GPRS Shield - Not seeing SIM card

Hi,

EDITED TO ADD: I just had a successful connection with a different SIM card (from Rogers Canada). Any idea why one would work and the other not? Under what conditions would a SIM card be considered “not connected”?

I just bought a GPRS Shield (v1.2) and the communication between it and the Arduino and my computer has been successful (though I’ve reduced the baud rate to 4800 because otherwise the SoftwareSerial buffer in the 1.0 Arduino IDE is overrun with data).

My module does not appear to see my SIM card. I purchased a data-only plan from Virgin Mobile Canada and inserted the provided SIM. On power up I see the following messages:

[code]RDY

+CPIN: NOT INSERTED

+CFUN: 1[/code]
I have no external power supply connected to either the Arduino or the GPRS Shield - just using power from the USB port.

If I execute further commands, I get reasonable output (note that I’ve enabled verbose error reporting with AT+CMEE=2):

AT&V

ACTIVE PROFILE:
E1 Q0 V1 X4 &C1 &D1 +IFC= 0,0 +FCLASS0
S00:0 S03:13 S04:10 S05:8 S07:60 S08:2 S10:15
STORED PROFILE 0:
E1 Q0 V1 X4 &C1 &D1 +IFC= 0,0 +FCLASS0
S00:0 S03:13 S04:10 S05:8 S07:60 S08:2 S10:15
STORED PROFILE 1:
E1 Q0 V1 X4 &C1 &D1 +IFC= 0,0 +FCLASS0
S00:0 S03:13 S04:10 S05:8 S07:60 S08:2 S10:15
OK

AT+CPIN=?

+CME ERROR: SIM not inserted

AT+CPOWD=1

NORMAL POWER DOWN

Any suggestions?

Dear customer,

According your description, I can see

RDY
+CPIN: NOT INSERTED
+CFUN: 1
is show up, it means your SIM card are not supply in GRPS.But power is turn on.

If it is work would be show up like:
AAAAAA
Call Ready

View more about chip Sim900 and it would tell you if you want to start it should
turn LOW at lest 1s and turn high 2.2s program like this：

pwrkey.Write(true);
Thread.Sleep(500);
pwrkey.Write(false);
Thread.Sleep(1500);
pwrkey.Write(true);
Thread.Sleep(2500);

So I still not understand, do you put your SIM card in GPRS?Or just set your cell phone number
to a SIM card?Because you told me that your Sim card is inserted in your phone. Could Virgin Mobile Canada let you change it?
Please tell us more detail and hope can help you more.

yuriq,

A little more information:

I’ve tried inserting the Virgin Mobile SIM into an old iPhone (3G model). The phone considered the SIM to be inserted, even though the phone was locked to another provider and therefore the SIM was unable to register with the network. I may try getting the phone unlocked and trying again.

I’ve taken the SIM from Rogers that was inside that old iPhone and placed it in the GPRS Shield. The shield recognized that the SIM was inserted. This was a different SIM from the one I previously reported success with, although it was from the same network operator.

I’m going to attempt to use another person’s Virgin Mobile SIM tomorrow evening and I’ll share the results of that with you.

Paul

Another update:

I’ve now tried two Virgin Mobile Canada SIM cards - neither one works, in both cases the shield starts up with the following:

[code]RDY

+CPIN: NOT INSERTED

+CFUN: 1[/code]
The only power to the Arduino and the shield is through the USB port on my computer. Is it possible that the SIM requires more voltage than is available? I have not tried using external power supplies yet.