Arduino MKR NB 1500 Problems

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi,

I got an Arduino MKR NB 1500 yesterday, along with a 3.7V 2000 mAh battery, an antenna, and a Hologram IO SimCard. After plugging in the board, I first ran the program "TestModem" from the MKRNB Library. The program uploaded and I got this response from the serial console.

Starting modem test...modem.begin() succeeded
Checking IMEI...Modem's IMEI: 35644xxx2929xxx
Resetting modem...Modem is functoning properly

Next, I tried uploading the program SendSMS, however, after uploading the program and opening the serial console, the only thing printed was "SMS Messages Sender".

So, I then uploaded the program PinManagement, and got the print out:

Change PIN example

No pin necessary.
Checking register in NB IoT / LTE Cat M1 network...ERROR

Finally, I uploading the example NBScanNetworks. Then after opening the serial console, the only thing printed was "NB IoT/LTE Cat M1 networks scanner".

Right Now, I am very confused and do not understand any of these problems.

More Information:

The antenna I purchased was (https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/adafruit-industries-llc/1991/1528-1586-ND/5875795) Would this work for my project?

Also, I just activated the hologram SIM Card about 30 minutes ago, could that be a problem.

Could I have bad cellular reception?

Does anyone have any idea about how to solve my problems? I would really appreciate any help/guidance. If you think that you need more information to help, I will try and respond fast.

Thanks!

My first goal is to be able to send an SMS message.

2

Quick Update:

After messing around with the examples, I was able to get the program to continue running. At the top of the program, under where it prints the name, I set "boolean connected = true;

I'm not sure what this does, but it allows the program to continue.

I then went to the scan networks and it looks like it found some stuff because it came up with a bunch of numbers and signal strength etc.

So, I uploaded the SendSMS program. I typed in my normal phone number and sent the message "hi". By the way, do you need to include the "1" before for United States?

However, after clicking enter, it has been over 5 minutes and it still says "SENDING"

What do you think is preventing the SMS from sending/any problems? My Hologram Sim Card now says activated on their website however I don't see any data usage.

I would appreciate any help.

Thanks again.

3

Another Update:

I got it to send SMS messages however instead of sending 1, it is sending 20+.

Why?

How can I make it only send 1?

4

There seems to be a common problem with these LTE CAT M1 connectivity boards (Particle Boron, Sparkfun Shield etc). I am no expert, just someone who wants to send an sms as bad as you do.

Your antenna should be fine, I checked and it is able to support all the frequency bands the U-blox r4 radio module uses.

I did find that someone was able to send an sms by AT commands, this is the link: [SOLVED] Any success sending SMS to U-Blox SARA-R410M-02B or any SARA-R4 module? - 3rd Party Cellular Hardware - Hologram Support Community

I think you could do this with the mkr 1500 board but I could be mistaken.

This link could also be helpful in trying to troubleshoot any connectivity issues: Can Boron be used to recieve and send SMS? - #24 by michaelm - BLE // NFC - Particle

I would also choose one 4G technology (either CAT-M1 or NB-IoT) maybe that could speed things up and potentially get it to work. (chooseradioaccesstechnology)

May I ask what sim card did you exactly buy from hologram? Link?

The network provider may not of approved the u-blox SARA-R410M-02B modem used in the MKR 1500. This is unlikely however and I doubt this is the case.

Let me know if any of this helps, I know this isn't much but its all I got for right now.

5

Hello, thank you for your reply.

Luckily, I was able to get a text message sent. I think that I keeps sending text messages like crazy until I close the program because it is in a loop.

The sim card that I am using is the Hologram Pilot SIM Card because you get 1MB of free data.

I am now trying to use the "ReceiveSMS" program, however, I am not sure what number to text. When I try to respond to the texts sent by the MKR NB 1500, I get a response in another text message that the 15 digit number is not valid and must be 10 digits?

How can I find the correct phone number of my MKR 1500 in order to be able to text it messages?

Thanks!

6

I think that I keeps sending text messages like crazy until I close the program because it is in a loop.

Yes, you need to post your code using code tags as explained in point #7 of How To Use This Forum. loop( ) does exactly what it says, and if you have not written code to explicitly send only one message it will send multiples as it repeats.

7

Hi,

I answered that question in my previous post.

In that post, I also asked one final question about how to send a text message to my Arduino MKR Nb 1500. In that post, I mentioned that when I had used the board to send my phone a text message, the "phone number" was 15 digits which my carrier said was not valid.

Therefore, I asked what "phone number" to use to be able to send texts to my arduino and how to find it.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I would appreciate any help.

Thanks

8

Hi, I'm a begginer with arduino, I'm trying to connect and Arduino MKR NB 1500 to my computer, but it never appears in my serial port menu, any explanation for this problem?

9

omaryoussef try reconnecting the connection between your board and your computer. Make sure you have the correct board selected as well and you select the correct port when it appears.

electrowiz I believe in the hologram dashboard you can assign the sim card an artificial number and thats the number you would use to put in the RecieveSMS code example.

electrowiz how were you able to finally send an SMS message to your phone? I am having difficulty with that part of the code. Everything else seems like it works (I have a signal of 26, modem works) but I am still not receiving a text message. Serial monitor just says SENDING for +10 minutes.