Arduino and Xbee interaction

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
#1

Hello everybody!

I am thinking of a project that involves (maybe) the use of Xbee...What i don't seem to understand is if the Xbee runs without Arduino...I'll make myself clear

What i'd like to have is an Arduino+Xbee (the brain of the project!) that is able to read other Xbee hidden in some plastic balls...These Xbees are sending information ( their personal code ) that the main Arduino+Xbee is recieving.

In fact i would like to know if i have to put other Arduinos in the so called plastic balls or not, to make the Xbees working...

I'm asking such questions for this simple reason... What i want to do is to assign to each ball a personal code, a signal or whatever to make it recognizable from a Main Arduino Board that will respond with an output...

Rfid are not useful for such purpose, since all the readers i found are not able to read many Rfid tags in the same field, meaning that once it reads a tag it won't read another, untill the first one is put away...Or am i wrong? Beside, Tags have to be close to the reader and I am trying to experiment this on a wall, meaning that the signal of the Tags is not strong enough to be read from a fixed reader on the wall...

I hope i was clear enough and thanks for your precious help

#2

ok, so heres what you want to do. Go check out the book making things talk. This will have almost all pf your answers plus it will have some sample code you can use. I know that there is something called a ftdi to setial adaptor that plugs right into you computer that you can attach an x bee to. I would recomend check out the book though.

#3

Thanks robotkid

Actually i read that part again and, if i haven't misunderstood, it seems like it is possible to use Xbee as a transmitter without putting it on an Arduino...all i need is a Serial-to-USB device ( which allows Xbee to be programmed ) and a power supply of 3.3V to make it function ( the xbees transmitter have to be wireless, not connected to computer, that is why they need power supply )...Right????

Then I'll need an Arduino with an Xbee receiver to read the signal and have an output as result...

Thanks for the help...I'm new to this interactive world so your help is fundamental!!

Thanks again

#4