Saturday, March 31, 2018

Build your own phone using only those three components

Do you love making your own stuff?
Do you love the process of making and not just being a technology consumer?
Have you ever wanted to make your own cellular phone?

Here is how you can make your own cellular phone in less than half an hour using only those three elements.

Arduino Uno.
SIM900A GSM module.

Nextion TFT Intelligent LCD Touch display.

The Arduino is the main controller of this project that organizes all components operations.

GSM module is the core component that enables the cellular phone communication with the outer world.

This easily manageable GSM Arduino shield can be programmed in simple steps. All software is already written and well documented.

The third component is the TFT LCD display. It plays two roles in this project. The first role is the display function.

As a normal LCD, this TFT display can be used to display numbers and functions of the cellular phone.

And the second rule is the control. It can be also used as a touch screen virtual keyboard to control your cellular phone. So there is no need for an old keyboard that uses traditional buttons and switches.

All communication between the three components is serial communication. So you don’t need to bother yourself to make many circuit connections.

Just as you connect Arduino board to a serial device, you connect the GSM module to Arduino and the LCD to Arduino.

The most tine consuming step is programming the TFT LCD with graphics and numbers. It’s a straightforward process but takes a lot of time.

Material

Arduino Uno.
SIM900A GSM module.

Nextion TFT Intelligent LCD Touch display.

Connection

Nextion +5V to Arduino VDD_5v.
Nextion RX to Arduino pin 11
Nextion Tx to Arduino pin 10
Nextion GND to Arduino GND_0v.
GSM Rx to Arduino pin 1
GSM TX to Arduino pin 0
GSM GND to Arduino GND_0v.