After misusing the comments section in the port-o-rotary sales section, I finally got it together and started a POR thread.
I LOVE my POR, and am looking to modify it to fit my personal needs. I hope others will post their ideas and hacks here too.
My first two goals?
improve voice quality from the POR
see if it can be left on charge without disconnecting. That would make it perfect for my ‘house’ phone, where it spends 95% of its time anyway. As it stands, If I want it to be “ready to ring” the charger must be unplugged. Then it goes dead, and I dont know it until I try it the next time.
Next? maybe a subtle ‘low battery’ LED on it, mounting the internal components a little better to allow daily potable use, switching to an american/modular phone body to allow cord and handset replacement…
After a few ‘birthing’ pains, some due to a substandard cell service,(Unicel), I am EXTREMELY satisfied with the Port-O-Rotary.
Been looking around the site for an email address for support…but find phone #'s and links to the forum.
People LOVE the POR and am trying to make it a daily driver for my work at the retirement community. Any help? I read the tutorial on the development of the POR, but that doesn’t help me all that much in refinement of the current product.
I have several folks interested once I get the bugs worked out. $200 is pocket money for this crowd… and the fun at the office today generated two interested parties, and I told them I was on the way to working out the final bugs.
Like #1- How do I get the &^%# dial off? It still has a bluetooth logo on it, and everyone thinks it is just an attachment to my other cell, NOT a stand alone.
The dial removes in a similar manner to normal 1-hole dials.
The hole between 3-4 has no function that I can see. It hits on top of the locking leg, but has no catch/latch function.
The hole between 9-0 is the release. Rotate the dial fully clockwise until it stops. Put a paper clip or other suitable wire into the release hole and depress with mild force. this shouls alow a slight further clockwise rotation of the dial. Allow the dial to rotate CCW to its rest position, then lift and remove dial.
Now there were some pretty cool dial inserts featured on MAKEblog some time back…let me see if I can find them.
I’m ready to fix these bugs on the the port-o-rotary. do you have the schematic for the board.
Specifically I want to fix the mic volume. The Batery charging issue (not being able to receive calls while charging) . And get voicemail to work. It needs touch tones to access your password.
Other things thtat it needs is a phonebook.
So i can check the voice mail automatically.
To summarize. I need a schematic .
Does anyone want to work on this with me. I got this phone for a friend but unfortunately its not really a finished product.
is the schematic. ALMOST starting to make (oOps… MAKE sense to me. Looks like there is a circuit connected to the mic on the phone.
Next step is to open up the POR and look to see how accessible this portion of the circuit is, and how to jumper in.
I may see about the availability of spare populated boards before I try sugery, however…
I see the view counter going up on the forum… If ANYONE has their 'two cents" to contribute, please do. Even if it’s just a ‘you are nuts to go there’ type of comment… 431 (as of today) people looked…
I will post pics, or links to them as things progress. Thanks All!!!
Oh… BTW… The post on the MAKEblog that started it all:
and I am still not sure why my email to tech support is on there too… but what the heck! Check out the MAKEblog… and tell them the Volkemon sent you. I have been a bit of a PITA to them at times, but a supporter where it counts… I subscribe!
ANyone out there know why my new bluetooth port-o-rotary device can receive calls just fine but not actually dial them? I get a dial tone, but then it never actually seems to initiate the call.
It’s making me CRAZY. Kinda.
Blackberry Curve, on Verizon if that matters.
Volkeman – your proposed additions sound great – the most critical seems to be voicemail access. Remember these?
Thanks for the link to the tone box- I bought it and it should be here by the end of next week. $6.75… well worth it!
Contact Jim at techsupport@sparkfun.com and I am sure he will help. Sparkfun customer service is the BEST from my experience.
And please…post the reply here to maybe help another POR owner.
HOPEFULLY this weekend I will take the time to take apart thr POR to compare the schematics to the actual item, and see how possible it is to hack…ummm… MAKE it better!
Well… after going crosseyed for a while, I might have an insight:
The schematic is page 1 of 3. May explain the lack of the coil connector. Maybe the other 2 pages offer key information.
The schematic is also v2.9. The board in my POR says v2.6. May not make a rats butt o’ difference.
I need some more edumacation on how to read this style of schematic.
Anyone care to enlighten me on the meaning of SL? JP is jumper, I found JP1 on the board, I think JP4 is labled as debug on the board, not sure…aw heck- I am guessing.
Guess it’s not that easy to reverse engineer space age cellular phone conversions…
I’ve been looking at the POR for a while now, and was going to buy one until recently. Instead, I have decided to “roll my own” based on the Sparkfun design for a number of reasons:
I use PIC processors and CCS C, and don’t want to buy/learn a different compiler in order to make code modifications.
The current hardware has some limitations I’d like to improve on.
It seems like a fun project!
I’ve ported the Sparkfun code to CCS C, and I’m beginning to play with it now. I’ve made a number of circuit modifications, and re-drawn the schematic using the tool I have available (PADS PowerLogic). I’ll be having a PCB made in the next week or so to allow me to keep going with this project. I’ve already got a WT32 module, and the iWrap protocol makes it a breeze to use. The only downside is the surface-mount package it comes in is not conducive to prototyping.
Without any hands-on experience with POR, can you provide a list of its shortcomings as you see them?
One thing I definitely want to add is DTMF generation capability for voicemail access. I haven’t yet determined if this can be done with a simple resistor ladder D/A and the PIC, or if a hardware solution (DTMF generator IC) will be required.
Ok then… you are a few light years ahead of me, but I will try playing catch up…
Easy stuff first… as far as adding DTMF or ‘tone’ dialing, The simple and period solution was suggested by sreyemhtes in a posting above, giving me the link to a c1983 dialer from radiosnack, on Ebay…got it, and it works great.
Internal mod? generating the tones is easy with the chip, it is how to input the desired number… using an external small keypad is easy, but ruins the visual of the desk phone. I suppose a programmer could program the dial to generate the input, as it does that anyway just to dial the number! ( Had to think that one through…Duh…Sorry)(On the rethink…it might be just a software change now even…)
Things I would change/shortcomings?
Allow charge while phone is active. I have considered adding a jack that uses a nokia charger, cause I have a pile of them, and directly charging the battery while the phone is in operation. Little “fear of the unknown” in that it may blow something up, but it charges at 3.7 volts, so I am really close to trying it. To be able to leave the phone ‘on’ and charging 24/7 is desirable to me for its use as a house phone.
Voice quality and volume. Some hardware adjustability to allow adjustments for differing mics and earsets found in “vintage” phones would be great. Lucky for me, (see above post), I had two phones, and switching out the mic made a WORLD of difference. Being that the appearance of the handset is the most important thing, even changing out the innards to make this happen is a possibility.
Notification of different functions…ie: voicemail waiting, low battery, Etc. could be easily effected by LED’s below the clear hook pins…One can see the blue charge light and red operation light easily that way. Not sure how easy that would be using the current setup…but might just be software mods, with minor hardware additions. (I am GUESSING here…)
Switching to a modular phone- IE: Handset is connected to the phone body via a replaceable cord. The POR I got is a canadian phone, and the handset is permanently wired to the body.
Another idea was to add a “below Phone” pull out address book, like they used to have. Keeps it looking vintage (job#1!) but allows the possibility of an LCD touchscreen…and that makes a WHOLE lot of extra functions available.
I plan on mounting the antenna and circuitry much better in my POR also…lot to be desired there in fit and finish…
Please remember, most of the purpose of this was to improve and modify the POR as it exists. Driving an old '71 VW microbus, I am reminded daily about limitations presented by using existing hardware platforms! But then again, doing mods within the structure the POR arrives with helps others to follow with their own, and emulate ours if they want. PLUS it may help SPARKFUN sell some more…and they did come up with the idea, and are hosting this. (I have NO personal financial interest in the company, just to be clear.)
As far as using a PIC and porting code…Little outside the reach and intent I came here with. You go though! And keep us informed…Thanks for posting. Stretched my brain a little…
And still waiting for JO, hope your trvels were all safe!
The only reason I ported the code is to get it into an environment that I’m familiar with. That required changing the PIC as well!
I did some experiments last night, and I’m 90% sure that I can generate DTMF tones with the PIC using the same method currently used to generate the dialtone. I’m going to add the necessary hardware to do that, but the coding will be done only after the basic phone is functional.
I truly admire the copious amount of work that the guys at Sparkfun get done. Occasionally, though, I find that some things are done “quick-n-dirty”, and even some things are done in conflict with datasheets. I do think that the audio circuits are one of these areas that can be improved quite a bit, and that is where I’ll focus my efforts for the next few days!
You are right that the user interface for the DTMF tone generation is a challenge. A couple of possibilities occur to me:
Install a small connector on the side of the phone and use a removable keypad.
Hardcode my voice mail access code in firmware, and active it with the switchhook or rotary dial (I have to think about the exact sequence) once a call is initiated. Maybe a ‘1’ on the rotary dial sends the access code, a ‘2’ sends the ‘save’ code, and a ‘3’ sends the ‘delete’ code??
I got a nice red phone from eBay last night. I should have it in a week. I should also have a circuit board shortly afterward. In the meantime, I’ll do some breadboarding and playing with the clunky black phone I already have!
I’m using a lot of the same hardware that Sparkfun uses. I’m using the same WT32 bluetooth module, and the same ringer circuitry. My processor is different (PIC vs. AVR), my firmware is different (CCS vs. C18?), and my audio circuits are different.
CCS C has a lot of canned functions, and my version of the firmware is just over half the size (printed pages) as the Sparkfun version. Compiled, I have only filled 48% of the available ROM in my PIC. Lots of room for features.
At least with Verizon wireless, the rotary dial won’t work for the voicemail access code. The problem is not obvious until you try it, but the problem is the ‘inter-digit’ time between tones when using the rotary dial. The resultant tones are so spread out that the Verizon network doesn’t recognize them as a whole entity. Single digits are fine, but not multi-digit sequences…
This afternoon, I was successful in sending and receiving good quality audio through the telephone handset using the WT32.
sense to me. Looks like there is a circuit connected to the mic on the phone.
8)
