Dual radio with Expansion Board

How to connect the module

This module can be connected only to the SOCKET0 placed in the Waspmote board.

Figure: Module connected to Waspmote in Socket0

Expansion Radio Board

The Expansion Board allows to connect 2 communication modules at the same time in the Waspmote sensor platform. This means a lot of different combinations are possible using any of the wireless radios available for Waspmote: 802.15.4, ZigBee 3, DigiMesh, 868 MHz, 900 MHz, LoRa, WiFi, NB-IoT / Cat-M, 4G, Sigfox, LoRaWAN, Bluetooth Pro, Bluetooth Low Energy and RFID/NFC. Besides, the following Industrial Protocols modules are available: RS-485/Modbus and CAN Bus.

The CAN Bus module must be plugged on the SOCKET0 and cannot be in use with other SPI modules like LoRa or RS-485.

Some of the possible combinations are:

• LoRaWAN - 4G

• 802.15.4 - Sigfox

• 868 MHz - RS-485

• NB-IoT / Cat-M - WiFi

• DigiMesh - 4G

• NB-IoT / Cat-M - RFID/NFC

• WiFi - 4G

• CAN Bus - Bluetooth

• etc

Remark: 4G and NB-IoT / Cat-M modules do not need the Expansion Board to be connected to Waspmote. They can be plugged directly in the socket1.

Figure: Dual radio with expansion board

This API provides a function in order to initialize the CAN Bus module. The CAN Bus module can be used only in the socket 0. The rest of functions are used the same way as they are used with older API versions. In order to understand them we recommend to read this guide.

CAN Bus, RS-485 and LoRa modules can only be plugged on the socket 0 of Waspmotes. That means, for example, that one Waspmote cannot have RS-485 and LoRa at the same time.

Warnings:

• Avoid to use DIGITAL7 pin when working with the Expansion Board. This pin is used for setting the XBee into sleep mode.

• Avoid to use DIGITAL6 pin when working with the Expansion Board. This pin is used as power supply for the Expansion Board.

• Incompatibility with Sensor Boards:

  • Agriculture PRO v30: Incompatible with Watermark and solar radiation sensors

  • Events v30: Incompatible with interruption shift register

  • Smart Water v30: DIGITAL7 incompatible with conductivity sensor

  • Smart Water Ions v30: Incompatible with ADC conversion (sensors cannot be read if the Expansion Board is in use)

  • Gases PRO v30: Incompatible with SOCKET_2 and SOCKET_3

    Cities PRO v30: Incompatible with SOCKET_3. I2C bus can be used. No gas sensor can be used.