Components

A description of the components being used was posted in March. Here's a list just to recap. The supplier was Proto-PIC

PC Unit

XBee 2mW Series 2

XBee Explorer USB (in case)

Remote Unit

XBee 2mW Series 2

XBee Wireless Shield

Temperature Sensor, TMP36

Battery Holder, 4AA

JST Jumper, 2Wire

Reverse side of shield showing clearly marked connection points

The wireless shield is the small circuit board with headers to accept the XBee. The shield provides the power regulation and means of connecting external devices. However, this is where some challenges lie for those not so familiar with practical electronics(myself!). The first challenge is making connections.

A battery holder was chosen with a terminated lead. That is a "polarized termination, square configuration plug" on the end of the lead.  Therefore, by soldering a 2Wire JST Jumper onto the shield connection to the battery was made more convenient. An alternative could have been to solder the battery lead directly onto the shield but the plug approach allows for a certain amount of future reconfiguration.

Finally, the PC to which the XBee Explorer is connected is a standard Vista laptop with USB port. The PC can be of very modest specification and originally I was using a very old XP laptop which was OK but because it was slow booting etc I decided to use another PC.