Using mobile parts?

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  • Hello fine people!

    I'm a absolute beginner with hardware hacking, so bear with me here. Just got an Espruino board today, and was thinking if it would be possible to tear apart old mobiles and plug some of those components, I have a few Galaxy devices like an S3, and it would be great to know if there is at least the slightest chance that I can rip the wifi component out of it and make it work on the espruino. Or some of the sensors.

    If anyone has any hint, highly appreciated!

    Thx!

  • This is impractical in most cases - and in the few cases that it is possible (and the WiFi is DEFINITELY not one), it's not something for an "absolute beginner".

    Getting wifi connectivity on an Espruino will require a solution designed for microcontrollers - Either the CC3000 module from Adafruit, or something like the more elaborate (yet curiously not higher priced) WiFly thingie (which has almost everything built in - it's pretty much a second MCU dedicated to handling wifi, which communicates with the thing you're connecting it to via UART and a few GPIO pins).

    Honestly, it's not even worth the time to scrap most things for sensors. You can pick up temperature and humidity sensors, gyros, compasses and all sortsa stuff like that generally for under $5 shipped from china via ebay - and they come on breakout boards too.

  • Usually I'd be all for ripping stuff apart to get bits, but I'm afraid DrAzzy is right (at least as far as newer phones are concerned). Even if the bits could be interfaced to Espruino, often the connections are so small it's almost impossible to connect to them - It's best to stick the S3 on eBay and use the money to buy some components on breakout boards :)

    Having said that...

    • On older candybar phones, you might be able to use the LCD display - however it's probably a lot easier to buy a board with the LCD already attached as it's only a few pounds - for instance: http://www.espruino.com/PCD8544
    • You can actually use some old Nokia/Sony Ericsson phones (again, probably the candybar ones) as-is, and can then send/receive text messages via Espruino.
    • Lithium batteries from pretty much all phones are awesome for Espruino. A lot of the batteries have simple flat copper connectors on them, which you can easily solder wires onto. The S3 battery is around 2000mAh, which can power Espruino for over a year (if the battery doesn't self-discharge first!). A bit more info on that is here: http://www.espruino.com/Battery
    • Phone chargers are generally pretty good at powering Espruino too.
  • Awesome, guys! Thanks a lot for all that info!

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Using mobile parts?

Posted by Avatar for gnz @gnz

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