ANT Forum

I am trying to establish communication between cc2571, that is controlled by stm32l-discovery board, and USB dongle, that is controlled by ANTwareII.

The problem is that every time I open the channel on CC2671, I get a Search Timeout event.

cc2571 Configuration:
Network number: 0
Network key: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
Channel number: 0
Channel type: 0x00 (slave)
Device number: 49
Device type: 1
Transmition type: 1
Channel frequency: 66
Channel period 8192

USB dongle:
Channel type: 0x10 (master)
Other parameters are the same.

Here is the code sample:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32866123/main.c

Commands I send to ANT:
ResetSystem
SetNetworkKey
AssignChannel
SetChannelID
SetChannelRFFrequency
SetChannelPeriod
OpenChannel

After opening channel I continuously read from ANT and after some time I get Search Timeout event message.

Should I make any additional steps?
Have I done anything wrong?
Could be possible that ANT radio does not work and how to check that?

Any suggestion would be much appreciated!

Regards,

Janez      

Hi Janez,

It would be useful to investigate the ANTware II logs to confirm the channel parameters match your slave's parameters, there may be some inconsistencies left behind from the default settings.

Best regards,
Harrison      

One possible issue that I noticed in your code is that the channelID is set to be all wildcards. If you are setting up a master ANT channel then you must specify these fields (Section 5.2.3 in the ANT message protocol and usage guide)      

We have redesigned the RF part and we followed the instructions in reference design to the letter.

We have analyzed log files to match slave's and master's channel parameters and ANT configuration seems to be OK, also HOST - ANT communication (uart) works fine, but we are experiencing another problem.

The problem is that the receive part at cc2571 does not seem to work.

When cc2571 is set to master, the USB dongle connects to it and can receive data, but cc2571 always gets EVENT_TRANSFER_TX_FAILED after sending acknowledged data (even though USB receives that data).

However, when cc2571 is set to slave, it does not connect to USB dongle and EVENT_RX_SEARCH_TIMEOUT occurs. We have monitored signals between host and ant and after opening the channel there is not any traffic going on except EVENT_RX_SEARCH_TIMEOUT after a while.

RF signal is strong enough (tried at 5cm and also 4m - no difference).

Is it possible that USB default settings differs from cc2571's? After we set control signals & HARD reset of the cc2571 chip and software reset, we configured networkkey, assigned channel, set channel id, radio frequency and period (in that order). Do we need to configure anything else?

If it helps... After hard reset we get response that says watch dog reset occured!?

What can i try to solve this problem?

Thank you for your help,

BR,
Janez      

Interesting Janez,

I'm actually have the same issue.
I've tested my code fully with the usb stick.
Now, we've switched to a custom uart module.

My module is the host end.

My module will pair with a slave.
The slave will RX the broadcast messages from the HOST.
However, it can not send Acknowledged data.

As I understand it, you're having the same problem.

I'll post if I have any problems.

The usb stick works fine.
The only difference I can find between it and the custom uart style interface is that CTS stays high in *software* for the usb stick. Probing the signals (pin 5 of the usb stick) shows that the signal is low.

While probing the other signals of the usb device I did see that my tied_GND is high. Any one else see that?      

Hi Janez,

Can you please provide me with the complete logs, so I can triple check your channel configurations etc?

Once you send me your logs, I will have a better idea on how to assist you.

Thanks!

Kassandra      

Hi!

This is log file for USB dongle (set as master):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32866123/MasterANT.txt

I do not have cc2571's logs, so maybe cc2571's configuration (as slave) using uart interface would help:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32866123/ant.c

..and .h file:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32866123/ant.h

I hope this helps.

Should I put two optional zeros at the end of each config command?

Thanks for looking into this,

Janez      

Hi Janez,

I have reviewed your CC2571 slave configuration and noticed a couple of things:

1) You set the channel period to 1131 (24.99Hz) on the CC2571 but you do not set it on the master device. Therefore, the master is using the default channel period which is 8192(4 Hz).

2)When you check the channel state code, you should only be checking the last two bits (bits 0:1) of the channel status byte. In non-AP1 devices, the channel status byte contains 3 fields:
Bits 0:1 - channel status (assigned, searching, tracking etc)
Bits 2:3 - Network number
Bits 4:7 - Channel assignment (master, slave, Tx only, Rx only etc).

If your state machine moves based on this, it could be failing here because you do not mask off just the channel status bits when checking the channel status. You would return 0 in all cases.

However, the fact that you can open a master channel leads me to believe the issue may be with the hardware. It might be something like the crystal that is causing the issue.

If it is the hardware that is the issue, I suggest taking your query to the TI e2e forums, as they support their reference design. They will be able to review your schematics and RF design.

The link to the e2e forums is here:

http://e2e.ti.com/support/low_power_rf/f/660.aspx

Please keep us posted with your progress regarding this issue.

Good luck!

Kassandra      

Kassandra,

thanks for quick reply. Let me answer your questions first:

Ad 1): The 1311 value is commented so 8192 is actually the right channel period configuration for my cc2571.

Ad 2): Thanks for pointing that out. I did not notice that. At this stage I use channel status only for better understanding and is not implemented in my state machine.

When you wrote that this could be a hardware issue I started to play with the RF part of the module - channel period and frequency.

I set USB dongle to 2466 MHz and cc2571 to 2465 MHz and managed to establish the connection. Now it works fine! Weird, right? So this is a hardware issue after all.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

This story might continue on TI e2e forums.

Regards,

Janez      

That is very strange! I'm glad to hear things are starting to work out for you.

Good luck in the future,

Kassandra