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Xbee modules

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By Nicola

October 30, 2008
Nicola's picture

hello! anyone of you ever used one (well, two) of those modules? I'm interested but there are many version to choose among.. Any experience to share ?

Also, is the XBee USB exporer enought on itself to connect an xbee to a pc ? looks like a good solution for the pc side.

And for the device side, i see this cheap adapter on ladyada blog, or maybe there's some better way ? the arduino shield is quite expensive!

thanks :P 

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By robologist
@ Fri, 2008-10-31 10:37
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XBee stuff really works well. I used the NewMicros stuff and in one experiment observed over 1/2 mile range at 115k serial. That's about 1 kilometer, but line of sight. ANd heard of longer tests. Used the XBee dongle on the PC, and XBee adapter-232 that can be seen clicking the Zigbee link. Looks like they have some carriers that are pretty cheap. Oh, used the XBee Pro modules, with the wire antenna. The UFL connector is good if you want to have an antenna outside an enclosure for the robot. Don't think the chip antenna is that great.
By Nicola
@ Fri, 2008-10-31 11:22
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thanks robologist. I think i'll go for the wire antenna then.

those adapters are a little costy anyway.. about twice the one on sparkfun

By robologist
@ Fri, 2008-10-31 16:34
robologist's picture
Yeah, the dongle is a little. The carriers down below are pretty cheap though $6 and $9. At the time of the tests, they were the only ones making these interfaces.