recycle cell phone as garage door opener

[Bob]

I hope some genius on this usenet group can give me some clues in
recycling a cell phone. I spent over a $100 for it about 5 years ago.
In todays' dollars that must be $150. Sprint persuaded me last year I
should get a RAZR.
Maybe I'm too gullible and should still use the Moto 120, I don't
know. I do know I have lots of company.
Surely it could be a good walkie talkie, garage door opener, etc and
not lay around wasting space in my tool box. In fact I have two! One
is a Motorola V Series Dual Band Model 120c. The other is a Qualcomm
QCP 1920. I've been a programmer since the days of the IBM7090, wrote
some disk drivers for the IBM360 so I'm not totally stupid (at least
not yet). Come to think of it, we have some old PCs wasting space too
that cost a h--l of a lot more than these phones. Maybe one of them
combined with a Cell can make Bill Gate's garage look like Buck
Rogers?

Anybody else out there interested in Real-World interfacing with your
(old) cell? (Yeah, I hear some boys over Arabia-way do some black
magic with them. That is NOT what I want to do. But white magic is a
horse of a different color. right?)

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

I hope some genius on this usenet group can give me some clues in
recycling a cell phone. I spent over a $100 for it about 5 years ago.
In todays' dollars that must be $150. Sprint persuaded me last year I
should get a RAZR.
Maybe I'm too gullible and should still use the Moto 120, I don't
know. I do know I have lots of company.
Surely it could be a good walkie talkie, garage door opener, etc and
not lay around wasting space in my tool box. In fact I have two! One
is a Motorola V Series Dual Band Model 120c. The other is a Qualcomm
QCP 1920. I've been a programmer since the days of the IBM7090, wrote
some disk drivers for the IBM360 so I'm not totally stupid (at least
not yet). Come to think of it, we have some old PCs wasting space too
that cost a h--l of a lot more than these phones. Maybe one of them
combined with a Cell can make Bill Gate's garage look like Buck
Rogers?

Anybody else out there interested in Real-World interfacing with your
(old) cell? (Yeah, I hear some boys over Arabia-way do some black
magic with them. That is NOT what I want to do. But white magic is a
horse of a different color. right?)

Sell it to a recycler who recodes it and ships it to some second or
third world country. Its on the wrong band for a garage door opener,
and you don't have the resources to convert it to to a walkie talkie, or
the money to pay the FCC for its use afterwards. Why would you want to
spend over 100,000 dollars to modify a 100 dollar phone?

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[JeffM]

I hope some genius on this usenet group
can give me some clues in recycling a cell phone.

There are agencies that attend to the needs of battered women
who have restraining orders out against their stalkers.
They give out donated used (unactivated) cell phones
that can still be used to call 911.
Donate the unit to one of those organizations.

Surely it could be a good walkie talkie, garage door opener, etc

You *could* make a needle threader out of a crowbar,
but that would be ridiculous as well.

 

[neon]

A garage door operates on a coded frequency of a very limited range so thst nobody in the neighbohood can open the door.. routers also have limited range you don't want somebody to know what your P/W bank acount ## and so forth. phones are not the same animals.

 

[Bob]

Hi Mike - thank you for your reply.

I too have my DD214.

What I'm thinking is: Cheap inexpensive DIYS project to satisfy my
curiosity:
#1 Cell phones are small 2 way radios - receive and transmit signals
at certain frequencies. They have fairly decent batteries which, after
several years use, are in poor shape but they come with battery
chargers and mine will operate from the charger. The price for a
replacement cell batteries is high. The price is right for the
charger is just right - free.

#2 A garage door opener is a primitive radio receiver connected to a
comon solenoid circuit. One state turns on the electric motor to
revolve in a direction that winds up the garage door. Another state is
OFF. The third state runs the motor in reverse and closes the door.

So far this is about as complicated as a screwdriver. Reminds me of
what I learned about early radio experiments with crystals and so on.

Then there is security. I've heard of a couple ways that is done.
First we are talking very low power so the signal is weak and
reception is nill beyond 50 feet or so. Our old unit has a small
circuit board with a few cheap components that act in combination to
tune the unit to one of several thousand possible frequencies. Johnny
Q. Thief has between slim and none chance of getting into my garage
unless he camps on the driveway for a weekend.

#3 When #1 and #2 are tuned to the same frequency, they can
communicate, especially simple things like on and off and that is all
that is necessary.

#4 Why bother? DIYS - and my current garage door opener stopped
communicating with the opener (or vice versa). Most of us get this
some time or the other. Right?

Sell it to a recycler who recodes it and ships it to some second or
third world country. Its on the wrong band for a garage door opener,
and you don't have the resources to convert it to to a walkie talkie, or
the money to pay the FCC for its use afterwards. Why would you want to
spend over 100,000 dollars to modify a 100 dollar phone?

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hi Mike

I too have my DD214.

What I'm thinking is:
#1 Cell phones are small radios - receive and transmit signals at
certain frequencies. They have fairly decent batteries which are
usually not in very good shape after several years but, the ones I
have, also came with battery chargers and will operate from the
charger. The price of the batteries for the cells I've looked at seems
way higher than is necessary. The price is right for the chargers -
free.

#2 A garage door opener is a primitive radio receiver connected to
(I'm guessing) a three state solenoid. One state turns on the electric
motor to revolve in a direction that winds up the garage door. Another
state is OFF. The third state runs the motor in the opposite direction
and closes the door. Reminds me of what I learned about early radio
experiments with crystals and so on. I know that security must be
provided also and I've heard of a couple ways that is done. First we
are talking low power so the signal is weak and reception is nill
beyond 100 feet or so. I think commercial units include a small
circuit / crystal with a few cheap components that tune the unit to
one of about ten thousand possible frequencies and that way the
chances that John Q Thief will have little chance of getting into my
garage.

#3 When #2 is tuned to a frequency used by #1, they can communicate
simple things like on and off and that is all that is necessary. The
reason I'm thinking about this is my current garage door opener
stopped communicating with the opener (or vice versa) and I'm thinking
about Doing It Myself. I'm sure you've been there and done that too.
Right?

 

[Rich Grise]

.

#3 When #2 is tuned to a frequency used by #1, they can communicate
simple things like on and off and that is all that is necessary. The
reason I'm thinking about this is my current garage door opener
stopped communicating with the opener (or vice versa) and I'm thinking
about Doing It Myself. I'm sure you've been there and done that too.
Right?

Wrong. If it's broken, get it fixed rather than trying to hack
something else.

Frankly, the idea of hacking a cell phone to make it operate a
garage door opener doesn't really sound quite sane.

Did you replace the battery in your hand-held?

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Hi Mike - thank you for your reply.

I too have my DD214.

What I'm thinking is: Cheap inexpensive DIYS project to satisfy my
curiosity:
#1 Cell phones are small 2 way radios - receive and transmit signals
at certain frequencies. They have fairly decent batteries which, after
several years use, are in poor shape but they come with battery
chargers and mine will operate from the charger. The price for a
replacement cell batteries is high. The price is right for the
charger is just right - free.

They are dedicated devices that have to 'phone home' to the network
to operate.

#2 A garage door opener is a primitive radio receiver connected to a
comon solenoid circuit. One state turns on the electric motor to
revolve in a direction that winds up the garage door. Another state is
OFF. The third state runs the motor in reverse and closes the door.

That is done by the controller on the motor. There is usually only
an open circuit to initiate the next function, and new units have a
second set of terminals for the safety auto reverse. I repair the
receivers and transmitters for about five years, for a friend's garage
door business.

So far this is about as complicated as a screwdriver. Reminds me of
what I learned about early radio experiments with crystals and so on.

A modern cell phone is NOTHING like a crystal radio. You would have
a better chance of repairing the old transmitter and receiver than
converting a cell phone.

Then there is security. I've heard of a couple ways that is done.
First we are talking very low power so the signal is weak and
reception is nill beyond 50 feet or so.

A carefully tuned pair of controls will open a door a lot further
than 50 feet. I have set them up to work well over a city block.

Our old unit has a small
circuit board with a few cheap components that act in combination to
tune the unit to one of several thousand possible frequencies.

No, to a couple channels, and different digital codes.

Johnny
Q. Thief has between slim and none chance of getting into my garage
unless he camps on the driveway for a weekend.

I would use a replacement receiver, and put a vacation switch in the
garage that disables it while you're gone. Then, they would have to pry
the door open.

#3 When #1 and #2 are tuned to the same frequency, they can
communicate, especially simple things like on and off and that is all
that is necessary.

Cell phones don't transmit and receive on the same frequencies.

#4 Why bother? DIYS - and my current garage door opener stopped
communicating with the opener (or vice versa). Most of us get this
some time or the other. Right?

A replacement transmitter and receiver is under $100 and takes a
half hour to install and program. Lowes, Home Depot and other DIY
places sell them.



Have you looked at the chips used in a modern cell phone? A lot of them
are proprietary so unless you work for the OEM at the right level,
you'll never get any data. There are very few salvagable parts, You
would have to write new software for the phone to keep it from calling
the local cell tower when its turned on, so you could spend years and
still not have a usable unit.

The old bag phones were more hackable, and turn up for a dollar or
two in thrift stores and yard sales. If the phone works let someone
else use it up. I worked on the test line for Telemetry radios, so I can
tell you that without some idea of the design, you are wasting your
time. With the production volume of any model cell phone, the software
may be hard coded. Without changing that code you need the card to let
it turn on. Find another item to recycle into a project. Also, most of
the cell phones I've seen need special security tools to open the case.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Nobody]

#1 Cell phones are small 2 way radios

Yep. One end is the phone, the other is a cell. They can't communicate
with anything other than a cell.

- receive and transmit signals at certain frequencies.

And those frequencies are reserved for the mobile phone companies. It's
illegal to transmit on those frequencies other than as directed by the
cell.

Even if it weren't for the legal issues, there is almost nothing you could
salvage from a cellphone which would be of use for any other purpose. It's
almost entirely custom circuitry.