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AE 80 - A few questions (Edit: It's actually an AE85D!)

Started by enki, June 10, 2011, 03:42:03 PM

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enki

Hello everyone!

My name's James and I just joined the forum. I also just started collecting antique phones and bell system memorabilia. I've always had an affinity for phones and telecommunications (and I currently work for a VoIP provider), so I thought it would be a fun hobby for me.

Yesterday my wife picked up a phone at an antique shop by her work for $18. When I got home, I did some research and determined that it was an AE 80 model. I took it apart, cleaned it up, and began trying to get it to work. During my investigation of what kind of phone it is, I was unable to find any pictures online that looked exactly like mine. It's a black bakelite design with a couple of interesting additions. It has a white knob on the bottom left that I later determined was a line switch to allow the caller to select between two different phone lines. While I've found similar phones online that had this knob, I haven't found any with this: right below the hook switch, two other bottoms - one white and the other one red. I can't figure out for the life of me what they do, and I haven't been able to find anything similar in my searching. When the handset is placed on the cradle, the white button will always pop up. The buttons seem to alternate between eachother (ie: one being up, the other one being depressed). The only thing that comes to mind is that this is some kind of hold or mute switch? I had originally thought that this was how you switched between line 1 and 2, but after I got the phone working, I determined that this wasn't the case and that the white knob did that. Turning it horizontal was Line 1 and vertical was Line 2. Has anyone ever seen a similar phone with these extra buttons at the top? I know my explanation of the physical layout might be a bit hard to understand, so I will take some pictures of it tonight.

As I mentioned earlier, I was able to get a dialtone working on both lines. This was actually pretty challenging, especially for my first antique phone, because I didn't realize the knob controlled the line selector and wound up being on Line 2 while trying to get Line 1 working :). To add to the confusion (and hopefully the identification of this specific type of phone), there are tons of wires coming out of it. They all have spade connectors on them, and there are two sets of about 7-8 (I forget offhand how many) wires. The first set has red, green, yellow, black, green, white and blue (and I think another duplicate color). The second set is really dirty and I didn't get a chance to clean it up, but it looks like the same base colors as the first set, but with brown stripes going around them. Out of the first set, red/green function as ring/tip for Line1 and yellow/black for Line2. I was able to get a dialtone for both lines with these connected. So what are the other 10+ wires for?

While I could get a dialtone and the rotary dial works (albeit my VoIP system isn't compatible with it, so I wasn't able to test outbound calling yet), I could not get it to ring. I did some research on this forum earlier and found out about the frequency ringers, which I assume mine has. I haven't had a chance to play with it too much, but my VoIP ATA (kind of like a Vonage adapter) has the ability to adjust the voltage and frequency of the ringing, so I'm hoping to be able to simulate the signal it is expecting from the CO. I need to find out what frequency it's looking for though. Has anyone had any luck with this or know if it's possible. I tried setting it to 90VAC and 40hz, but that didn't work. However I only have Line2 hooked up. Someone mentioned in another thread that you need to hook up multiple wires for the ringer, but I am not very electric saavy right now and am at a bit of a loss. I've seen wiring schematics for the phone, but I don't really understand them. Any assistance with which wires go where would be greatly appreciated.

The phone's in really great shape for something that I assume is from the 50s-60s.

Sorry to ramble on, but as you can probably tell, I am pretty excited about finding more out about this specific phone and trying to get it to work completely.

I'll try to post some pictures ASAP tonight when I get home to help explain what I am describing above.

Has anyone seen this specific type of AE80 before, or know any information about it? Thanks!

AE_Collector

#1
Sounds like one of the variations of the AE 85 to me.

Here's one that doesn't appear to have the extra buttons by the cradle that you mention. Otherwise does this look correct?

Terry

enki

Hey Terry,

Yes, that does look very similar to mine. Maybe I have an AE85 instead of the AE80? I finally took some pictures and here they are.

What do you think?


enki

Here are a few more pictures I took.

AE_Collector

An AE 85 is an AE 80 with the switch to the lower left of the dial that is used to select between two different lines. SOmetimes they have the extra buttons up top as well for other various functions. There is also an AE 81 that is a single line phone like  and AE 80 so it soen't have the switch to the lower left of the dial but it has various combinations of the small buttons up top like your AE 85 has. They can be used for various functions like exclusion (boss can activate exclusion so the secretary's phone can't listen in on private phone calls) buzzer circuits and ground start buttons.

Definitely looks like an AE 85 to me. A black AE 80 isn't a particularly exciting find but an AE 85 is much harder to find.

Terry

stub

 James,
            Welcome to this forum. This download may shed some more light on your phone. Your ringer is a straight line ringer. Ringer Pic- ( The top ringer is a frequency ringer and the bottom is a straight line ringer.)     stub

                                                       http://tinyurl.com/3svkdp6
Kenneth Stubblefield

enki

Terry & Stub,

Thanks for the information. Good to know that it's an AE85 and not an 80! There doesn't seem to be much information online about the 85 model. I appreciate that link Stub, as I wasn't able to find any other pictures or documentation/references on the 85 using Google. Is this a rare phone model?

Based on that document and some further inspection of the bottom of the phone (which as you can see from the pictures has suffered some substantial wear and most of the markings have rubbed off), I can tell that my phone is the 85D model. I previously the read the stamp as 65D (thinking it was the year it was made), but now it's obviously 85D. After reading that document, it looks like the 85D was based on the 85C, but modified during installation (and then stamped on the bottom) to turn the chrome button into a "hold" button for Line 1, when switching to Line 2. I tested this out and it does work! Since this button would normally be used for either a signal device or an exclusion key, I wonder if the extra wires served any purpose in it's normal usage back in the day.

The top buttons are definitely interesting. Impressive for a phone so old to be able to have such advanced functions. Is that what all the extra wires are for?

I see what you mean about the ringer looking more like a straight line version. I think I also make out the marking on the bottom saying CSL1, which would further indicate that. I'm a bit confused now since it doesn't actually ring. The document you gave me mentioned that only Line 1 would ring on some models, and since I was testing Line 2 out earlier, thought that might have been the reason. So I put it back on Line 1 and tested it out, but nothing. The fact that it had so many wires and that the volume control on the bottom was missing (and looked like it was never actually there as opposed to being broken) and that it didn't ring made me think it was a frequency ringer originally. I've been playing with it for the last hour but have not been successful in any testing. As I mentioned earlier, I'm using a VoIP adapter which lets me adjust the various settings, and I've tried adjusting the voltage from 85-90-100 and have the frequency at 20. I also tried both a sinusoid and trapezoid pattern. Based on the relatively good condition of the phone, and the fact that they made them so sturdy, I find it hard to believe that everything on the phone would work except for the ringer. Any suggestions on troubleshooting this?

Are any of the other wires necessary besides the two per line? I would really like to be able to get this phone to be fully functional. Does the ringer require any of them to be connected to something in a straight line configuration?

The document date is 1969, so I guess this is a later model phone from the late 60s or early 70s?

Thanks again!


AE_Collector

#7
You are making good progress! Are the two line one leads the green and the red? If so, put the yellow lead together with the green lead and see if it will ring then. Ringers were often in series with the capacitor across the red and yellow leads. This made it easy for the installer to connect the set as a private line with green and red together or as a party 1 or 2 phone with the yellow lead grounded.

Looking at your picture of the cord it looks to have 10 conductors? That was a fairly standard cord for AE sets with more than the usual single line function. Early AE 87 sets came with that same cord. The 87 could do three lines with the key strip across the front. I also see tha tit looks as though you had line two working with your cord hooked to the black and yellow set cord leads. If so my suggestion of putting green and yellow together isn't going to work.

Terry

enki

Terry,

Correct, the red/green pair are Line1 and the yellow/black pair make up Line2. So if your yellow connected to the green idea isn't going to work, I'm kind of at a loss what to try next.

Taking out the wires for Line1 (red/green) and Line2 (yellow/black), that leaves me with a solid blue, a solid white, a brown-striped red, a brown-striped green, a brown-striped yellow and a brown-striped black.

Should I just try adding the other wires to ring/tip to eliminate all possible combinations?

I have the ringing set to 90VAC, sinusoid waveform at 20hz. That should be correct, right?

Thanks!

AE_Collector

Your ringing voltage sounds correct. It is possible that your ATA doesn't produce enough current to ring bells versus an electronic ringer. DO you have the ability to try another known working phone that has real bells along with your VOIP ATA?

I think the next step is going to have to be tracing the two leads coming off of the ringer and the two leads off of the capacitor (gray box) on the back of the ringer. We need to know what terminals they connect to along with the green, red, yellow & black line cord leads. One of the ringer leads should be connected to one of the capacitor leads on a screw terminal on the network. The remaining capacitor and remaining ringer leads should be connected to the green and the red line cord leads unless they are with the black and yellow leads so that it would ring on line two rather than line one.

Terry

enki

Unfortunately, this is the only phone I have that has a bell ringer. In fact, I only have one other analog phone in the house (piezo ringer), as the rest are VoIP/SIP phones.

I'm trying to trace those wires while being as uninstrusive as possible. I'm a bit hesitant to try and take the phone completely apart in case I inadvertantly damage something, but the internal wiring is so chaotic and runs in bundles under things that it might not be possible.

The two wires off of the capacitor are black and white. The two wires off of the ringer look to be light blue and light red. As the light blue one is unique, I can see that that one is going to terminal 16 on the white box. There is also another white wire connected there as well, which I can assume/hope based on your prior post is the white one from the capacitor. Unfortunately, the remaining two wires I'm trying to trace are black and red, which are the two most common ones inside the phone...

One thing of note is that there is a black and a red wire with spades on them that are not connected to anything, and are tucked away in a white and clear holder. I am guessing that when this phone was modified from an 85C to and 85D in the field that these were part of the default exclusion function that was replaced with the hold. Next to the ringer is what seems like an addon board that has a yellow and black wire pair going into what looks to be a resister and capacity setup (the hold system?). Those both run into the brown panel board above the ringer assembly.

I also just tried another ATA that does ring the normal analog phone I have. It doesn't work either. While simulating a call to the 85D, I tried attaching the blue and white wires to the red and green, but it had no effect. I also didn't notice anything inside of the phone to indicate it was even trying to ring (like a vibration of the ringer).

stub

#11
 James ,
           FIRST draw a diagram of how your phone is now.( If my wiring is wrong you can put it back )
           Remove your dial by placing the heel of your hand on center of the finger wheel and push in and pull down at the same time . It should come right off, lay it to one side. Look on your network and give us the D- number stamped on it. Put the phone back to line 1.
           Make sure your line in wires are seperated and not touching any thing and go directly to the network # L1  10 and place RED line in wire there - # L2  8 GREEN line in wire goes there, # 15 should have one wire from one side of the ringer there- #16  should have the other side of ringer and the white wire from capacitor - the black from capacitor should go to # L2 8 on the network. This should work for D-38384-A network.  Let me know if this helps. This is how my 85 A is wired.  
              You might as well check this out also!!      stub       
                                                              http://tinyurl.com/4ynevun
                               
Kenneth Stubblefield

stub

Kenneth Stubblefield