configuring xbee without explorer

dittoditto

Hi,
I am working on a project at school and I having trouble configuring the xbee's. I am using an xbee pro with an arduino and a sparkfun xbee shield (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10854). I do not have the xbee explorer or a usb to xbee board. Is there any way for me to configure the xbee's to communicate with each other? I've read that I need to give the receiver the address to the transmitter and the other way around. Is there any way to do that with the parts I have? I have been trying for hours with no luck.

Thanks,
dittoditto

Franklin

xbee's are made and supported by Digi, Sparkfun makes and supports the shield and Arduino makes and supports the micro. Why are you not asking at those sites? You should be able to talk to the xbee from the Arduino through the shield and use the "AT" commands to configure the xbee.

Tracy Allen

If it is an XBee pro 802.15.4, then it comes from Parallax (or from any other retail source) with both its destination address and its own (MY) address set to zero. So two XBees should be able to talk to one another out of the box without any change of settings. If you are new to this, it is good to try that first to get a link going between two XBees before you try to change the addresses and other settings using the AT commands.

I don't know how to do it on the Arduino, but I'm sure there must be a lot of examples out there, from Sparkfun and elsewhere. I suggest that as a first step you make the Arduino pass everything it receives from the XBee directly to the PC running a terminal emulator, and vice versa, everything the Arduino receives from the PC gets passed directly to the XBee. That way, you can experiment with the AT commands and the remote link directly from the terminal emulator screen and keyboard.

If you have the XBee series 2 (zigbee) devices, it is a different story, and they usually do have to be configured via the Digi XCTU program, to make one of them a coordinator.