Sharing Arduino data

[Anonymous]

Hello folks

I need a bit of gentle guidance here

I have an Arduino Uno rev3 looking at data coming in from an XBee Series 2 attached to a gas meter with another XBee.

It works reasonably well, but I need to work on the sketch at the same time as data is coming in and access the Arduino IDE.

Clearly I can’t do it with the Uno with it’s one serial port, which is being used by the XBee.

My idea was to to put the “running” sketch on a Mega 2560,connect the XBee to one serial port on the Mega and possibly send the XBee frames with the data on through one of the Mega’s other serial ports to the Uno…… As I write this, a snag is appearing – I still won’t be able to work on one version of the sketch. So, will I need 2 Megas?

If this is feasible, in general terms, how would I get the XBee data onto the second Mega?

Warning – I am a more of a hardware man on the wrong side of retirement. Even getting the libraries in the right place was the usual struggle with “doesn’t name a type” etc.

Thanks for any help

[Anonymous]

Hi,

maybe you could try an ISP:

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoISP

With this it’s possible to keep the serial connection on RX/TX connected while programming directly on the AtMega. When you like to flash a new sketch you do it over the ICSP Connection on the uno, not directly with the USB Port of the Uno. Havn’t tryed it but maybe it works

Good luck ,-)

Pac-Man

 

[Bill]

Phil,

 

Using a software serial port is about the only way to do what you want. Can the Xbee data be slowed down to sat 9600 baud?

[Author]

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