Battery powered GSM / Cellular Shield?

Projects Networking, Protocols, and Devices
21

Yes I did it and it worked fine. I unsoldered the PIN 3 on the voltage regulator and connected it to one of the arduino i/o pins to control it.

22

One way to power up a gsm might be to use a mosfet and trigger it using an arduino pin set to high. Then once the data has been sent, switch off the GSM using an ardiono pin set to low. This way the GSM is completely switched off when no data is sent.

23

Hi

I have a very small SIM800 module integrated into an Arduino system based on a Freetronics Ethermega system (which has broken ethernet hardware). It runs on Vodafone's New Zealand 2G network.

If you go back through my posts you will find implementation details which I summarise here:

You need a dedicated about 4V power supply.

5V from an Arduino system may fry a SIM800 module.

In any case an Arduino cannot supply 2A needed by SIM800 for network connection and SMS message transmissions.

You need a protocol converter to connect a 5V Arduino serial (USART) interface to a SIM800 2.8V serial interface.

You might also want to add a RTC module to your system so you can automatically reset the date and time in the SIM800 in your setup() procedure everytime you reset your system.

In my main Arduino system an http://www.2wg.co.nz on the SD card web page and in the PUBLIC folder I have placed a file GSM_TEST.INO that you can download. This code base for my system receives and responds to SIM800 AT commands as incoming SMS messages or via the Arduino monitor - you can just type in AT commands when using the Arduino monitor for debugging.

I will try to upload a photo of my SIM800 system tomorrow to the above PUBLIC folder.

EDIT 26/01/2016

There is an image of my SIM800 system at http://2wg.co.nz/IMAGES/SIM800.JPG. You should be able to spot the dedicated 4V/2A power supply (lower left), the RTC (with button cell battery), the SIM800 (SIM card beneath) and the protocol converter (left of SIM800). There is also a DHT11 on the prototype board measuring room termperature (as influenced by the system itself) and a four way relay module.

Cheers

Catweazle NZ