Wireless starter Kit

Sparkfun in Colorado.  Start here.

Sparkfun.com.  They will have a lot of items and you can cross to Spain, Europe area.

I initially bought the SparkFun XBee starter kit at MicroCenter (a computer retail store):

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9897

But then I realized it includes XBee Series 1 modules and returned it.  The Series 2 modules about the same price if buying separately and support ZigBee (the standardized protocol).  I believe main advantage would be for better interoperability with other equipment and the ability to do mesh networking. 

Here's a Series 2 module at SparkFun:

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10414

The Series 2 may take more effort to configure, but probably provide more utility in the long run.  I've been reading "Building Wireless Sensor Networks" which is pretty helpful:

http://books.google.com/books/reader?id=xMC69vQJLZIC&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA12.w.3.0.46

Cheers,

Drew

Thank you both for your advice.

I almost made up my mind. I think I'm going to pick a starter kit with an Arduino Uno, and a couple of XBee series 2.

But when it comes to give power and connectivity to the XBee's , I have found two main ways: and adapter such as XBee explorer, or directly a shield connected to the Uno board. I realized the shield is far more expensive than the explorer... is really worth getting the shield? Can't I communicate the Arduino Uno board with the XBee's otherwise?

Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it.

I suggest you look at what Sparkfun has to offer also but check around, a lot of times you can find the same thing cheaper elseware.

You might wanna take a look at Adafruit, they have a USB XBee adapter board (like the SparkFun part):

https://www.adafruit.com/products/247

but also a cheaper adapter if you already have an FTDI cable:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/126

If you are interested in SD card, too, then I noticed this Arduino.cc shield that has an XBee socket on it at RadioShack:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12333769

Another thing I thought I'd mention is that I was surprised when I learned the XBee modules can do ADC and DAC on their own.  Depending on the project, you could have a sensor directly interface with one XBee and then have another XBee connected to an Arduino to receive the data (instead of having 2 Arduinos invovled).

Cheers,

Drew

Hi,

finally I bought some pieces on different places: cooking-hacks, sparkfun and seeed studio. Thanks again for the advices.

I got recently the arduino uno, and I'm playing with it a little bit. After installing and testing the board successfully (running the blink led example), I got this messages on the dmesg terminal command (Linux Ubuntu 10.10):

[  108.776806] usb 2-1.2: new full speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
[  108.938519] cdc_acm 2-1.2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[  108.939350] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
[  108.939355] cdc_acm: v0.26:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
[  111.020250] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded
[  116.010347] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded
[  121.000399] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded
[  125.990487] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded
[  130.980576] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded
[  135.970673] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded
[  140.960761] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded
[  145.951395] intel ips 0000:00:1f.6: MCP power or thermal limit exceeded

Is it abnormal? I'm a bit worried...

Hi Oscar,

Glad to see you're running Linux - I am, too .  I would think this probably not related to the Arduino.  I see that that this log message has been discussed on the Ubuntu StackExchange Q&A site.  The top answer links to these instructions:

http://jordilin.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/ubuntu-maverick-not-a-perfect-10-but-nearly/

Cheers,

Drew

BTW, if you're able, you might want to upgrade.  I upgraded from Ubuntu 10.10 to 11.04 earlier this year with no problems (on a Thinkpad T410s).

Cheers,

Drew

Too much voltage? Too near to a hot component?

This needs to be fixed asap.