upgrading xbee

XBee projects like the adapter, xBee tutorials, tweetawatt/wattcher, etc. from Adafruit

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rripken
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue May 12, 2009 2:32 pm

Re: upgrading xbee

Post by rripken »

I tried the instructions that jerrya included and also got in touch with digi support. They sent me similar instructions but I still didn't have any luck.

Digi support followed up with:
"From our experience, the majority of the USB to RS232 adapter cables on the market are very unpredictable as to when or what products they will support on any given PC. We have also found that they often result in the issues you are experiencing when attempting to either upgrade or write firmware to any of our radios. As such, we do not recommend using them. Instead, I would recommend performing your firmware upgrade either on one of our USB interface boards or with a PC that has a COM port on it."

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: upgrading xbee

Post by adafruit »

the FTDI cable is not a USB to RS232 adapter, its a USB to TTL adapter. and its a very strict 3.3V output one at that.

rripken
 
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue May 12, 2009 2:32 pm

Re: upgrading xbee

Post by rripken »

You read their response more closely than I did. Guess I should have included the question too. They asked whether I was using a RS232 port on a PC or a USB adapter cable. It appears I wasn't using either of their options. So, should I not be attempting a firmware update via ftdi cable and xbee adapter? I got another xbee coming and I'd hate to mess up that one too.

I thought the ftdi was 5v and the xbee adapter used a level shifting chip to get to 3.3v.

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: upgrading xbee

Post by adafruit »

the power output is 5v, the communication is at 3.3v
id run the older driver (see threads here for the link) and dont use parallels.
other than that i havent heard of any problems
its actually tough to brick the xbees, but unbricking them can be a pain
sometimes i mess one up and i have to not use XCTU but instead connect with a terminal and run the
+++
AT
ATRE (i think thats it, for reload factory settings)
ATWR (write to firmware)

mmoretti
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2013 7:06 pm

Re: upgrading xbee

Post by mmoretti »

Well, I now have a bricked Xbee 1... Unfortunately I tried to use the FTDI friend (through my PC) connected to the Xbee adapter with X-CTU to upgrade my firmware to 10ED. It failed with the same error (checksum failed, can't write parameters). Now no matter what I do, the thing is bricked. Sometimes I can actually use jerrya's instructions and it works but then I'm still bricked, sometimes I get part way through that with some other failure and it's still bricked. Not sure what to do...

extrabee
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 15, 2013 11:19 pm

Re: upgrading xbee

Post by extrabee »

I picked up this trick to "un-brick" an XBee from a support engineer at Digi (back when it was MaxStream) if you are using X-CTU to upgrade your firmware:

Select the firmware version you want to use and click the "show defaults" button to set all the parameters to default.
Take the module out of the interface board.
Select "Always Update Firmware" on X-CTU.
With the module still out of the board, click "Write"
Wait for the box to pop up telling you that "action is required"
Insert the module.

It may take a couple tries, but this saved several bricked modules for me.

Jeremy
----
Please support the Open-Source ExtraBee radio module project: kickstarter.extrabee.org

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