Zigbee interfacing with zigbee to ethernet converter!!

[sara_strong]

Hello everyone!!! help needed!!

how to make a zigbee module and another zigbee to ethernet converter interface

and Do they need to be of same company( the module and the converter)???!!

And regarding the zigbee module, can i just buy the module and configure it without buying the whole development kit (I need to make it interface with a microcontroller) ?

Thanks alot in advance

 

[horace1]

have you looked at serial to Zigbee devices such as the XBee?
XBee-PRO® 802.15.4 OEM RF Modules - Digi International

a low cost (about £15) dev kit is Microchip's microstick
**broken link removed**
it has an onboard programmer and header to plug into a breadboard

are you building the Zigbee to Ethernet converter or buying one?

 

[sara_strong]

actually I am considering buying Xbee Pro RF module.
1-But i dont know if i should buy the whole development kit ( Programmable XBee-PRO ZB Dev Kit (Europe and other international) - Digi International ) or should i buy the needed module only ?

My project consists of a PICF18 microcontroller which will interface with sensors that read a patient's temperature and pulse rate, this same PIC should interface with the Xbee module , that transmits wirelessly the collected data to the Zigbee to Ethernet converter(it's the coordinator) . The collected data will be on LAN and then reaches a base station and the measurements will be put on a webserver

I will buy the zigbee to ethernet converter ( TELEGESIS|EAP-E-PA|MODULE, ENET ACCESS POINT, ZIGBEE | Farnell United Kingdom )

so am i on the right track! ? like buying a single Xbee module ,i'll be able to configure it and make it a slave to the Zigbee to ethernet converter?

thank you for your reply!

 

[horace1]

I always used a development kit to configure the XBee modules (either as API coordinator or API routers and end devices) using the X-CTU software - no idea if you can buy XBee devices preconfigured.

For a USB to Ethernet converter I built one using a PIC24, XBee and a Lantronix XPORT serial to Ethernet


similar project to yours except monitoring machines - I used the XBee API mode as it gives much more control than AT mode.

 

[sara_strong]

Hmmm well I too believe it is better to get the development kit to be on the safe side! and yes I will use te XBEE API mode

but regarding building a USB to ethernet converter, is that easy / better to implement and why did u specifically use PIC24?

 

[alexxx]

1-But i dont know if i should buy the whole development kit ( Programmable XBee-PRO ZB Dev Kit (Europe and other international) - Digi International ) or should i buy the needed module only ?

Even in the case that the stack is dedicated to the dev kit, you could make a board of your own and duplicate your board's I/Os with the I/Os of the dev kit. So some functions would be dummy. For example if the dev kit uses an analog port and you don't need one, leave this pin unconnected. Analog routines will run, but for no reason. Later on when you get the feeling of it, maybe you could edit these functions to gain in execution time and code size. But in my opinion and if money is not a problem to buy two dev kits then buy them, do your development and then construct this board of your own. The reason is because if you make this board at once, when you test the board and something goes wrong, you wouldn't know if the problem lies on your program or on the board and you will be confused. But if you apply something succesfully on the dev kit, then if a problem occurs on your board, you will at least know where the problem lies. If the same problem appears on the kit too, then there should be a programmatical issue. If not, then there is something wrong with the custom board's hardware.
A drawback of all the above mentioned, is if you need a lot of I/Os. Then you couldn't leave pins unconnected because obviously you need them and thus you could not duplicate the I/Os and moreover you should edit the stack's lower levels from the beggining of your development. But even in a case like this, two dev kits would be useful for the reason mentioned and that is the safety of testing on something that works for sure.

Hope this helps.

 

[horace1]

Hmmm well I too believe it is better to get the development kit to be on the safe side! and yes I will use te XBEE API mode

but regarding building a USB to ethernet converter, is that easy / better to implement and why did u specifically use PIC24?

if you are planning to use XBee API mode I would assume you would need to build both the patient station and the Zigbee to Ethernet converter.
The Zigbee to Ethernet coordinator was fairly straightforward as both the XBee and Xport are serial devices - data was received from a number of end device stations via Zigbee (in API format) and then put into UDP packets for transmission to a remote server. I always tend to use PIC24d as they they do not cost much more than PIC18s and give much more power and flexibility. May use PIC18s and PIC16s if building 1000s or 10000s of units and cost is critical.