SIM900 GSM/GPRS Modem: Updating the firmware

There are many our customers out there who wanna update their modem firmware,  just to make sure they have the maximum out of their hardware. Its actually quite simple to do this, but often googling on this may not give a first hand solution just because people as often ignores the application notes. SIMCom Application note for their update tool describes how to update the firmware, but not where to get the firmware from! You can get these from the SIMCom page. You would need the following modules to carry out an update as exactly as we have described:

Hardware Connections:

On the back side of rhydoLABZ Modem you could see the debug pins marked separately, connect these pins to the FTDI Basic as shown above. Make sure that the FTDI Basic works on 3V3 levels, as the debug pins are brought out directly from the SIM900 chip with no level shifting in between. Once you make the hardware connections, connect the FTDI Basic to your PC and open up the SIMCom flash loader application. Now follow the steps as shown below:

  • Browse the firmware update file, select the COM Port, Select the communication speed (460800) and click the START button.

  • When the application log asks you to power up the module, provide 5V supply for the modem. Thats it and the modem will have the firmware loaded. May be it would take a couple of minutes for completing.

Once updated, you could check the current version of Modem firmware using the command “AT+GSV“. rhydoLABZ modems support autobaud functionality by default, which allows the modem to be used with any baud rate. The Modem waits for input string “AT” which is used to detect the baud rate being used.

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