AE 40 questions

[mienaichizu]

I'm happy with my AE 40, I have tested it and it works but....

1. How to make it ring?
2. The other phones connected to the same line struck their bell when I dial on my AE40, making a "ting" sound in some of the pulses when I dial

[McHeath]

Problem 1 I can't fix for you.

Problem 2 is bell tap.  You might be able to adjust the bias springs on the ringers on your phones, that little wire spring thingie next to the clapper, move it to the other position and see what happens. 

Otherwise I'm sure our real experts here can help you out way more than I. 

[dsk]

http://www.telephonecollectors.org/library/aeco/ae40.pdf

Are the ringer connected with Gr-Wh to L2?

dsk

[BDM]

Also, reverse L1 & L2 line in circuits. See if the bell tapping stops.

[Phonesrfun]

I'm happy with my AE 40, I have tested it and it works but....

1. How to make it ring?

One, your ringer is not connected correctly, or Two, you have a frequency ringer.

If you have a frequency ringer, you will not get it to ring unless you change out the ringer for a straight line ringer.  

This is often a problem on AE and other phones of the independant phone companies.  They used frequency ringing a lot for party line signaling, whereas the Bell system, who used WE phones used mostly divided ringing with straight line ringers.  Straight line ringing is what the phone systems all use now that there are few if any party lines in existence today.

A frequency ringer is one that is sensitive to a very specific ringing frequency.  Each party on a party line was assigned a different specific frequency to ring.  When the central office sent, say a 33 Hz ringing signal down the line, only the one phone that had a 33Hz ringer would ring.  All the others would not ring.  Not only that, but they were very selective to within just a couple of Hertz.

Straight line ringers, on the other hand are very broad and will respond to probably anything from, say 15 Hz to, say 40 Hz or more.

-Bill

[mienaichizu]

the ringing problem is done, this is what I did:

Connections from terminal block:
Red to G
Black to L1
White to L2

I connected GR-WH to L1 and it rings but the tapping issue is still there

by reversing L2 and L1, tapping issue is still there

[mienaichizu]

ok tapping issue is also resolved, the dial just needs a little lubricating

the phone is now working properly, all I have to do is to clean it up

[McHeath]

Good work on troubleshooting.  These old phones are pretty fixable eh?  That's one of the fun things about them to me. 

[mienaichizu]

yah, sometimes experimenting with trial and error can do the job, thanks McHeath

[Sargeguy]

I am trying to fix my first AE40 for a friend.  I am using a House of Old telephones cords with WECO color schemes.  I hooked Green to L2, Red to L1 and Yellow to G, with black taped off.  It doesn't ring or give me tone.  Any suggestions?

P.S. Yes I know about the Telephone Archive schematic

[mienaichizu]

this is what I did

I connected GR-WH from the ringer to L1 and it rings

[JorgeAmely]

No dial tone means no transmitter circuit.

[mienaichizu]

I'm not sure where the green red and yellow will be connected. I'm using the old cords from the phone with black, red and white.

This is what I did
Red to G
Black to L1
White to L2

[Phonesrfun]

As long as L1 and L2 get connected at the other end to the telephone line, it doesn't matter what the colors are in between.  The colors are just so people can easily keep things straight.  The phone can't tell the difference.

Usually the red and green were connected to L2 and L1.  It doesn't matter whether green is L1 or L2 and visa versa.  Even Western Electric could not make up their mind on that.  Yellow was almost always used for the ground, if used.

So, if you have hooked black to L1 and White to L2, then by hooking up the black and white wires to the house wiring, you should get dial tone.  Ringing depends on how the ringer is hooked up inside the phone.  If bridged across L1 and L2, and if it is a straight line ringer, it should work with no yellow connection.  However, it seems like somewhere in this thread was the possibility that the ringer was a frequency ringer.  Was that resolved?

-Bill

[Sargeguy]

That's what i was afraid of!  I will have to look at the rest of the wiring and see what's going on with it.