Everything Xbee

What are you using to plug this board into to give you the USB connection?

It would be nice if you could add those Xbees as an end point and not have them trying to act as a repeater. When you are trying to figure out what's what and, don't use the xbee under normal circumstances, it does not help when devices jump to the Xbee when it will not be there under normal circumstances.

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This is the most problem-free development board. It's the one I have too. Purchased mine from Digikey.

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I was going to use one of these:

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That's a great price. Has a coupon right now, and @Cobra confirms this works. @vjv, and @eibyer also have that one.

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That's the one I've got. Works great.

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Totally agree. I can fairly easily add repeaters where I need them, I just want to see where I need them without adding a repeater to do so. I read that you can set up an Xbee as an endpoint but then it doesn't analyse the network, so not much point.

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You could plug an XBEE into a permanently powered USB hub - it will then be on all the time and you can just hook up a PC / laptop to the USB hub if and when you wish to analyze the network.

Another option is if you have any Raspberry Pi in use (or any other permanently powered Linux based board) you can plug the XBEE into that and use something like "ser2net" to expose the USB port over TCP/IP. You can then connect remotely when you wish to analyze the network using "socat" on Linux or any simple "virtual serial" driver on Windows.

I've got three XBEE in use now and use both the above as well as having the third one just standalone.

IMHO buying an XBEE "just for mapping" is a bit of a waste ...... you might as well use it permanently!

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just reading through the Xbee settings manual
after joining your network you could try setting NJ = 0
this might keep devices from routing through your Xbee
sorry at work so can't test it

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you maybe even be able to join your network with NJ set to 0 prior to initial Xbee joining/pairing

I am doing similar setup. I now have 4 xbees. 3 with backup battery packs and one on powered USB hub for messing around with my laptop. Couldn't be happier.
Ok, maybe I am a little over the top but I find these xbee are such good repeaters compare to my iris plugs.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I like the powered USB hub idea. I know I've got one lying around somewhere so will give that a try.

Yes, I got 2 different orders, both overnight shipping. They are great!

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You can setup the transmit power to the lowest and they will keep mostly with no end devices connected to it, just other repeaters.

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Neat, I wasn't sure what worked besides the Grove Board for "development" (mostly providing a reset button so you don't need to manually short two pins yourself), but I'm glad people have confirmed that the above board provides all you need!

A couple people above also mentioned this $7 board, which I've found works well for just "using" the device after you've configured it. It lacks a reset button but can be used for anything else (hooking up to a computer for mapping or just connected to a power source for routing and whatnot): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UBFM03Y/

It's a lot smaller than the Grove board and also a lot cheaper, though so is the above. But if you want something even cheaper, something like this would definitely work if you have multiple XBee modules and want to use just one "expensive" board to program and then something cheaper for regular use of them.

Isn't the reset done just by shorting the reset pin to ground?

So I've seen, but it's a lot easier for most people to just press a button instead. :slight_smile:

What pins, the pins on the front? Because it doesn't work, but maybe you mean the pins in the xbee itself.

This is exactly what I did, I have one with reset button and 2 without reset button.

@vjv yes pin 5 (reset) and pin 10 (grnd) on the Xbee socket (not the front adapter board header) should reset the device

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