Serial communication with Xbee (without a shield)

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

Hey guys, Brand new to Arduino here and am working on my first project. It requires a PC to communicate with the Arduino Uno via USB and it is working fine. What I would like to do is get rid of the USB cable and use 2 Xbee's that I have. I have an explorer regulated board and a USB explorer. Is it easiest to just connect the regulated explorer to the serial i/o tx/rx pins and power it from 5v? Or is it possible to simply plug the usb explorer into the usb plug on the UNO?

Also, once it is connected, what, if any, changes to the code need to be done? Do you have to specify to use the serial i/o tx/rx pins or is the serial communication already present on those pins?

Thanks

2

Plug the regulated Explorer into 5v (VCC) and Tx->Rx/Rx->Tx. The USB Explorer is for the PC. Both the USB Explorer and the Arduino are slaves on USB.

3

Thanks. That simple eh? So the serial communications going to the usb interface can be "tapped " into simply by connecting to the tx/rx pins? Very cool. That will make this project much simpler.

FYI: I am building a sentry turret and don't want to have the laptop physically connected to the device. I plan on making the turret mobile so this way I can reduce the weight etc.

Thanks again.

4

That simple eh?

Yep.

XBees are great.

You probably need to set up the XBees first.
Ladyada has a tutorial on this using X-CTU to program them.

Mowcius