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Wireless Units Drop Connection Until Restart (Xbee Pro)

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Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 1
#1: Oct 9 '08
Hello all, this is my first post in these forums, so bear with me if I've broken a few rules here or there.

Anyhow, I would like to ask if anyone if familiar with the XBee Pro, here, and documentation is available here. The documents don't match the product exactly, the links from the product page ended up to the documents page I supplied.

The difference between the models are just the effective range (I think), and the models are interchangeable. Anyways, it's not the range I'm concerned about, it's that when I'm using it, the XBee wireless modules are able to communicate in transparent mode for some time, but then suddenly for reasons I'm unsure of, the signal drops out and the modules cannot communicate until I power down and power up the transmitter unit again.

I've got the transmitter wired up in a racecar, transmitting data from a datalogger back to pits, and thus powering off the car while it's running isn't an option. All electronics are powered by a 12V battery, including the wireless module.

I'm sure the issue isn't range, as the units are quoted at 1.6 km line-of-sight, and I was able to get a strong signal for our test track, which is at most 100m away from the pits. I also tested this in our workshop, with the wireless modules right next to each other. But both times, the two units would stop communicating for reasons that I haven't been able to diagnose. I would like to know if anyone on these forums have used these wireless RF units before, and if they have ever come across this problem.

If anyone could kindly help me diagnose the problem, I can provide more details about the setup on our car. Thanks to all in advance.

sicarie's Avatar
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 3,929
#2: Oct 14 '08

re: Wireless Units Drop Connection Until Restart (Xbee Pro)


Pancakes-

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, but I've modified the thread title to better highlight the wireless connection dropping, hopefully that might catch the attention of someone who has encountered this issue.

sicarie
DonRayner's Avatar
Expert
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 494
#3: Oct 15 '08

re: Wireless Units Drop Connection Until Restart (Xbee Pro)


Probally not the answer you are looking for but in the interm.... you could just put a relay on the tranmitters power line and hook the coil of the relay to a momentary pushbutton to do a reset.
Plater's Avatar
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: New England
Posts: 7,161
#4: Oct 23 '08

re: Wireless Units Drop Connection Until Restart (Xbee Pro)


So you are using regular transport mode and not the XBEE API for transmitting data back and forth?
Newbie
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 1
#5: Feb 21 '09

re: Wireless Units Drop Connection Until Restart (Xbee Pro)


I'm new on this forum and probably late for this thread. But I have a similar problem with my Xbees 868 (connection drops after a few minutes on a constant data stream). I expect it could have to do with buffer overflow. When I reset the sender module, the stream starts again for a few minutes. And since I'm a newbie, I do not know how to implement a CTS/RTS flow control in my Python programs.
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