Building a Custom Cell Phone

[Don Egipcio]

Hello everyone!

I was looking at some luxury and/or "tailor-made" phones, like Bellperre http://www.bellperre.com/ or http://www.vertu.com/en/ and I had an idea of building a custom, one-of-a-kind cell phone. I have a background in jewelry so I know that luxury items have a huge mark up, and that materials by themselves (even gold or gemstones) are not obscenely expensive.

What I had in mind was fabricating a housing/case and then taking a cell phone, taking it apart (or at least remove its case) and place it into the case that I made.

I don't want a smart phone, obviously, since that would be difficult to do, but like a very basic color screen phone with a camera and WiFi, something like a Nokia or Motorola phone. I don't want a touch screen phone.

Now, my question is, is it possible to remove a cell phone from its casing and house it in a new casing? Will it work?

I tried to find any sort of tutorial or video online, but I only found a "Raspberry Pi" phone and this http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-cellphone-from-scratch/ .

I hope to build something similar to this. (Bellperre phone)

Thanks alot!

 

[davenn]

hi

What I had in mind was fabricating a housing/case and then taking a cell phone, taking it apart (or at least remove its case) and place it into the case that I made.

well that's just outside cosmetics ---- non electronics ... probably not something people here can help much with

Dave

 

[Don Egipcio]

Oh, I see.

I was curious if there was anything I would have to re-attach or re-wire. I don't really know what cell phones look like on the inside!

What really prompted this project idea for me was this:

Handheld Nintendo 64.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Gryd3]

There are a TON of handheld NES, SNES, N64, Sony, etc. mods out there.
And yes, you can swap out a case on a phone for a custom case, but there will be some quirks you need to manage.
To understand what you are getting yourself into, first try to find a make/model of a bar phone you can currently buy that will work on today's cellular networks without feeling like it's 10 years old
Once you find a potential project, google around for disassembly tutorials or walk-throughs and pay close attention to the components that are mounted directly to the case.

Many bar-phones have the LCD screen, and the bottom-most layer of the keypad mounted to the main circuit board, but you will find that you will need to carefully mount the remaining components to the inside of your custom case so that they make contact to the circuit board once assembled. Components that are not 'plugged-in' but rely on a spring-like conductor to contact the board may include:
-Vibrator motor
-Microphone
-Ear speaker (not the technical term, but... yeah, it's the little speaker you usually use for listening to conversation)
-Loud speaker
-Antenna
-Battery
-SIM card *(rarely)

The above listed items are not a guarantee to be separate, but should give you a good indication of the kinds of parts you will have to carefully position. If you take the time to research first, you may find some models that have almost all of the components mounted to the board. This will make your job easier, as making sure the parts are aligned internally properly could be a very time consuming frustrating process.

 

[Fish4Fun]

Hey Don Egipcio, Welcome to EP!

One of the problems with relatively mature, highly integrated devices is that it can be very difficult to to modify them and actually increase their usefulness/appearance; having said that, the technological evolution of Cell Phones is happening so fast that it seems improbable that you would be able to select a "base model" for modification and successfully design viable improvements/enhancements before the underlying technology made the phone itself obsolete. This is in part due to the way cell phones are marketed....there is no other product that is so intimately linked with a service contract....Imagine trying to sell a Rolex that required the consumer to pay a monthly maintenance fee in order for it to keep time properly! And yet people stand in long lines in anticipation of purchasing the latest iPhone in the full knowledge that this purchase will require them to make monthly payments to keep the phone activated. I cannot imagine even the "super wealthy" would want to trade the "promise of functionality" for "superficial augmentation".

The best way to "cash-in" on the cell phone market without "buying market share" is by writing/creating "Apps". While writing/creating "Apps" is certainly not a "sure-fire" way to make money, it is the only part of the cell phone market that I can see that one might be able to penetrate asymmetrically....

Good Luck!

Fish

 

[Gryd3]

Hey Don Egipcio, Welcome to EP!

One of the problems with relatively mature, highly integrated devices is that it can be very difficult to to modify them and actually increase their usefulness/appearance; having said that, the technological evolution of Cell Phones is happening so fast that it seems improbable that you would be able to select a "base model" for modification and successfully design viable improvements/enhancements before the underlying technology made the phone itself obsolete. This is in part due to the way cell phones are marketed....there is no other product that is so intimately linked with a service contract....Imagine trying to sell a Rolex that required the consumer to pay a monthly maintenance fee in order for it to keep time properly! And yet people stand in long lines in anticipation of purchasing the latest iPhone in the full knowledge that this purchase will require them to make monthly payments to keep the phone activated. I cannot imagine even the "super wealthy" would want to trade the "promise of functionality" for "superficial augmentation".

The best way to "cash-in" on the cell phone market without "buying market share" is by writing/creating "Apps". While writing/creating "Apps" is certainly not a "sure-fire" way to make money, it is the only part of the cell phone market that I can see that one might be able to penetrate asymmetrically....

Good Luck!

Fish

Fish, I'd like to add a couple points in that the OP was not wanting to modify a touch-screen device like an iPhone or many other full-screen touch devices.
His potential finished product would be a simpler device, and even when bought straight from the store tomorrow, would still feel a little out-dated because the vast majority of devices now are full-screen touch devices, and that is where the effort is going.
That said... there is still a market for 'button phones', many people dislike typing on a screen and look for devices like : http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_c3_01_touch_and_type-3525.php
This market would be the intended. You would also be surprised at how many people would actually go for something like this.
The catch here though is price and model...
If I see a beautiful Nokia 3220, I would pass it up for a standard Nokia C3... the features and technology inside make a world of difference. It may be worth making a 'sample phone' and offering to do this as a service to specific models. This would at least give the potential client some freedom to choose a model they like without the OP having to invest a very large amount of time and money in buying and modifying different models. Buying some of the same model could result poorly, especially considering many people don't go to a jeweller to buy a phone, and any stock pre-modified may end up sitting for a few months before being sold.

About the monthly fee to keep it 'working'... it's no different than a car.
You can still own it, and when you want to use it, you need to pay for service. Cars require insurance and are still collected.