both Xbee modules are set to:
    1) Address = 12 for receive and 11 for transmit.
    2) PANID = 550 for both modules
    3) Channel = C[12] for both modules - not thirteen or D
c) I have not changed any of the other settings via X-CTU
d) Both Xbee modules receive 3.3V from the MC Xbee board.
e) Both Xbee modules are connected to LEDs via AO5 for association. Both LEDs are blinking all the time. I'm just guessing but this should become solid if it could connect.
f) /xbeeconfig/active returns 1 but no other /xbeeconfig command returns a variable.
g) Firmware: 10A5
h) xctu.bin firmware works great with X-CTU. No issues sending and receiving commands/firmware on either module.

Whats wrong with this darn things?

Here are some additional notes on the problem plus a picture if it helps.

http://www.tekcrack.com/issues-with-xbee.html

Jason,

I had the same issue as you of the xbee on the MC not responding to any of the /xbeeconfig inquires.

See http://www.makingthings.com/forum/bugs-requests/434964414/conversation_view?b_start:int=10&-C=

Aaron shared a newer firmware (10C0) and some xbee profiles that can be loaded to the xbees via the xctu. The profiles are a nice option to make sure that there is not an xbee setting messed up. By loading the profile you will know that you have the same xbee settings that Aaron and I were successful with.

I loaded these but I think the real problem is that I needed to do the following commands to get any response from the xbee on the MC:

/system/autosend-usb 1

/system/autosend-interval 10

/xbee/autosend 1

I think this last one was the one I missed.

With these you should be able to get a response to /xbeeconfig/address and other commands.

- Ed

check out the profiles that i put in my folder, that should give you a good starting point

http://www.makingthings.com/Members/tunell

there's also the 10C0 firmware there, which you may want to try

as Ed said, this and the correct commands should get you going.

I have similar problems. I do get responses back from /xbeeconfig/ so I know the MC and xbee are communicating. But I get nothing back from the remote xbee. Haven't yet tried the profiles - question, do they work with the 10A5 firmware? .phil

dunno, give it a try,

oh... never mind. it's working now. i bought a bunch of xbees, and after switching things around had forgotten that i had not upgraded all of them to 10A5. now that i'm using all units at that rev level, it is working perfectly. so the outcome of this is that you can get things working right "out of the box": * got my xbees from digikey * built the boards from Making Things (I did have to touch up the soldering on one of them to get communication going) * downloaded the latest firmware for the xbees to 10A5 * did not do anything else in x-ctu (no profiles needed) * hooked everything up per the tutorial * sent the commands per the tutorial * works! For Liam, in the tutorial it would be good to mention more prominently that after setting the /xbeeconfig/ commands, it is best to check their values to verify they are set. For example on the one board that had the soldering problem, I thought everything was fine since I got no error messages back. But in fact no communication was happening. when I checked to see if the address had been set, and found that nothing came back, I realized that the adapter board was bad. .phil

did you get it so you could get correct values from all inputs at once? I posted earlier about problems with DIO7 as an input.

haven't tried anything beyond the first analog port. will let you know when I try it out.

Thanks - glad to hear you got it running, and I updated both the how-to and tutorial with your suggestions.