The Explorers: USB Explorer, Explorer Dongle, and Serial Explorer.
With an XBee Explorer connected between your computer and your XBee,
and with the help of the
X-CTU
software, you can easily configure XBees,
test connections, and pass data between your computer and remote
XBees. We’re going to show you how to do all of that in this tutorial!
Materials Required
XBees are really only useful if you have at least a pair of them. They need
buddies to talk to! Hence, there’s a lot of “2x” in this list of materials:
•
2x XBees
– XBees exist in a variety of
series
,
frequencies
, and
ranges
. If you’re just getting started with XBee, we highly
recommend going with
Series 1
models – either with a trace
antenna, wire antenna or u.fl connector.
◦
For more help picking an XBee, check out our XBee Buying
Guide.
•
2x Explorers
– either the Explorer USB, Explorer USB Dongle, or
Explorer Serial.
◦
These boards act as an interface between your computer and
an XBee. They’re used to configure your XBee and pass data
to and from your computer.
◦
Depending on which explorer you have, you may also need a
matching mini-B USB or serial cables.
• At least one
computer with X-CTU
installed.
◦
The latest version of X-CTU is available for both Mac and
Windows!
Suggested Reading
This tutorial builds on some lower-level electronics concepts. If you’re not
familiar with the subjects below, we recommend checking out those
tutorials first.
• Serial Communication – XBee’s communicate over a serial port. This
tutorial will get you familiar with terms like “RX”, “TX”, “baud rates”,
“stop bits”, and “parity”.
• Serial Terminal Basics – The X-CTU software we’ll use has an
integrated serial terminal called the “console”. You can use your
preferred terminal instead; if you don’t have a preferred serial
terminal, check out this tutorial.
• XBee Buying Guide – We highly recommend Series 1 XBee’s, if this
is your first time playing with them. If you’re curious about other XBee
classes, check out this guide!
• Hexadecimal – XBee configuration settings – like addresses and
network ID’s – are all programmed in hex. Base 16. If you don’t know
how to make numbers with 0-9 and A-F, check out this tutorial.
Selecting an Explorer
The first step to communicating with your XBee is picking an interface
board that allows you to. XBee Explorers act as a gateway between your
computer and your XBee. There are a few to pick from, each offering their
own, key differences. Here’s a quick overview of each:
XBee Explorer USB
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