Hi,
I’m developing a wireless sensing application for the Gadgeteer but I’m having trouble in making it wireless. I am using an FEZ Spider Mainboard, an XBee Adapter and XBees 802.15.4 radios. (I’m trying to make it work with an XBee S1 module and a 900MHz module, both 802.15.4).
My mission is to simply send a string to another radio (a base station), but I can’t get it done. I tried the default “xbee” library first to try to send data, but I couldn’t work out how it really worked for sending simple strings. Then I tried XBeeClient, a library that’s supposedly useful for this kind of “easy” applications. However, it didn’t really work. A weird message keeps appearing in the Debug Console: “Waiting for more bytes from serial port, message length indicates more bytes comming” even though I’m not trying to receive anything.
I found out later that this library, XBeeClient, was only supposed to work with XBee modules using “ZigBee”. My modules don’t have the full ZigBee stack, though. (Well, I think so. In XCTU, Digi’s software for setting up Xbees, the modules I use are not marked as “ZigBee”).
Do you know what I can do to make this simple application work, with the hardware I have?
Thank you very much!
Justin
March 21, 2013, 12:07pm
2
@ hodoufo - Welcome!
It’s just simple serial commands, you dont need a library.
Justin
@ Justin - Hey, thank you! I’d really appreciate that!
Justin
March 21, 2013, 12:15pm
4
Righto - i cheat and use @ Iggmoe’s excellent SimpleSerial library, makes life easier - http://www.tinyclr.com/codeshare/entry/644
And here is some code using it…
using System.IO.Ports;
using Microsoft.SPOT;
using GT = Gadgeteer;
using GTM = Gadgeteer.Modules;
using GTI = Gadgeteer.Interfaces;
namespace BalanceBee
{
public partial class Program
{
private SimpleSerial _xbeePort;
private string[] _xBeeLines;
void ProgramStarted()
{
GT.Socket socket = GT.Socket.GetSocket(8, false, null, "");
_xbeePort = new SimpleSerial(socket.SerialPortName, 57600, Parity.None, 8, StopBits.One);
_xbeePort.Open();
_xbeePort.DataReceived += new SerialDataReceivedEventHandler(XBeePortDataReceived);
}
void XBeePortDataReceived(object sender, SerialDataReceivedEventArgs e)
{
_xBeeLines = _xbeePort.Deserialize();
foreach (string xBeeLine in _xBeeLines)
{
Debug.Print(xBeeLine);
}
}
private void SendXbee(string message)
{
_xbeePort.WriteLine(message);
}
}
}
1 Like
HughB
March 21, 2013, 2:03pm
5
I think there are also a couple of community made drivers for the xbee.http://xbee.codeplex.com/
@ Justin - Hey, thank you for the help! Now I can send data to XCTU in another computer!
However, when I receive data (which is not really required for my application, so I’m not so worried), it keeps catching this exception:
#### Exception System.Exception - CLR_E_WRONG_TYPE (3) ####
#### Message:
#### System.Text.UTF8Encoding::GetChars [IP: 0000] ####
#### GadgeteerApp1.SimpleSerial::ReadExisting [IP: 000c] ####
#### GadgeteerApp1.SimpleSerial::Deserialize [IP: 0009] ####
#### GadgeteerApp1.Program::XBeePortDataReceived [IP: 000c] ####
#### System.IO.Ports.SerialPort::DataEventHandler [IP: 0012] ####
A first chance exception of type ‘System.Exception’ occurred in mscorlib.dll
Do you know what it means? I’m using XCTU’s terminal test the setup.
Thank you!
Justin
March 26, 2013, 10:57am
7
Post your full code and we’ll see if it’s obvious…
@ Justin - My full code is exactly what you posted
The error suggests that SimpleSerial is interpreting the incoming data as UTF-8, so if it’s falling over I would imagine the incoming data might not be UTF-8.
You may try my code. Not well writing but maybe help.
namespace DistanceTestGadgeteer_SDK20130214
{
public partial class Program
{
// This method is run when the mainboard is powered up or reset.
//GT.Interfaces.Serial serial;
double Sendcount = 0;
double ReceiveCount = 1;
int timestamp = 0;
//GT.Timer timer = new GT.Timer(500);
GT.Timer showTimeTimer = new GT.Timer(1000);
void ProgramStarted()
{
xBee.Configure(115200, GT.Interfaces.Serial.SerialParity.None,
GT.Interfaces.Serial.SerialStopBits.One, 8);
//serial = xBee.SerialLine;
xBee.SerialLine.Open();
xBee.SerialLine.DataReceived += new GT.Interfaces.Serial.DataReceivedEventHandler(serial_DataReceived);
showTimeTimer.Tick += new GT.Timer.TickEventHandler(showTimeTimer_Tick);
Debug.Print("Program Started");
showTimeTimer.Start();
}
void showTimeTimer_Tick(GT.Timer timer)
{
var font = Resources.GetFont(Resources.FontResources.NinaB);
timestamp = timestamp + 1;
display_T35.SimpleGraphics.Clear();
display_T35.SimpleGraphics.DisplayText("Time Stamp:" + timestamp.ToString(), font, GT.Color.White, 50, 50);
display_T35.SimpleGraphics.DisplayText("Receive Number:" + ReceiveCount.ToString(), font, GT.Color.White, 50, 100);
Thread.Sleep(500);
}
void serial_DataReceived(GT.Interfaces.Serial sender, System.IO.Ports.SerialData data)
{
ReceiveCount = ReceiveCount + 1;
var font = Resources.GetFont(Resources.FontResources.NinaB);
int btr = xBee.SerialLine.BytesToRead;
if (btr == 0) return;
byte[] bytes = new byte[btr];
byte[] idbytes = new byte[2];
xBee.SerialLine.Read(bytes, 0, btr);
idbytes[0] = bytes[5];
idbytes[1] = bytes[4];
string Text = new string(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetChars(bytes));
string id = new string(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetChars(idbytes));//
UInt16 u = (UInt16)Microsoft.SPOT.Hardware.Utility.ExtractValueFromArray(idbytes, 0, 2);//Xbee ID
display_T35.SimpleGraphics.Clear();
Debug.Print(u.ToString());
//Debug.Print(Text);
//display_T35.SimpleGraphics.DisplayText(btr.ToString(), font, GT.Color.White, 50, 200);
// display_T35.SimpleGraphics.DisplayText("Receive Number:"+ReceiveCount.ToString(), font, GT.Color.White, 50, 100);
}
}
}
