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Trouble initializing XBee3 LTE-M

Home Forums Mayfly Data Logger Trouble initializing XBee3 LTE-M

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    • #12612
      Dan
      Participant
        I recently successfully set up a MayFly with GPRSbee radio. It works great.

        I’m trying to get a second MayFly working with the Digi XBee3 LTE-M radio. This is on hologram, using a brand-new SIM

      • #12613
        Dan
        Participant

          OK, looking at the GitHub issue, it looks like I may need to Solder SJ13 after all…?

        • #12615
          Shannon Hicks
          Moderator
            The Mayfly’s bee footprint was originally set up to only power modules that require moderate current supplied to the Vcc pin of the module, such as Xbee RF modules (900Mhz and 2.4Ghz), Bee wifi,
          • #12617
            Dan
            Participant
              Thank you Shannon.

              OK, I cut the trace and confirmed no continuity between BEE_Vcc and 3v3 at SJ13. Then I made a solder bridge between BEE_Vcc and LIPO. I have ~4.1V between GND and LIPO/BEE_Vcc.

            • #12621
              Sara Damiano
              Moderator
                I’ve usually seen that “no response” pattern with the 3G XBee’s without the solder jumper. I’ve assumed it was them “browning out” as they tried to connect t
              • #12641
                Sara Damiano
                Moderator
                  I’ve spent more time fiddling with the LTE-M XBee and I’m seeing the same results.

                  It’s a hardware problem, not software; the modem really does stop responding. I wonder if it̵

                • #12655
                  Dan
                  Participant
                    Well, I have regressed even further. Now I can’t even get the modem to turn on. I confirm ~4.2V between pins 10 and 1 on the Xbee, so it is definitely getting power (and from the LiPo to boot) b
                  • #12658
                    Sara Damiano
                    Moderator
                      My first guess would be that you put it to sleep and it won’t wake up.

                      Can run a really simple script just to hold the pins to wake it up and allow you to type in commands from your serial port

                    • #12659
                      Sara Damiano
                      Moderator
                      • #12670
                        Dan
                        Participant
                          Thanks Sara. The modem responds with an “OK” to the “+++” in setup() but once it’s in the loop it does not respond to anything I type in the serial monitor (AT commands,
                        • #12673
                          Sara Damiano
                          Moderator
                            Yes, that’s what the streamdebugger is supposed to do.

                            Hmm.. try forcing a reset to all default values. The TinyGSM library drops the timeouts for xbee communication really low, which is great

                          • #12674
                            Sara Damiano
                            Moderator
                              The default settings allow up to 10 seconds before it times out and drops you out of command mode and has a 1 second “guard” time around the +’s to get back in. TinyGSM cuts the gua
                            • #12731
                              Cal
                              Participant
                                Sometimes I get the XBee into a mode that won’t respond to AT commands. It has something to do with the sequence of bringing up power to the Mayfly and power to the modem. To get out of this m
                              • #12732
                                neilh20
                                Participant
                                  I’ve also had this problem with the Xbee S6 WiFi. However I’ve lowered the polling rate and a few other tweaks of the TinyGSM and its been better https://github.com/neilh10/TinyGSM.
                                  @cal
                                • #12747
                                  Sara Damiano
                                  Moderator
                                    Neil’s right about the symbol – it’s a reset-not pin – pull it low to reset.

                                    But… it’s not connected to anything else on the board, so you can’t pull it in a

                                  • #12759
                                    Sara Damiano
                                    Moderator
                                      Shannon soldered a jumper on a board for me to connect the reset pin to a data pin on the Mayfly’s mcu so I could try it with the XBee. Unfortunately,
                                    • #12768
                                      neilh20
                                      Participant
                                        Oh good to hear it works.
                                        What pin are you using on the Mayfly.? I could see the references in the code on modemConnect() but couldn’t find any designation.

                                        One of the problems is that the ATm

                                      • #12773
                                        Sara Damiano
                                        Moderator

                                          The XBee’s are all 3.3V logic levels.

                                          I used pin A4.

                                        • #12779
                                          neilh20
                                          Participant
                                            Thanks.
                                            The cct V0.5b shows an option of connecting the Xbee to the LiIon V_bat – which can get to 4.2V – and a very nice low impedance for the Cellular Tx power requirements.
                                            So if th
                                          • #13835
                                            Cal
                                            Participant
                                              From time to time, some of my XBee radios in the field get into a state that won’t communicate.  Even though I can successfully execute AT commands nothing I’ve found but a power recycle will get
                                            • #13839
                                              Sara Damiano
                                              Moderator

                                                @ckillen – yes, that is correct.

                                                You know, though, I’ve never actually done it.  Time to walk down the hall to borrow Shannon’s soldering iron..

                                              • #13841
                                                neilh20
                                                Participant
                                                  Yes that should work. On processor reset, A5 will need to be setoutput to out and low.
                                                  Then on setting A5 high AND there is enough power in the LiIon battery the Xbee Radio should come on.
                                                  It should
                                                • #13850
                                                  Cal
                                                  Participant
                                                    I had something interesting happen to me last week – a brand new XBee  (with brand new firmware 11415) + brand new SIM card would NOT connect to the tower for days.  In desperation, I changed the
                                                  • #13851
                                                    Shannon Hicks
                                                    Moderator
                                                      Cal, that’s an interesting find, thanks for sharing.  I have a couple test boards that I’ve always kept in mode 2 (AT&T) and they’ve never had a problem connecting consistently
                                                    • #13855
                                                      Sara Damiano
                                                      Moderator
                                                        I cannot believe I didn’t think about this setting!  I am ashamed of myself.  I will test it out.  😮

                                                        I’m pretty certain that the CP command tha

                                                      • #13856
                                                        Sara Damiano
                                                        Moderator
                                                          I opened the stack of XBee3’s that wouldn’t connect and, low and behold, setting CP1 got almost all of them to connect.  I feel like an idiot.  @ckillen, thank you so much for that catch
                                                        • #13857
                                                          Sara Damiano
                                                          Moderator
                                                            One of the things I don’t get is that all of the modules I’m working with are ones that had previously connected fine without the carrier profile set.  Why did they stop?

                                                            Grumble, grumbl

                                                          • #13859
                                                            Matt Barney
                                                            Participant
                                                              This is great news! Thank you @srgdamiano and @ckillen!! I’ve begun ordering parts for 9 additional stations and have been fearing that buying another 9 XBee3 LTE-M modems was going to lead us i
                                                            • #13860
                                                              Matt Barney
                                                              Participant

                                                                I also meant to mention that one of the ‘Bug Fixes’ in the XBee release notes indicates that they enabled flow control between the XBee and the u-blox, which hopefully is a good thing.

                                                              • #13861
                                                                Cal
                                                                Participant
                                                                  More news:

                                                                  1. The cutting and soldering of the Mayfly and XBeee adapter mentioned above works great!  I can now programmatically reset the modem if it gets into a non-responsive state.  I
                                                                • #13862
                                                                  Sara Damiano
                                                                  Moderator
                                                                    The newest firmware update includes the most recent u-blox update.  [L0.0.00.00.05.08 App version 02.04, released 20May19]  It requires using USB direct mode, but if you have the XBee3 TH dev board,
                                                                  • #13863
                                                                    Sara Damiano
                                                                    Moderator

                                                                      And @mbarney, WRT buying new parts.. I’m still not happy with the failure rate of the XBee’s, but I don’t have any suggestions for anything better.

                                                                    • #13864
                                                                      Matt Barney
                                                                      Participant

                                                                        OK, thank you, Sara! Bummer that there’s no clean solution yet for reliable LTE that’s carrier-agnostic. I suppose that’s asking a lot. 🙂

                                                                        Matt

                                                                      • #13865
                                                                        Sara Damiano
                                                                        Moderator

                                                                          Well, setting the profile to ‘1’ might work fine for the long term; I really have no idea.  It just makes me a bit nervous.

                                                                        • #13870
                                                                          Matt Barney
                                                                          Participant
                                                                            Re: updating XBee and u-blox firmware, I just noticed the ‘force cell modem update’ checkbox in XCTU defaulted to unchecked. Hadn’t noticed that before… oops. I’ll enable
                                                                            Attachments:
                                                                          • #13880
                                                                            Cal
                                                                            Participant
                                                                              Sara noted above that she re-wrote TinyGsm – so I decided it was a good time to update all my code with new libraries.  Trouble is, I can’t get TinyGSM with templates from EnviroDIY GitHu
                                                                            • #13881
                                                                              Sara Damiano
                                                                              Moderator

                                                                                Oh dear.  I forgot to test on the Arduino IDE.  I’ll start looking into it.

                                                                              • #13882
                                                                                Sara Damiano
                                                                                Moderator
                                                                                  I got it to compile on the Arduino IDE, so there’s must be a tangle in your library structure.  Can you open the library folder (probably in my documents/arduino if you’re using windows)
                                                                                • #13890
                                                                                  Cal
                                                                                  Participant

                                                                                    Yep – I had a problem with my library.  All is good now. Sorry for the fire drill.

                                                                                  • #13891
                                                                                    Sara Damiano
                                                                                    Moderator

                                                                                      No worries!  I should have checked everything out on the Arduino IDE anyway.

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