How to get Xbee talking to Raspberry Pi using Uart

Question

I have a XBee S2 connected to a Raspberry Pi using the serial port and am trying to use minicom on the Pi to communicate and can not get a response from the XBee. I have tried numerous baud rates but when I enter +++ to wake up the XBee nothing happens.
Below is some of the configuration information.

Xbee: Baud Rate: 115200 Data Bits etc: 8N1 XBee Config

RPi Config:

OS: Debian(Weezy)

Program used: minicom

Command: minicom -b 115200 -o -D /dev/ttyAMA0

NOTE: I have tried sudo in front of the command as well

I have disabled the console code using the following techniques: Link to console disable directions

Connection:

RPi Tx to XBee Rx

RPi Rx to XBee Tx

RPi 3v to XBee Vcc

Rpi Gnd to XBee Gnd

Measured voltage on XBee between pins 10(Gnd) and pin 1(V+) measures 3.1vdc

Using Bee adapter V1.4 from ElecFreaks as the Xbee breakout board. Board switched to 3v mode and have tried the other switch on both settings.

Tested RPi by connecting tx to rx on the pi and using minicom the input is echoed correctly.

XBee using X-CTU terminal will work find IE: I enter +++ and it responds with OK.

When its all hooked up I use minicom on the Pi and enter +++ and nothing happens. Blank screen.

I have been working on this for a couple of days and can not seem to figure out what is happening. Please anyone if you can tell me what I am doing wrong or make a suggestion as to something to try I would sincerely appreciate it.
Thanks, Ed

Can you establish a network between two modules? Can you "see" the RPi's module on the network when it's powered up? Can you send to the RPi module and see the data come out in minicom? Can you type data into minicom and see it come out in the paired module? — tomlogic
Hi and thanks for the help! I can establish a network between the two devices. I have a different device which is a controller that i hooked up to the PC using Digi XBIB. I do a atnd and the remote responds with its information. The remote xbee is a router. I can not sent to the RPi and do not see data on minicom. When i type in minicom nothing appears on the PC using X-CTU. Really strange. Any other thoughts? Thanks for your help! — Edd

Edd Edd · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-02T03:23:37

I have figured it out. I'll post it here so hopefully it will help someone else in the future. I reversed the TXD and RX connections and viola! It now works as expected. It turns out the breakout board "Bee Adapter V1.4" from ElecFreaks is labeled incorrectly... I hooked TXD from the Pi to the TXD from the board and RXD to RXD and all works fine. I thought I tried that but it works now for some reason. Thank you for your assistance and I hope this helps someone in the future. Take Care!

How to get Xbee talking to Raspberry Pi using Uart

1 Answers