Protel boards.

[trainman]

I have what is marked Protel 8000 COCOT board. I actually had one working for a while. Dial a number, it would say deposit a dollar, then i could dial. I had no coin relay attached. Then, i attached a coin relay, deposited my dollar, hung up, relay operated. Now, nothing works. Dial a number, i can still hear faint dial tone, i can dial, but after dialing, all i get is a busy signal. So, what happened?

[ESalter]

Check your battery.  9 times out of 10 if you lose(faint) dialtone with a Protel, it's a bad battery.  There's the big battery that plugs in as well as a small lithium battery inside that holds the program memory.

---Eric

[trainman]

Thanks, Eric. I trying the battery from the other board, same thing. I left it plugged in the chassis so it would  charge a few hours, no change. Do these use an unmodified coin relay, or are they operating at a lower voltage on the Protel 8000?  I might keep these boards if i can get them reprogrammed for like say everycall is a quarter, just to show them off.  Or maybe i should put one outside my apt. Make some extra money.

[Weco355aman]

The Battery in the phone only charges in the off hook condition. I was a protel payphone user with 140 phones in the field 
befor the cel industry put the payphones out of business. Payphones were a fantastic revenue source before  cell phones.

[trainman]

I got one of my Protel boards working. Don't know what rate file is in it, but all calls are one dollar. Can one reprogram it from home to make all calls  like 50 cents?   I was having fun with it. Coin relays collects or refunds like it should.

[trainman]

Thanks to a comment by G-Man in another  thread, I figured out how to change the rates on my boards. Fun times.