The Sense/Stage MiniBee is a small microcontroller board based on the Arduino, integrated with a connection for an XBee wireless chip. It is small and comes with preloaded firmware to use it easily in your wireless projects for a lot of common sensing and actuating purposes. As a bonus there is a 3-axis accelerometer on board. Cross platform open source software sends the data from the boards to your interactive environment via OpenSoundControl (OSC).

Overview of the board:

  • 6 analog inputs: A0, A1, A2, A3, A6, A7
  • 8 digital inputs or outputs: D3 and D5 to D11
  • PWM (“analog”) output, at pins D3, D5, D6, D9, D10, D11
  • I2C communication: SDA (A4), SCL (A5)
  • Serial I/O: RX, TX (to XBee)
  • Power input (between 3.3V and 5V), through battery connector and coin cell battery
  • Regulated power output: 3.3V, GND
  • green pcb

Pins

The pin outs on the header are from left to right:

GND - RX - D5 - D7 - D9 - D11 - A6 - SDA - A2 - A0
3v3 - TX - D3 - D6 - D8 - D10 - A7 - SCL - A3 - A1

LEDs

Technical documents

  • board layout
  • schematic

Design files for Eagle on github

Changes to previous version

Revision D of the board has a few minor improvements on revision B:

  • An additional LED on pin D4 for status indication.
  • RX and TX also available on the output pin header.
  • All bootloader programming pins broken out in the middle of the board

Programming firmware and the bootloader

For programming the firmware, use the board definition: Sense/Stage MiniBee revB/D/F (3.3V, 12MHz) w/ Atmega328p

In the source code of customized firmware, make sure that you use revision D, so the Bee.setup command should be:

Bee.setup(57600,'D');

Subversions

The first manufacturing run has the Atmega328 chip instead of the Atmega328p chip. This is a subtle difference that only affects the board if you want to program the bootloader onto the board, or program firmware without using the bootloader. The boards of this first batch can be recognized by a sticker on the bottom with a serial number, and the desoldered pin holes. In the hardware definitions within the Arduino IDE, this version is called Sense/Stage MiniBee revD0 (3.3V, 12MHz) w/ Atmega328. You only need this for programming the bootloader or programming the board with the Atmel programmer, not for the regular uploading of firmware.

You may also need the section below in the avrdude.conf file that is in the hardware/tools/ folder of your copy of Arduino if you want to program with an AVR programmer onto the chip (e.g. for changing the bootloader, or bypassing it):

#------------------------------------------------------------
# ATmega328
#------------------------------------------------------------

part
id = "m328";
desc = "ATMEGA328";
has_debugwire = yes;
flash_instr = 0xB6, 0x01, 0x11;
eeprom_instr = 0xBD, 0xF2, 0xBD, 0xE1, 0xBB, 0xCF, 0xB4, 0x00,
0xBE, 0x01, 0xB6, 0x01, 0xBC, 0x00, 0xBB, 0xBF,
0x99, 0xF9, 0xBB, 0xAF;
stk500_devcode = 0x86;
# avr910_devcode = 0x;
signature = 0x1e 0x95 0x14;
pagel = 0xd7;
bs2 = 0xc2;
chip_erase_delay = 9000;
pgm_enable = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x";

chip_erase = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 x x x x x",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x";

timeout = 200;
stabdelay = 100;
cmdexedelay = 25;
synchloops = 32;
bytedelay = 0;
pollindex = 3;
pollvalue = 0x53;
predelay = 1;
postdelay = 1;
pollmethod = 1;

pp_controlstack =
0x0E, 0x1E, 0x0F, 0x1F, 0x2E, 0x3E, 0x2F, 0x3F,
0x4E, 0x5E, 0x4F, 0x5F, 0x6E, 0x7E, 0x6F, 0x7F,
0x66, 0x76, 0x67, 0x77, 0x6A, 0x7A, 0x6B, 0x7B,
0xBE, 0xFD, 0x00, 0x01, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00;
hventerstabdelay = 100;
progmodedelay = 0;
latchcycles = 5;
togglevtg = 1;
poweroffdelay = 15;
resetdelayms = 1;
resetdelayus = 0;
hvleavestabdelay = 15;
resetdelay = 15;
chiperasepulsewidth = 0;
chiperasepolltimeout = 10;
programfusepulsewidth = 0;
programfusepolltimeout = 5;
programlockpulsewidth = 0;
programlockpolltimeout = 5;

memory "eeprom"
paged = no;
page_size = 4;
size = 1024;
min_write_delay = 3600;
max_write_delay = 3600;
readback_p1 = 0xff;
readback_p2 = 0xff;
read = " 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 x x x a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" o o o o o o o o";

write = " 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 x x x a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" i i i i i i i i";

loadpage_lo = " 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1",
" 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 0 0 0 a1 a0",
" i i i i i i i i";

writepage = " 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0",
" 0 0 x x x x a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 0 0",
" x x x x x x x x";

mode = 0x41;
delay = 5;
blocksize = 4;
readsize = 256;
;

memory "flash"
paged = yes;
size = 32768;
page_size = 128;
num_pages = 256;
min_write_delay = 4500;
max_write_delay = 4500;
readback_p1 = 0xff;
readback_p2 = 0xff;
read_lo = " 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 a13 a12 a11 a10 a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" o o o o o o o o";

read_hi = " 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0",
" 0 0 a13 a12 a11 a10 a9 a8",
" a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" o o o o o o o o";

loadpage_lo = " 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 x x x x x",
" x x a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" i i i i i i i i";

loadpage_hi = " 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0",
" 0 0 0 x x x x x",
" x x a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0",
" i i i i i i i i";

writepage = " 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0",
" 0 0 a13 a12 a11 a10 a9 a8",
" a7 a6 x x x x x x",
" x x x x x x x x";

mode = 0x41;
delay = 6;
blocksize = 128;
readsize = 256;

;

memory "lfuse"
size = 1;
min_write_delay = 4500;
max_write_delay = 4500;
read = "0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o";

write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x i i i i i i i i";
;

memory "hfuse"
size = 1;
min_write_delay = 4500;
max_write_delay = 4500;
read = "0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x o o o o o o o o";

write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x i i i i i i i i";
;

memory "efuse"
size = 1;
min_write_delay = 4500;
max_write_delay = 4500;
read = "0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x o o o";

write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x x x x x x i i i";
;

memory "lock"
size = 1;
min_write_delay = 4500;
max_write_delay = 4500;
read = "0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0",
"x x x x x x x x x x o o o o o o";

write = "1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 x x x x x",
"x x x x x x x x 1 1 i i i i i i";
;

memory "calibration"
size = 1;
read = "0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x x",
"0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 o o o o o o o o";
;

memory "signature"
size = 3;
read = "0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x x",
"x x x x x x a1 a0 o o o o o o o o";
;
;

page created on: last changed on:
6 February 2017 6 February 2018