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By Oleg Mazurov  Cheap GPRS modem from Dealextreme
Some time ago I started writing about connecting Arduino to cellular network. Using standard GSM AT commands, a program running on Arduino can place and take calls, send and receive SMS, shoot pictures, access the Internet while monitoring phone’s battery level, signal strength and connection status. For many of these tasks any old phone works quite well, however, there are times when a specialized piece of hardware is desired. Today I’m going to talk about one such piece of hardware which can be connected to Arduino board using USB Host Shield.
USB Tri-band GPRS Modem from DealExtreme is just an ordinary GSM cell phone minus keyboard, display, battery, and built-in microphone/speaker. What is left makes inexpensive (~$25), lightweight (25 grams) and compact (see title picture) GSM/GPRS module to use in DIY projects. It supports a standard subset of GSM commands as well as some proprietary ones. The modem is built around BenQ M23 GSM/GPRS Wireless module and uses Prolific PL-2303 USB-to-serial converter. As explained on this page, the PL-2303 in the modem uses non-default USB PID; make sure to grab the latest version of my library, which transparently supports both PIDs.
To explore the functionality of this device I wrote a simple program which is based on Xbee terminal. The program initializes the PL-2303 and waits for user input passing keystrokes to the modem and displaying replies to the screen. Let’s run it and see what this little modem is capable of.
Continue reading Interfacing Arduino to USB GPRS modem
By Oleg Mazurov  Motorola RAZR talks to Arduino
One of the main motivations for adding asynchronous CDC support code to rev.2.0 of USB Host Library was to be able to use cell phones in Arduino projects – establish simple data exchange via SMS, take pictures or connect to the Internet. Second hand phones are inexpensive yet quite capable. Also, m2m (machine to machine) SIM cards start at $4-$6/mo, some even allow for free incoming SMS. All that makes a cell phone an attractive communication option for hobby projects. In this post, I will be talking about basics of cell phone control using data port and AT commands. I will also present simple terminal emulator sketch – to use the code you will need an Arduino board, USB Host Shield, as well as USB Host Shield 2.0 library.
Modern (<10 year old) phones have standard GSM chip interface implemented and accessible via so-called “data port”. The oldest phones implement TTL level asynchronous serial interface by means of “custom” USB data cable, which is just proprietary connector on one end, standard USB connector on the other end, and USB-to-serial converter chip (almost always Prolific PL2303) between them. Newer cell phones have USB-to-serial converter built-in. Motorola phones usually terminate data port on standard mini-USB connector, others, like Samsung and Sony Ericsson, use proprietary cable. The USB-to-serial converter in these phones is almost always standard CDC ACM type.
Many functions of the phone can be accessed by AT commands, similar to commands used to control Hayes phone modems. Standard GSM commands are defined in 3GPP TS 07.07 (look for the latest version, which is 7.8.0). Cell phone manufacturers also define their own AT commands. In documentation AT commands are usually presented in uppercase, however, most phones accept lowercase just as well. A command shall be followed by CR,LF (usually Enter key). If a command is accepted, OK is returned, along with response. If command is not recognized, ERROR is returned. Some commands will be accepted in certain phone states and rejected in others.
Continue reading Interfacing Arduino to a Cellular Phone
By Oleg Mazurov  Xbee on a protoboard
First of all – breadboards are evil. Sure, they are handy. But when you spend a whole day chasing glitches which drive your logic analyzer crazy, it’s not fun. I moved my Xbee setup on a protoboard; picture on the right shows the result. The capacitor on Xbee VDD pin is essential – the module generates pretty strong spikes every time it starts transmitting and without the capacitor one should expect to see glitches every 250ms or so. The manual recommends bypassing VDD using 1uF and 8.2pF caps in parallel; I’m using 0.1uF here and it works well also.
In the previous article, I talked about switching in and out of command mode on an Xbee module running AT firmware. You can do exciting things with AT commands; however, when you interact with the module via RF link, how are you supposed to see the output of an AT command? In command mode, all output goes back to the PIC USART, so we need a method to capture it and send back to us.
The following function is called from CLI. It queries every AT command, stores the result, and sends it back after going back online. The usual way of doing that is to switch to command mode, issue all the commands capturing output to a buffer, then switch back online and send the buffer contents back. PIC18 doesn’t have enough RAM to hold such a big buffer, that’s why this function queries one command at a time. Because of that, the function is quite slow – the guard time before sending “+++” is one second plus it needs to wait for RF transmission of previous result to complete before switching to command mode for the next query. It takes approximately 3 seconds per query and querying about 60 commands takes 3 minutes.
Continue reading Playing Xbee. Part 3 – Measure and send.
By Oleg Mazurov  Xbee on a breadboard
In the previous article, I described a simple wireless setup using a pair of Xbees connected to PIC microcontroller and serial port of a Linux machine. After finishing the article, I continued working on the project and that’s what I have found so far.
First, using router firmware in Xbee module is bad for your batteries. In this configuration power consumption is steady 40ma. In addition to that, sleep is not working. After loading end device firmware power consumption dropped to 5ma on average and I was able to use Sleep pin. Measured current in sleep mode is less than 1ua – not bad. Second, PIC18F4520 is not the best PIC for sensor applications. Newer K-series PIC18s with their internal 1.2V reference, such as PIC18F26K20, are much better. In addition, they can be clocked up to 64MHz, and they are cheaper. At the time of this writing PIC18F26K20 in DIP package sells for less than $4 in single quantities on Mouser.
Continue reading Playing Xbee. Part 2 – Command mode.
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