
Tonight I hooked up these neat little zigbee radios and got a network going. These little radios mix modern mesh networking with the old school hayes AT command set. You basically dial another network node and start talking. Very weird, but also very cool.
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I've been wanting to play with some radios, but bletooth is too expensive/weird. I've heard of zigbee but haven't looked into them much.
The radios were $19 each and I ended up spending $5 more each on the breakout boards.
They're out of stock on the breakout boards right now (weep), but I'm gonna order a pair. Thanks :)
I also strongly recommend getting one of these for each radio:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=718
and one of these so you can put it in a breadboard:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=117
The ft232rl board outputs the 3v needed to run the xbee. Don't put 5v into them or you'll let the smoke out.
Ooooooo and the xbee breakouts came back into stock! Rad!
Not sure what the battery life is going to be off of a 9v, but it should be entertaining for a while :)
I have one unit put together with a MAX232 and 3v regulator with the MAX232 set to 3v signaling. Remember that rs232 is +12/-12 signaling and will surely smoke the unit.
Of course if you are just making leds blink they'll do it just fine at 3v. You'll end up drawing about 60mA at 3.3v with the radio and some bright leds running so you can work out the battery life from there.