Wireless Starter Pack notes¶

This page was set up to collect notes and tips for the Wireless Starter Pack in the JeeLabs shop.

When You've Unpacked Everything¶

To fully use the starter pack, you'll need to do some soldering. But...

Before you do, there are a few experiments you can do right away, because two of the nodes come pre-assembled and pre-loaded with the RF12demo code.

Hooking up Two Nodes to Usb¶

The JeeLink and the JeeNode USB both have USB interfaces. The JeeLink plugs right into your PC, the JeeNode USB needs a standard min-USB cable, the same as usually included with digital cameras, etc.

The next step, once attached, is to find out how to use these USB devices from your desktop PC. This depends on the type of operating system you use: Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.

TBD

Once you have two terminal sessions running (at 57600 baud), you can verify that
they work:

• on both terminals you'll see several lines of help text once properly connected

• type `1l` (digit one + letter ell - no return needed) to turn on a blue LED on either of these boards

Congratulations, you now have two nodes powered up and communicating with the PC!

Sending Packets over Wireless from One Node to the Other¶

Here's how to send some test packets across:

• configure the JeeLink by typing this: 8b 9g 1i (i.e. 868 MHz band, net group 9, node id 1)

• configure the JeeNode USB by typing this: 8b 9g 2i (i.e. 868 MHz band, netgroup 9, node id 2)

• send some test data (this works on either node): `t`

• you should see the incoming data on the other node, and an acknowledgement being sent back

Congratulations, you have just sent some data through thin air!

Setting up the Arduino IDE¶

The Arduino IDE is an integrated development for the popular Arduino boards, with which the JeeLink and JeeNodes are compatible. This makes it very easy to try out lots of existing sample code and to develop new software for JeeLink & JeeNodes - just install the Arduino IDE and start coding:

You can follow the instructions in the link given above, or better still: go through some detailed instructions on this wiki to set up the IDE and try a blinking LED demo using the JeeNode USB (which is essentially a JeeNode + USB-BUB adapter + LED + reset button on one board).

Go to the POF 02 - Hello world page now. Once you've got the IDE installed, you can come back to this page.

Measuring the Amount of Light Via USB¶

TBD

Measuring the Amount of Light Via Wireless¶

TBD

More coming... evidently ;)