WE/American Bell 295a subset restoration

[Pourme]

Do you have a DVM to measure resistance? If so, disconnect the two wire from the ringer and check the resistance. Should be about 600 + 600 or 1200 ohms, give or take a few. If so, the coils are good.

Does your volt meter measure capacitance? If so, check the capacitor to see if it has an issue. I don't  know what it should be but .5 to 2 uF is usually in the ring circuit, IIRC.

Just two things to rule out.

This ringer is 500 + 500 and it measures 1046. I have a cheap VOM, don't think I can measure capacitance. I may find one to do so, though.

[WEBellSystemChristian]

Well, now that the gongs have been proven to be nickel, I'd strip the paint off again. Yup, don't need it anymore!

[Sargeguy]

Do you have a magneto you can hook the ringer up to?  If it works then it is either a wiring or capacitor issue.

[Pourme]

I have 2 magnetos but neither works....The ringer made a effort to ring before I disassembled it. There was some corrosion on one of the contacts, I cleaned up. It could possibly be lack of proper adjustment when I re assembled it?

[poplar1]

I'll try that, John...The thing is, the red indicator light on the tester don't flicker when I try to make it ring. That leads me to believe something is wrong with the subset, somewhere.

Gongs not attracted to magnet...I think you're right!

If you connect the subset to the phone line rather than the tester, does it keep the line "off-hook" (busy when you call it)? Since the red light on the tester is not flickering, it sounds as if the subset is keeping the line off-hook. Could be a shorted condenser.

Try removing both the line and the black ringer wire from L1. Instead, just temporarily connect them together -- you could use the GND screw for example. This way only the ringer circuit will be connected (ringer + condenser).

[Pourme]

Thanks for the response....I will try that and report back!