atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information WEAK BELL IN OLD PHONE

jim,

i adjusted the bells as you suggested. it does ring loader. the clapper just doesnt seem to have the zip that i remember. or does it seem as loud as i remember. last time i heard an old phone ring was a phone i had that was mid to late 50's and sounded much louder. could be my hearing too! well, it works fine otherwise, so i think i should leave well enough alone! thanks to all for the help. oh, would still like to know the voltage the ringer uses, and how to test it. just curious...bob

Ring Voltage is aprox 90VAC, superimposed on the -48VDC on hook line voltage. The ringer capacitor serves to isolate the ringer from the DC component of the line.

Yeah, but Bell South (AKA at&t) has been anti-Bell standards and practices for decades. I'll bet that they are using some no-name pair gain hardware that barely drags up more than about 50VAC.

Most telcos with this mindset (well, actually all of them) have become complacent with today's dime-store telephones. They are capable of ringing on just about any AC voltage. They've gotten away with that for so long that they've forgotten about the original FCC mandates for ringing voltages/capacity.

ok, touch tone tommy and ev607797,

how do i check the voltage? just put a dmm accross the terminals of the solenoid of the bell?,,,bob

That's the first thing that popped into my head also.
But to clarify, the bias spring doesn't look like a spring at all, it's the little wire above the little brass gong between the bells. Move it from it's current position and see if that helps. It will only move one way from it's current position.
Then adjust the ringer volume.

I just can't help thinking it's something to do with how the phone is wired. I'd post the schematic, but don't want to break any rules.

Anyway the fact he took the buzzer out, makes me thnk it was wired to buzz and not ring, or something along those lines.

The schematic talks about 50 gazillion ways to wire up the bell depending on what you want to have happen.

... Matt

hello again,

i moved the spring (thin wire) from where it was hooked between the bells, and the clapper dropped down and just kind of laid there, not good, so i put it back. ive had many old phones apart many yrs ago, and if memory serves me right, the machanics of the phone,all look good. the bell rang as it does now with the buzzer in. i removed the buzzer later. the phone has a rotor/push button on it, and as someone mentioned a few appends back, the push button and buzzer,was probably for an intercom. is there any way to check the voltage? maybe its only getting 50vac instead of 90vac. yrs ago, i had trouble with the bell in a phone, and my friend from the nytel told me i need to run a jumper from L1 to L2 or something like that on the network block. for something that looks pretty simple, you sure can wire it diff ways til the cows come home,like matt mentioned. but if it is ringing, wouldnt it be wired ok?...bob

Well, you can always connect the bell leads directly to the Tip & Ring (Red & Green) wires but I doubt it's going to accomplish anything. It will bypass the capacitor, thereby eliminating it.

But to answer your question about ringing voltage, hook up a volt meter and read the voltage during an incoming call (in a ring cycle) across Tip & Ring. If you read 90-105 Volts AC your ringing voltage is OK.

Question: When you moved the spring, did you test the ringer on an incoming call?

I know this is is a dumb question, but do you have, or can you obtain temporarily, an older model phone for testing? Or, Maybe you can take the phone to a house that has some "standard" WE phones? Just trying to think of the quickest way to elimiate the ringer, the deskset, or your incoming voltage.

Also - what I was getting at with the buzzer is I was thinking maybe someone has been in there before you, and switched the leads around improperly. 38 years is a long time for people to play.

Thx
Matt

I PM'd ya a link on just about everything ya wanna know about ringers....