Schlagwort: Rotary Phone

  • Travel the world with a retro musical phone

    Travel the world with a retro musical phone

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    This rotary phone features a built-in Raspberry Pi that communicates with radiooooo.com (a musical time machine) and an Arduino working behind the map to control the selection of the country. Just pick up the phone, choose a country and a decade, and listen to some great music!

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz1SBkfLXiY]

    How does it work?

    The Raspberry Pi:

    • Plays music through radiooooo.com
    • Detects when the handset is picked up/put down
    • Detects the numbers that are dialled in

    The Arduino:

    • Detects which country is selected on the map (via jack connectors)
    • Sends the info to the Raspberry Pi over serial

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mjZgalAXfs]

    We saw this project on hackster.io and loved how maker Caroline Buttet dug into the finer detail of an old-fashioned rotary phone’s pick-up/put-down mechanism, as well as how the phone knows which numbers you’re dialling. She goes into more detail about that aspect in the second build video, above.

    An audio jack being plugged into a world map mounted on a board

    Some countries have a jack pin – this is how you select the music

    Other bits you’ll need

    As well as a Raspberry Pi 4 and Arduino UNO, you’ll need a world map (obviously) and something to mount it on which can be drilled into. This is because the jack pins you can see in the image above need to poke out of different countries.

    Caroline’s grandma donated the old rotary phone she used for this project. You should be able to pick one up from a second-hand shop or, if you can get a new handset made in the retro style online.

    The shopping list for this build also includes: jumper wires; audio/video cable assembly; LED, breadboard; jack socket 3-pin; resistors

    A simplified visual representation of how everything works

    In her original post, Caroline explains in detail how to connect the rotary phone’s switches to the pins on your Raspberry Pi, how to build in audio sockets on the board you glue your map to, how to run the necessary Python script from the command line, and what a Chrome extension to use to make radiooooo.com work with your Raspberry Pi.

    The Raspberry Pi inside the rotary phone

    And yes, Caroline is one of those most magical of makers who deposits all the code needed for this build on GitHub!

    And here’s the Arduino mounted onto the back of the map, with the audio jacks taped up to the holes drilled into different countries

    Website: LINK

  • This retro-looking rotary cellphone is free of modern-day distractions

    This retro-looking rotary cellphone is free of modern-day distractions

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    This retro-looking rotary cellphone is free of modern-day distractions

    Arduino Team — February 13th, 2020

    What we carry today in our pockets is nominally called a “phone,” but more often than not we’re using it to do various other computing tasks. Justine Haupt, however, wanted an actual phone that “goes as far from having a touchscreen as [she could] imagine.”

    What she came up with is a rotary cellphone that’s not just a show-and-tell piece, but is intended to be her primary mobile device. It’s reasonably portable, has a removable antenna for excellent reception, a 10-increment signal meter, and, perhaps most importantly, doesn’t make her go through a bunch of menus to actually use it as a phone. Other features include number storage for those she calls most often and a curved ePaper display that naturally doesn’t use any power when revealing a fixed message.

    The project was prototyped using an Arduino Micro. It was then laid out of a PCB with an an Adafruit FONA 3G board and an ATmega2560V, programmed in the Arduino IDE.

    Haupt has published a detailed look at the build process here.

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    Website: LINK

  • Rotary phone transformed into home automation device

    Rotary phone transformed into home automation device

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Rotary phone transformed into home automation device

    Arduino Team — November 26th, 2018

    While once an essential communication tool, rotary phones in the wild are quite a rarity today. Still, they do hold a certain charm, and hacker Kristiaan N. decided to turn one of these units into a clever home automation interface.

    The original idea was to use the phone as a doorbell. Like many projects, this simple job turned into something much more involved, with an Arduino Nano and a bevy of complimentary electronics being installed in the housing. This allows it to respond to doorbell presses as intended, and it’s now also able to ring in different patterns via wireless input from a smartphone. 

    Most impressively, the modified phone can signal up to 10 devices using the rotary input, using the MySensors Arduino library and a Domoticz setup. The system’s capabilities are demonstrated in the video below, switching lights, and showing off its multi-ring capability.

    The current version features the following functions:

    • Doorbell function with simple button
    • MySensors integration with NRF24 radio
    • Wirelessly activate 5 different ringtones
    • Alarm signal
    • Working dial with 10 virtual switches

    The idea is basically that it will ring just like a old phone when somebody presses the doorbell button. If you don’t want any wires for that, you can just sent a command from any button attached to your Domoticz controller. You can also set your Domoticz controller to ring different ringtones for any events like a door that has open, or a set timer that has passed.

    The dial also acts like 10 virtual switches. Your Domitcz controller will see these as 10 different switches that will be turned on and immediately be turned off again. You can use this to trigger events like turning a light on, or set the heating to a different setpoint.

    The wireless function is done by the incredible MySensors library. In my opinion its one of the best platforms for home build sensors and actors. Its cheap to build, very reliable, and the possibilities are endless. You will need a MySensors gateway attached to your Domiticz controller. I’m using the USB version. Building one is very easy and doesn’t require knowledge of MySensors, Arduino, or electronics. If you just want the doorbell, don’t worry about all the other functions. Just leave out the radio and the connections to the dial. The Arduino code will work fine without.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv_NBRw28k4?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK