Asked
— Edited
Hello everyone,
I just got my EZ-B this week. Super excited to play with it and put it in my new robot I have been working on. I would like to cover the EZ-B board in a plastic case, but I'm wondering how that might affect the bluetooth signal. Does anyone have any issues with signal loss when the board and bluetooth transceiver are in an enclosed plastic case?
Happy Roboting,
-Justin Ratliff
www.J2RScientfic.com
Plastic should be ok I'd have thought. But be cautious of the heat it may produce.
If you find out later on that there is an issue with the bluetooth signal, you will have an option to upgrade from a class 2 (33 feet) bluetooth to a class 1 (330 feet) device by purchasing a class 1 bluetooth dongle for your PC from amazon.com or ebay and order a class 1 blueSMiRF and header from sparkfun.com to install into your EZB.
Ohhhh, very good advice Robot-Doc. Thank you. I had been wondering what the class rating was on the included bluetooth.
The bluetooth dongle I have for my laptop is rated up to 100m and I have good range when using my serial-to-bluetooth Belkin devices in the past. I don't think my robot will go beyond 30ft range of it's controlling laptop. Has anyone tried to max out the range of the included bluetooth?
I often exceed the range of the default module... it's 30ft in open space, from my HTPC (my test rig too) to my kitchen is around 9 or 10m, the far end of my kitchen is where it disconnects.
Definitely pay attention to overheating.
My bot is currently made from a Zune box. Its SOLID cardboard. I get my 33 ft out of it just fine and I probably don't have my bluetooth adapter in the best spot. I do have an open end to slide the batteries and EZB into so it's not entirely closed off but the open end doesn't face my adapter very often. I haven't noticed it getting HOT at all but I've maybe only had it plugged in for about an hour or so at a time.
I have mine in a plastic project case from radio shack and I'm pretty sure it does affect my range. 33ft is lame anyways so for testing untill I upgrade 33ft or 10ft makes no difference to me.
@robohobo Since you put it that way, I guess you're kinda right. Also I measured and I'm only getting 24 ft
Just to be accurate. I don't want to mislead anyone. Sorry for the previous guesstimation.
@robot-doc I found these on Spark Fun and was just wondering what you would suggest. blueSMiRF and header And would you use this class 1 unit? Class 1 adapter I also found this little bit of info on the classes of Bluetooth. Bluetooth defined