using xBee for W800 interface

[James Sentman]

As long as your xBee isn’t set to go to sleep at all then that can’t be any part of the problem. You might verify that for sure though, if it’s waking up for only some part of the time then it would only send whatever it happened to catch while it was awake. they can sleep for very short periods so it would work for most things, but not for others if that was the case. You’ll need to run the configuration program on it to be absolutely sure. But there isn’t anything in XTenison that can go to sleep for it.

Next I would check the power supply. You sent me the great picts of the setup if I remember correctly, but I can’t recall if you’re running the whole thing off the w800 power supply or a different one. The w800 uses a 9v supply, or a 6v supply or something unregulated I think. The voltage could definitely sink under the load of the xBee. An xBee will use, in pulses, far more power than the w800 ever does, it might be beyond the filtering capacitors in it’s power supply to keep things stable all the time. Might want to use 2 different power supplies to be sure. I’m not sure you could even see the sagging in the voltage on a DMM as the pulses that the xBee pulls are so short for it’s radio output. Maybe just add a big capacitor to the w800 input line for filtering as a test.

Each W800 is individually tuned and setup too, and can have problems with specific devices that other ones won’t. I have a couple of devices that simply will not be received by the W800 that is nearest them, they will be picked up probably 80% of the time by the W800 that serves the opposite side of the house though. Thats just due to the variation in the devices and the receivers. 

radio noise can also cause trouble, might increase the cable length between the xBee setup and the W800 just to make sure no frequency harmonic is leaking out or something and causing interference. 

for a regular antenna I use a scanner antenna from Radio Shack, the entire range of 300-450mhz or so that all the devices I want to receive is right in the middle of it’s effective range. I have 2 of them in the attic on either side of the house.


> On Mar 24, 2016, at 3:04 PM, Bob Ober <rmober123 at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> Is there a sleeping unit that needs to be woken up in the Old style W800 or the xBees that is the cause of it not reporting in?

Thanks,
 James


James Sentman                       http://www.PlanetaryGear.org		http://MacHomeAutomation.com




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