Attack of the killer AE 40s

[HobieSport]

I looked inside all of my AE 40s today for the first time. Here are some pictures of most of my AE 40s for comparison.

[Phonesrfun]

You aren't by any chance, a fan of AE40's are you?

[McHeath]

Nah, Hobie does not like AE 40s at all.

Pretty fun pics, all those phone inards...

[Dennis Markham]

Hobie, it looks like two of them have frequency ringers??

[Dan]

I have two myself, I wish they would date their components like WE did. Neat pictures

[mienaichizu]

you are a sure fan of AE40's, how many do you have?

[Tonyrotary]

First thing I noticed was how clean they are. 

[Phonesrfun]

That's because he's not like some of us, dirty old phone collectors....

Take that either way.

[Tonyrotary]

LOL 

[HobieSport]

Hobie, it looks like two of them have frequency ringers??

That's what I'm trying to figure out. I want to get them all nicely refurbished and sell all but a couple. I'll send all the dials to Steve Hilz for an overhaul, then I have to get all the ringers working and some cords and rubber foot-gaskets replaced, dial rings and cards, etc..

First thing I noticed was how clean they are.  

This is what they looked like as received from all over the country on Ebay. Pretty clean inside.

[McHeath]

Clearly you don't have the art down of buying dirty, filthy, bug infested, moldy, smelly phones like I do.  It's a standard ritual for me when taking them apart the first time to pull the gongs off to get the bug shells out of there.  (Did that on another one Sunday night, found two dead bugs of unknown species)  I guess I need to hang out in better phone neighborhoods eh?

[Dennis Markham]

I know it's a bit off topic of the AE40 but since you mentioned bugs........

I posted this on my blog a while back.  Some of you may have seen it.  It taught me a lesson about letting a "new" phone, right out of the box sit on the kitchen table...........

http://www.vintagerotaryphones.com/?p=19

[mienaichizu]

I have a similar experience when I opened up my AE 880 speakerphone. What I found inside is bunch of roach sh*t, broken roach eggs, bits and pieces of paper, etc. It seems that roaches had lived and propagated inside that AE 880.

[HobieSport]

No bugs here (AE 40s do tend to stay pretty clean inside, unlike some WE 302s), but about these ringers...

I'll post close up pics of the various ringers in a day or so, but meanwhile, what are some folks experiences with AE 40 ringers? Do any of them work as is, or with various frequencies, do they need electronic modification or even replacement to ring correctly on today's phone lines?

[Phonesrfun]

Generally, you will need a straight line ringer in each to work, unless by chance you have a 20~ frequency ringer.

The frequencies to which the freq. ringers are tuned are within pretty tight specifications.  At best, all a freq ringer will do is vibrate a teensy bit at 20~.

Hook them up and try them out.