18X and Xbee questions

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shoei600

New Member
Hi All,

I am a newbie to the Picaxe world and a very impressed one at that.

A few questions though...

Can I set outputs of the 18X to be used as input pins? And if so, how do I then read their status?

The Xbee modules can send RSSI and power indication within its broadcast. Can I access these with the Xbee connect 18X setup?

I'm currently reading the pins status and DS18b20 temperature and sending strings successfully from a remote Xbee setup. I'd like to add the RSSI and power level to the string.

Many thanks.
 
D

Dippy

Moderator
Are you referring to the RSSI info when used in API mode?

I've no personal experience of this but will be interested in any sensible replies too.
 
hippy

hippy

Ex-Staff (retired)
shoei600 said:
The Xbee modules can send RSSI and power indication within its broadcast. Can I access these with the Xbee connect 18X setup?
Click to expand...
Entering XBee command mode ( "<pause>+++<pause>" ) and issuing an "ATDB" command when controlled by a PC gets the received signal strength. I don't know if the serial comms timing would work with 18X SERIN / SEROUT.

There's a hardware pin which puts out a PWM of RSSI but I didn't find it to be that useful or indicative. That may be because I have very old XBee modules; there have been a number of hardware and firmware changes and things may be different these days.
 
S

shoei600

New Member
Thanks gents.

I'll give the output/input tweak a try tomorrow, I only want to monitor 4 pins for a binary id value that I can then send in a serial string. I've done this on the normal pins but I was running out of inputs.

I was hoping that the picaxe team had implemented more of the xBee module in a similar way to the DS18B20 where all of the 'hard work' was embedded. For my solution the AT command will work as my xBee 'modem' will be connecting to an AMX control system which I'll be able to code to do this.

Once again, many thanks.
 
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