3) Configure the First Radio
- Mark the first XBee you’re going to work on with an “A.”
- Insert the XBee into the XBee Explorer and connect it to your computer with a USB cable.
Note: To use the XBee Explorer, you may need to install FTDI drivers onto your computer, which will let your computer talk via serial to the board. Click here to download the drivers for your operating system.
- If you don’t already have a terminal program that you prefer to use, download CoolTerm by Roger Meier. We recommend CoolTerm because it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not only that, but it’s also free!
- Open CoolTerm and click “Options”
- Choose the serial port that starts with “usbserial…” If you’re not sure which serial port to select, look at the list of available ports and then disconnect the XBee Explorer from your computer. Click “Re-Scan Serial Ports” and check which serial port disappeared. Reconnect your XBee Explorer, click “Re-Scan Serial Ports” and choose that port.
- Be sure Baudrate is set to 9600.
- Be sure Data Bits is set to 8.
- Be sure Parity is set to “none.”
- Be sure Stop Bits is set to 1.
- In the list on the left side of the options window, click “Terminal.”
- Be sure “Local Echo” is activated. This will allow you to see what you’re typing into the terminal.
- Click OK to save those settings and close the Options window.
- Click “Connect” on the toolbar.
- You should see “Connected” on the status bar at the bottom of the window.
- Type “+++” to enter command mode. You should see the reply “OK.”
Note: By default, the XBee will automatically leave command mode if it does not receive any commands in a 10 second period.
- Here’s a chart of the commands settings we’re going to set:
| Function | Command | Parameter |
|---|---|---|
| PAN ID | ATID | 3001 (any address from 0 to FFFE will do) |
| MY Address | ATMY | 1 |
| Destination address high | ATDH | 0 (indicates a 16-bit address) |
| Destination address low | ATDL | 2 |
Tech note: So what do all these settings mean? Let’s dig in a little deeper, shall we?
- PAN ID: PAN stands for Personal Area Network. This is a unique identifier for your network. XBees assigned to a particular PAN ID can only communicate with each other. This lets you set up separate networks in the same location.
- MY Address: This is the source address for an XBee, it’s a unique address for this particular radio. It’s how other radios will send messages to it.
- Destination address high: This represents the first half of the address we want to talk to. XBee radios can have a 64-bit address, so this is the higher 32-bit part of that address number. Since we don’t need so many addresses, we’ll set this to 0 and only use the low setting.
- Destination address low: This is the address we’ll use to locate the other XBee. Make sure it matches the ATMY setting of the XBee you want to talk to.
Check out our reference page for a complete list of AT commands and XBee settings.
- Type in each command followed by its parameter and hit enter.
- You can verify the setting by typing the command without a parameter.
- Your settings aren’t saved yet! Type ATWR to save the settings.
- Here’s how the terminal session will look, starting with the “+++” to enter command mode.
+++ OK ATID 3001 OK ATMY 1 OK ATDH 0 OK ATDL 2 OK ATID 3001 ATMY 1 ATDH 0 ATDL 2 ATWR OK
Note: You should get an OK response after issuing each command to set parameters, and another OK response when you write the changes to firmware. If you don’t get an OK response, most likely you took more than ten seconds to issue the command and you’ve dropped out of command mode. This can happen quite frequently when you’re starting out, but you’ll get better at it as you go along. The other common mistake is not issuing the ATWR command to save your changes, then losing your configuration when the radio is powered down.
- Click disconnect in CoolTerm and remove the XBee A from the XBee Explorer.
