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halldave

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Joined: 04/05/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 121

Posted: 05:16pm 19 Jun 2014

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I'm looking at a GPRM/GSM Module to interface serially from Micromite, I have found this one
EBAY

Which I can land into Australia for about $48AUD

has anyone tried the EFCom boards they look nice and gleaming and white or does anyone have an alternative (maybe cheaper) that would accept a Telstra 3G SIM?

regards

David

kiiid

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Joined: 11/05/2013
Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: 05:32pm 19 Jun 2014

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$40 sent to you

http://rittle.org

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halldave

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Posted: 06:41pm 19 Jun 2014

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Thanks Ill have a read of the AT Commands

kiiid

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Posted: 07:02pm 19 Jun 2014

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Ah, yes. You can download the AT commands - very nice set optimised for M2M applications.
By the way, with a bit of consideration for the shared ports, you can run the uMite software straight on the module's PIC32.

Edited by kiiid 2014-06-21

http://rittle.org

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halldave

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Location: Australia
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Posted: 07:55pm 19 Jun 2014

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I could not find the correct datasheet on the site

Are these locally made and from what your saying I can load micromite on there

Can you pm me more information please

halldave

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Posted: 07:58pm 19 Jun 2014

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Ok link works now

Time for some reading - thanks

viscomjim
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Posted: 01:23am 20 Jun 2014

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Hi David,

The Efcom pro that you link to is the one I use with the uMite. Works quite well. Uses 5v so make sure you use the 5v tolerant pins on uMite. It is also available as a shield that would fit on a CMM or Colormax 2 by Circuit Gizmos.

viscomjim
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Posted: 03:24am 20 Jun 2014

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Hello Kiiid,

I really like your module. It is really extra cool due to using a PIC32mx150f128B. Is there any way to bring out pins 33and 34 so it can be flashed with uMite firmware and then hook up console with these two pins? That would make for an nice compact gsm unit using mmbasic to run things. I also see that you have a few I/O pins available to control things with. Very Nice Product. Let me know about the console thing and if this can be accessed, I will want to play with one. How much do you think it would cost to ship to U.S.

Thanks

kiiid

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Posted: 01:30pm 20 Jun 2014

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Hi viscomjim,

At the time when I was still designing the schematic of this module there was no micromite yet. The M2Mbee module is a cooperative project between myself and a guy in Portugal (who had the idea for it) and it was initially intended to be rather a pin-to-pin replacement for a Xbee, but then I had some room left on the board and decided to add a microcontroller and external memory to make it completely standalone. When Geoff released the micromite later, the boards were already made and unfortunately he had selected for console exactly those pins which Microchip use for the RTC crystal (while UART pins can be shifted across the pinout, RTC crystal pins can't). That was a lemon and I was hoping to get it fixed in a special micromite firmware release for the module but got another hit when Geoff publicly prohibited those 'clonings'. So, in theory you can run the micromite and it will make a very nice little system indeed, but I can't do much about that unless the user modify the micromite source himself to route the console to one of the other pins instead or Geoff allow this modification done.
This is still unreleased product and at the moment I have a very limited number of samples for interested people. Please contact me in a PM or email if you want to give it a try.

Kon

http://rittle.org

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kiiid

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Posted: 04:40pm 20 Jun 2014

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I have set up now a link with very limited number of these for pre-release: http://dimitech.com/products.php (scroll to the very bottom). Note that this is still a beta.
If Geoff make an exception to the general rule for the Micromite firmware and allow me (or himself) to make a revision for this, that would be great.
Edited by kiiid 2014-06-22

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viscomjim
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Posted: 05:32am 21 Jun 2014

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Hi Kiiid,

I will wait to hear from Geoff on this one. I won't really be able to use this without the access to console. How many of these to you have available, just in case?

kiiid

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Posted: 04:12pm 21 Jun 2014

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I am sorry but I don't have any more of these now, but currently working on a fully uM-compatible revision which will be the final release (explained the reasons above). Hopefully I will have samples of the new one reasonably soon.

http://rittle.org

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viscomjim
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Posted: 02:02am 22 Jun 2014

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Kiiid, When you have those ready, I will want to purchase. Thanks for your efforts111

kiiid

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Posted: 01:03pm 22 Jun 2014

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No worries, I will publish the updated schematic soon.

Since Geoff has left no door open for clones of the firmware, probably now is the time to address him with some feature request for the uM, which I think will be good for everyone.
The selection of the RTC pins for console is not the best. Swapping UART1's pins with others will probably affect a lot of current users, so I propose simply mirroring the console at the software-banged COM2, even at a lower baudrate, 9600 for example.
Enabled by default and disabled by a OPTION command (or other) for those who use the COM2 pins for something else.
Then COM2 will enable an alternative console while the RTC crystal pins will be freed for the relevant functionality in future, and that without touching the current pinout.
Geoff?

http://rittle.org

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kiiid

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Posted: 05:00pm 23 Jun 2014

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UPDATE:

For the development of my uM GPRS board, after a lot of thinking I had to rewire some of the connections in order to make it as close as possible to the uM's pinout. Unfortunately Geoff did not honour my previous question with an answer, but in any case I see no other workaround if the RTC is to be used at some point in the future. Hopefully he will consider my proposed solution which will let the RTC be used in future. So this will be probably the final schematic (unless there is an error).

I keep full compatibility with the standard bee pinout as well and now the console (if on UART1 as it is now) goes to bee's DO8(TX) and RESERVED(RX) and the crystal can't be used. If a crystal is fit on board, these pins of course become unavailable. uM's COM2 goes to AD2 and AD3; I have also tried to route out to the socket all the other functionality - PWM, I2C and wakeup, interrupts and ADC, except for the SPI which goes to the optional internal memory.

In addition to the standard 2mm bee headers, I have also added 0.1" pitch half holes on the board to make it easy for prototyping with standard breadboards.

Planning to make some samples of these, but first wanted to run the design through other opinions for possible improvements.

Thanks,
Kon

edit: forgot to mention: the new schematic can be downloaded from my server

Edited by kiiid 2014-06-25

http://rittle.org

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viscomjim
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Posted: 07:43pm 23 Jun 2014

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I like it. Very functional.

viscomjim
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Posted: 09:40am 26 Jun 2014

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Kiiid, when do you think you will have these available???

kiiid

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Posted: 02:58pm 26 Jun 2014

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Realistically, in about 6 weeks along with a few other projects that I am currently working on

http://rittle.org

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viscomjim
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Posted: 03:10pm 26 Jun 2014

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awesome, can't wait.

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