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Acquired one of these recently, so I could test for compatibility with my "one board KSU":
[Linked Image from seriss.com]

A Touch-Tone Call Director, 2636CAM.
Wow, many wires packed into this little phone.. and that massive wire with a 3-amphenol connector is pretty impressive/scary. Hope I never have to fix that cable.

Some questions about this phone, as it seems hard to derive this info from the documents I have access to:

  • What /are/ those two buttons above the dial pad, and how would the user of the phone expect them to work?
  • Are the lights under those buttons used at all for the functions they support? (Or are they like the normal HOLD button in that they don't normally light, unless wired)
  • Is there a screw terminal board inside the phone like other 1a2 phones? I didn't see one, but was a little apprehensive to poke around too much yet, lest I accidentally break a wire with a phone I'm not yet familiar with
  • Are there any gotchyas I should know about the wiring of these phones? From what I gather giving the schematics a cursory read, I think each connector serves each row of line buttons, ringer wired to Y/S on connector 1, buzzer wired to Y/S on connector 2, and the first 3 "yellow" pairs on connector 2 and 3 manage the 6th line button (Y/B, Y/O and Y/G) in the 2nd and 3rd row buttons.
  • Would it be possible to move the buzzer wires from the Y/S pair on Connector 2 to the Y/O pair on connector #1 inside the phone "easily"? (Not sure if there's a flexible terminal screw board in this phone)
  • Is there a "user manual" for the Call Director that maybe includes docs on the above mentioned 2 buttons?

Regarding the two extra buttons above the dial pad, what I do know:

  • The left one is an odd orange/amber color that is perhaps unique to Call Directors. It's a momentary spring loaded switch, and seems to have no mechanical effect on the line buttons
  • The right one is clear, also momentary spring loaded, but resets any line button that is down, much like the regular red HOLD button

Doing some fishing around, I take it /maybe/ the amber button is a flash key (kind of like tapping the hook-switch)?
And perhaps the clear one is for either I-HOLD or Priority Hold..? I'm not sure, and not familiar with either of those functions. I imagine there might be a limit on how many calls one can I-HOLD, and special equipment is needed per-phone set (as opposed to per-line?)

Regarding I-HOLD, I take it that's a special feature where one can put any line on hold in such a way that only this same phone can retrieve the call, and the line light for that line flutters in a special pattern.
And I think other phone sets see the lamp for that line as "in use" (on steady). Mmm, I think.

I couldn't find a clear definition of the I-Hold lamp flash pattern. Between a somewhat vague description in the BSPs, and a doc elsewhere on the net, it seems like it's a pattern of "on steady for two seconds, followed by 1 second of a 12 IPS on/off flutter", and then repeats. But not sure on that. If anyone knows for sure, or can refer to a BSP section# that is more specific, would very much appreciate it. I think I may have seen this pattern before on phones in offices, and wasn't sure exactly what it meant at the time.

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The phone is an "M" model, (the M in the model number denotes "modular"). That means that in addition to the newer handset connection using a cord with plugs, the line keys are the self-illuminating, self-designating type, which means that there is no "mother board" just the line cord wires which terminate directly on small plugs that press onto the rear of the key units.

Does your telephone have headset jacks? I believe that the 2636xxx series have them. That is why there is a "root beer" colored flash key and a clear twist (possibly) key above the dial. The flash key allows the user to flash the line he's using, without losing the CO line he has selected. Flashing the switch hook while in headset mode would not work. The twist key selects between the handset (switch hook) /headset (no switch hook) choice, and also clears any key(s) that have been selected after the call is finished. You will see this feature if you look at the BSP. "Bell System Practice" is what we call the wiring diagrams for telephones and apparatus made by Western Electric.

There are "How to use your Call Director" manuals around. The collectors in ATCA and TCI have them and you may find one scanned, perhaps in the TCI library.

"I Hold" works by changing the steady line key lamp indication from steady to wink only at the phone where the line was put on hold. The line appearance on all other phones stays steady. That reduces the chance that another person in the office would interrupt a held call put on hold by a co-worker.

Priority hold changes the steady lamp to the flutter indication. It requires a special lamp flutter interrupter card "KTU" which is made of UNobtainium. I have one, and there are several people on the list of heirs and assigns who might inherit it. But I feel fine at the moment, thank you.

You can cut and move any wires that you want to. I wouldn't, because I like to keep phones as stock as possible in my collection.



Arthur P. Bloom
"30 years of faithful service...15 years on hold"

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Thanks for the reply!

Yes, it does have a headset jack behind and to the left of the switch hook.

So I take it those two extra buttons are basically related to headset use, and since I don't have a headset and don't plan to get or need one for testing my KSU's compatibility with Call Directors, I'll just ignore them for my tests.

Sounds like I need to dig a little deeper at TCI for call director manuals.. I think I found some promising stuff, will follow up after some research later today.

Of interest I found a PDF on TCI that covers two subjects I'd always been curious about for years; a "MagicCall" (which someone had given me as a kid), and a Horizon system (MET/Multibutton Electronic Phone) that I think was the successor to ComKey, as I recall one of my parent's offices transitioned from ComKey to Horizon, causing me to end up with a ComKey 416 satellite set when I was in highschool, back in the early 80's.

I take it the I-Hold flashing is not handled by the interrupters, but is something implemented on the KTU card itself. I looked at a few KTU manuals for I-Hold to see if they described precisely the flashing sequence, but again just vague definitions. But I think 2 secs on, 1 sec of 12 quick on/off pulses sounds about right. I don't think I'll ever add an I-HOLD feature for my KSU board, but it's good to know about it in case someone asks.

Anyway, thanks for the pointers!

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Ah, OK, found a few Call Director documents on the TCI website that describe a little more about those headset related keys.

Excerpting the two related BSP documents here; 473-413-115 entitled "TYPE 636CW1 CALL DIRECTOR TELEPHONE SET DESCRIPTION" which photo identification of the physical features on the phone, and second, C38.650.01, which has an "ASCII art" description of the button options, and includes some lamp detail about whether there's lamps under those two headset related buttons (called "Flash" and "Release" in these documents), the answer being: apparently there's no lamp under them:

[Linked Image from seriss.com]

There's also some nice clarifications in both these documents about the button rows and how they're mapped to the 50 pin connectors, very useful info to me regarding the physical wiring, as opposed to the schematic from the Vol 1 BSP.

There's also some detail on I-Hold and Priority Hold in the '115 document, quoting here:

Quote
4.05 In addition to normal hold, the system may be equipped for supplementary hold which provides a special lamp flutter indication. Supplementary hold is provided by two methods:

  • (a) Priority hold in which all stations on the line receive the flutter indication.
  • (b) I hold in which the flutter indication is received only at the station initiating the hold.

4.06 Priority hold serves to alert personnel that an incoming call has been answered (acknowledged only), placed on hold and should be completed as soon as the first available attendant is able to do so.

4.07 I hold enables an attendant having access to a number of lines to readily determine which line he has placed on hold.

Will dig some more, but I think I found most of what I needed! There's so much info, it's easy to get lost finding stuff.

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I made a short video today that includes this new Call Director in a rotary dialing test for the new rev of my "one board KSU"; one of the new features being to support rotary dialing on the intercom line, as previous versions only supported touch-tone.

Of interest, I was able to use the amber "Flash" button on the Call Director to simulate rotary dialing the three different extensions (around 0:30 or so in the video).
I couldn't use the switch hook to do this because that also cuts out the A lead, which kills the intercom circuit completely, preventing rotary detection.

Video: 1A2 KSU Test of Rotary + DTMF Intercom Dialing
[Linked Image from seriss.com]


For anyone wondering, pressing the "clear" button (to the right of the amber button) simply "hangs up" by popping all the line buttons up.
So I guess that is how someone with a headset would hang up. And I guess when the phone rings, pushing a line button would immediately connect the headset to the call.

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Regarding getting the buzzer moved to Y/O pair on Connector 1 of the call director, I found I could make the following simple wiring change that just involved moving a few wires around:

[Linked Image from seriss.com]

(If you spot any corrections needed, I can update that diagram)

I finally got the courage to dig in and search for the terminal board inside the phone, which was so buried under the line button strips' wiring harnesses, I didn't even see it at first. Seems the short procedure to access the board is:

1) Remove the plastic case
2) Loosen the 6 screws holding the 3 line button assemblies (a screw at the top and bottom of each)
3) Flip over the button strips with their thick wiring harnesses to access the terminal board

Quite a lot of wires in there, lol.. here's a pic of my Call Director's terminal board; 50+ pairs of screws in there, woo:

[Linked Image from seriss.com]

Was able to identify the two terminals the buzzer was wired to easily enough:

[Linked Image from seriss.com]

..and connector 1's O-Y wire that was spared off (using a multimeter to find the right one):

[Linked Image from seriss.com]

..and connector 1's Y-O wire which was wired to terminal 3.

Since my 1 board KSU uses 12V to run both buzzer and lamps, I was able to wire the Hold lamp across the buzzer as well (Y-G pair) so that it lights up when the extension is buzzed, which should be good for the 8 phone / 4 line demo I'm preparing.

So all appears good for the buzzer mod; the phone buzzes and rings just like my others now.

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[Linked Image from seriss.com]

WOW! That's fancy...we only used black electrical tape.


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Indeed I've seen spares taped off with electrical tape in several of my other phones. Sometimes masking tape too!

In this phone, most had these nice clear plastic isolators.. some had single plastic shields, some holding sets of wires like the above.

In the cases of electrical tape on spares that I've seen, most stayed intact all these years. But I've run into a few where they had opened up, either from age or exposure to very hot days(?). Even when the glue sides were glued to each other, the glue separated from itself.

Electrical tape seems to work best when stretch-wrapped tightly around something.. the horizontal stress on the glue by the stretched elastic tape seems to help keep electrical tape stay bound really well over time. Noticed this many times on really old house wiring, where electric tape was stretch-wrapped tightly all the way around outlets/switches and wire nuts to isolate the screws from being touched by bare grounding wires inside conduit boxes. When it was wound tight, the tape was still holding really well.

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Working the US WEST Federal POTS contract year ago there was a period of time when we would open up a refurb ITT 2830 only to find that someone had taken silver spray paint to all the wires crazy


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Silver paint.. what the actual heck?
Must be aliens.

"I don't like all these colors" *grabs silver krylon* (shuka-shuka-shuka, tssssssssssss) "There, my job is done here"
[Linked Image from seriss.com]

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