I am brand new to all this so please bear with me as I try to get the terminology all correct. A little research has shown that I have a WE302 phone. It had three problems and I have since fixed 2 of them (1. others could not hear you, sanded down contacts in handset and bent some pins to align. 2. Ringer did not work. Rewired phone per one of the diagrams here, both ringer wires were connected to ground??)
The third problem has me stumped, it will not break dial tone. What I mean by this is the when I try to dial out it still has a dial tone as I dial numbers on it. On occasion it will stop after the 3 or 4th number is dialed, but generally it has the dial tone at all times. This, of course, prevents me from dialing out. I do run a vonage VOIP device, but I tested another pulse dial phone on it and it worked fine.
Looking at the inside of the dialer, it appears to be a 5H (this is what is stamped on it in red) I did slip a piece of sand paper in between each of the contacts and shaded lightly in hope that this might improve the contacts and get it working. It did not.
All the contacts appear to be working correctly. When I dial on it the very bottom contact is lifted up and the second to bottom contact makes contact with a center post, a small cam then pulses the top contact on and off the correct number of times according to the number I dialed, after which the the two bottom contacts go back to their normal position.
Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or fix this issue would be appreciated
thanks,
jeff
The first comment that should be made is NEVER use sandpaper on contacts! Never use anything more abrasive than a piece of Kraft paper on them.... I am rushed for time now, but I am sure someone will step forward and help more...
Dave
Hi Jeff, welcome to the forum ;D
Just throw it away and buy a new phone. You will be better off that way. Once you get this working it will be too late, if Phonitis has not already set in. Next you will want another phone, maybe a 500 or maybe another 302, in color! Now collect all the colors! Maybe you need some phone tools or some phone signs. How about setting up a central office in the basement. This is an incurable, progressive disese that will take over your life. You will spend all your time, thinking about, searching for and working on old phones, never mind all your money too! Then you will be out of space for all your phone stuff and need to move or build a phone museum.
Seriously, welcome. You have found the best forum on the net and the best bunch of people in the world. There are many knowlelgeable folks here who are willing to help. Sounds like the dial contacts or wiring may be at fault. Can you post some pictures? The back of the dial at rest and with the fingerwheel held at zero would be helpful. As Dave has already stated, never use abrasive on the contacts. Hopefully they are not trashed. A closeup of them may also help.
The contacts in the handset don't have the same treatment to them as the dial and hookswitch contacts, so if you have not sanded the dial contacts, you should be ok. You mentioned that you moved wires around for the ringer in accordance with the diagram. I would double check the ringer connections. If you have it so that the ringer is directly bridged across the line without being in series with the capacitor, it could cause your problem, The ringer and ringer capacitor should be wired as follows:
Ringer red wire to L1 on the 101A coil, along with the red line cord wire
Ringer black wire to terminal K on the little pad next to the induction coil
Capacitor yellow wire to L2/Y on the 101A induction coil along with the green line cord wire
Capacitor slate wire to terminal K on the little pad next to the induction coil (along with ringer black above)
That would be the first thing I would check.
When I had Vonage, rotary dialing worked just fine for me, so as you said, there is probably something with the phone. Pictures of the wiring would help if the ringer is wired correctly.
Thanks, I will check the wiring again tomorrow, everyone has went to bed and will not appreciate me playing with the ringer on the phone. It has now been wired up two different ways, both ways seemed to work except for breaking the dial tone. I did actually sand very lightly the contacts in dialer, I hope I did not damage them.
oh, one more thing that may be related. The ringer sounds pretty weak. it works, but is not the full robust sound like it should be, sounds like a muffled ring like it is underpowered. I was going to look at this next, but thought I would mention it in case is is related.
Thanks for the quick replies
Hi, and welcome to the forum!
I can think of two things that would muffle the bells,
1: The bias spring is in the wrong place (possible that it would still work? I'm not sure)
2. A wire is touching the bell, you would just want to re-route it.
Ben
Quote from: jholland on January 03, 2014, 10:18:42 PM
Thanks, I will check the wiring again tomorrow, everyone has went to bed and will not appreciate me playing with the ringer on the phone. It has now been wired up two different ways, both ways seemed to work except for breaking the dial tone. I did actually sand very lightly the contacts in dialer, I hope I did not damage them.
oh, one more thing that may be related. The ringer sounds pretty weak. it works, but is not the full robust sound like it should be, sounds like a muffled ring like it is underpowered. I was going to look at this next, but thought I would mention it in case is is related.
Thanks for the quick replies
Sanding the contacts on the dial (not generally called dialer, just plain dial) is potentially harmful for the long term, but what's done is done. Make sure also that while doing the sanding and cleaning that you did not bend the contacts. The pulsing contacts should distinctly open and close as the pulsing is going on. You might also check to make sure the wires to the Y and BK terminals of the dial are not shorted together, which would also cause your problem. The weak ringer could be caused by the bias spring as Ben said, but if the ringer was connected without going through the capacitor, that could potentially cause a weak ring too.
As you can see, there are many things to check.
Check for the contacts of the pulsing contacts of the dial switch
Check to make sure the Y and BK terminals on the dial are not somehow touching or shorted together
Check for proper ringer wiring
Check the bias spring on the ringer. Try it in the two different slots.
Ok, I got the ringer working nicely. I found the bells for the ringer are on an ecentric and I rotated them so they were a little further away from the plunger, it now sounds nice on the ring.
I checked all the wiring as described above and it all looks good.
I have enclosed pictures of the dial at rest and with it dialed to number 0, hard to see the difference, the only thing I could see different in the pictures are that at 0, the little cam that allows the two lower contacts to move to the up position was rotated fully counterclockwise (as would be expected) and the two lower contacts were in the up position.
Please let me know if you see anything wrong in the pictures
jeff
Looking at the wiring, it all looks properly wired. I believe the problem is with the dial pulse contact springs. In your second and third pictures, the contacts for the pulsing are the left-most two contacts that the pulsing ratchet/pawl activates. That pawl is the metal piece that has the rubber insulating tip on it. Whether the dial is at a complete rest or wound up all the way at zero doesn't matter. The pawl will be a little different, but the activation of the pawl and thus the action to open and close those contacts occurs only during the wind-down action of the dial. Try it out dial a zero. Wind it all the way to the finger stop and the pawl will only move slightly. It s when you let go and let the dial finger wheel wind down that you should see the pulsing action of the pawl against the pulse springs, hopefully to open and close the contacts between them. Let the dial go in slow motion by letting the finger wheel go slowly by holding it back with some back pressure. You can see it pulsing slower. Check to see that the contacts open and close. If all they do is wiggle a little without opening and closing, then you have an adjustment problem.
I'm not the best but in all cases I always clean the contacts gently..I did it on all my phones. especially on my 53 because It had not been used since almost 17 years and I've never had problems later with none of my phones. ;)
If you unscrew the transmitter cap and let the transmitter fall out, do you still have dial tone?
Hmm, still can not get this thing working! I do want to check on 1 important thing: When I start dialing when should I lose the dial tone? As soon as I start to dial, I loose the dial done, but as soon as the dial springs back to the resting position, the dial tone immediately comes back.
1. I have inspected all the contacts in the dial carefully and all appear to be contacting and opening fine. There actually appears to be three different contacts that are made and unmade and all appear good when I look at them closely with a jewelers glass. The pawl seems to be doing exactly as it should and pulsing the contact open the number of times equal to the number you dial.
2. I did unscrew the mouthpiece from the handset (the transmitter?) and as soon as I let this fall out I lose the dial tone. No idea if this is what is supposed to happen, but someone asked me to try this.
3. I did undo one thing I did not mention here. The cord to the wall has 3 wires on it. I had the yellow wire connected to the wall along with the black wire as I had read somewhere that you needed to do this so it would ring since the standard now is only 2 wire. I undid this, but it made no difference to anything and it does still seem to ring fine so I have left it without any connection.
thanks for any help
Unscrewing the transmitter cap and taking out the transmitter did exactly what it should do, and that is, it turned off the phone and dial tone went away. That at least tells us something.
The yellow and black wires serve no function and it usually does not matter whether they are connected or not. It is best to tape the ends of them and not connect them to anything. If you had them connected together and plugged the phone into a receptical somewhere where there was a second line on the second pair, it would short out the second line. Apparently you have no second line in your house.
If you take the phone off the hook and get dial tone, and then jiggle the hook switch up and down a number of times, does that get rid of dial tone? Pulsing the hook switch accomplishes the same thing as the dial. It turns the phone off and on a number of times for each number you dial. Jiggling the hookswitch should break dial tone.
I would say that since taking the transmitter out did what it should do, and if jiggling the hook switch does what it should do, then the problem winds up being in the dial switch.
In fact, with the phone plugged in and dial tone in the receiver, with the cover of the phone off, manually open the dial pulse springs on the back of the dial with your fingers. Does dial tone go away?
Bill, please take a close look at the pulsing contacts shown in his photos. Are my eyes deceiving me or have they been bent to the other side of the pulsing pawl?
Thanks-
G-Man
I'll have to take a trip to the storeroom or open up a 302 to verify it but a closer inspection seems to reveal that someone has rearranged the contact pile-up with the pulsing contacts arranged in the wrong positions. Please take a look to verify if I am correct.
Thanks-
G-Man
Quote from: G-Man on January 08, 2014, 09:58:22 PM
Bill, please take a close look at the pulsing contacts shown in his photos. Are my eyes deceiving me or have they been bent to the other side of the pulsing pawl?
Thanks-
G-Man
My eyes must really be playing tricks on me. The pulsing contacts appear to be arranged in different positions in photos one and two. Photo one seems to be correct and photo two has the contacts reversed; either that or it's my eyes that are out of sequence.
To me it also looks confusing, but he has two photos, each with the finger wheel in different positions. Photo1 which shows on my screen at the bottom is with the dial at rest, and Photo2 which displays at the top of my screen shows the dial with the finger wheel wound up, ready to release. It is difficult to actually make out the tips of the springs, especially Photo2. In comparing the stack and the metal and fiber spacers to a 5H dial I have, it appears to not be tampered with. Photo2 does at first glance make it look like the two contacts have been reversed, but in Photo1, it is more clear that I think it is ok. the wiring to the dial also seems to have proper wires in the proper place, although it is dark and hard to see the exact color of the wire connected to BB. I still think the problem lies in the dial, however. I wonder if he can get a better picture of the dial with better lighting.
Here are close-ups of the pulsing contacts shown in the two photos.
Photo2 looks like an optical illusion where you look at it one way and it looks like one thing, then blink and it looks like something else. It needs better lighting.
To jholland: Did you take the switch off the dial when you cleaned the contacts?
Quote from: Phonesrfun on January 08, 2014, 11:45:10 PM
Photo2 looks like an optical illusion where you look at it one way and it looks like one thing, then blink and it looks like something else. It needs better lighting.
To jholland: Did you take the switch off the dial when you cleaned the contacts?
That's why I called upon your expertise;-)
From the current photos it's difficult to determine if the contacts have been modified.
Quote from: G-Man on January 09, 2014, 12:24:42 AM
That’s why I called upon your expertise;-)
From the current photos it’s difficult to determine if the contacts have been modified.
Yes, I agree.
Thanks for all your help! I have enclosed some better pictures in hope that they will help troubleshoot the problem.
I have included three pictures
1. Dial at rest. This is the resting state when the dial is released and at home
2. Dial at zero: This is with me holding the dial fully dialed to zero
3. Dail returning: This is a picture of the dial returning from zero and held by me with the pulsing contact held open by the pawl
Hope these give you some ideas
thanks,
jeff
ps. I have never removed the dial or any other part from inside the phone, only changed wiring and adjusted ringer. I did take out the transmitter and bend some contacts to get that working.
Jeff:
This is a puzzling thing.
The photos seem to show the dial switch all in order.
I guess one thing at a time to try. Did you try to jiggle the hook switch to see if that breaks dial tone? I suspect that it probably does, but try it and then we go on to the next step. Take the yellow/brown wire off the Y terminal of the dial to see if that turns off the phone. It should.
See what those two things do and come back and let us know.
I'm not familiar with Vonage specs, but some VOIP lines don't tolerate much deviation from 10 pulses per second.
You said another pulse phone works fine on your Vonage line. Does the other phone have a rotary dial or a pushbutton dial that stores the number then pulses it out? If it is a rotary dial, you may want to compare its speed with that of the 5H dial on the 302. You can do this by releasing the 2 finger wheels at the same time. Otherwise, you can use the stopwatch function on a cell phone.
OK, here is the latest
1. When i jiggle, but but don't fully press the hook, it breaks dial. I can never get it to do it on the first jiggle, but often on the second.
2. When I disconnect the yellow/brown wire off the Y/L2 terminal the phone dies, or at least looses the dial tone completely. Don't know ow else to tell if it died.
3. I tried timing the time the dial takes to return from a zero dial. Its really hard to do, but best I can figure is that it takes about 1.25 seconds. Not sure how good my reflexes are on trying to time it. I don't have another dial phone to compare it to. The only other phone I have is a electronic pulse dial
4. When I dial any number, the dial tone does go away until the the dial returns to its home position, then it returns.
I don't understand how the pulse rate could cause the vonage device to not break dial tone. since when you dial the number 1 it only pulses 1 time, thus the vonage device couldn't know what the pulse rate would be.
I did get it to break dial once when I was dialing (#3), but I must have dialed a hundred more times after that and it would never repeat. Could the contacts just be dirty?
I did check some things out with my volt meter. Here is what I found with the voltmeter on the lines into the wall:
1. With the phone on standby, I get 48.8 VDC
2. When I pick up the handset this drops to 2.2 VDC
3. As soon as I start dialing it drops to 0.0 VDC
4. My voltmeter is not fast enough to exactly read it, but it appears the pulses are around 33-34 volts DC
The most interesting thing I found was by also repeating this on my modern pulse dial phone. When I pick up the handset it drops to 7.0 VDC not 2.2VDC as this phone does. Everything else appears to be the same. Any reason why the voltage would be so different on these?
Thanks for any help
Jeff
I just thought of and ran another test. What I did was lift the handset on the 302 and the also lifted the handset of my modern pulse dial phone that is on another jack and tired to dial from it. With both the handsets lifted, I could not break dial from the other phone either. In fact, it would not even do the electronic pulse of the numbers. When I pressed a number, I would hear a single slight click and then nothing, no pulses.
This is leading me to believe the voltage must have something to do with it, that maybe the 302 drops the voltage too low and is therefore not signaling the voyage device correctly?
There must be some type of signal the phone sends to the voyage device telling it "Hello, get ready to receive pulses" Could this be the 7 VDC current that tells it that and it does not recognize the 2V signal?
jeff
When the dial is off-normal, the switch in the dial mutes the receiver so yo don't hear loud clicks while the dial pulses. This is normal. In fact everything you describe is normal for a 302, including all the voltage measurements. I am actually surprised you are getting 48 volts out of a Vonage router. I was on Vonage once and went through 2 routers and both were 24 volts under no load. A telephone central office runs at 48 volts, but I was under the impression that ATA routers normally all put out 24. Perhaps I was mistaken.
Off hook, the 302 draws more current than a newer phone, and thus the lower voltage under a load. Perhaps under load, the higher current draw is loading down not only the line voltage but the internal voltage in the ATA. If you have a 200 0hm or so resistor, you might try that in series with the phone and see if that helps.
The fact that the voltage drops to zero when you turn the dial is an intentional design feature of the 302. You might try disconnecting the red/slate wire from the R terminal of the dial to bypass this shorting action and see if that helps.
The way your phone is currently, however, I see no problem with it, other than it may be somewhat incompatible with the Vonage router.
PS No rotary phone will dial when another phone is off-hook.
If you know someone who has a landline, you might try the 302 on that line. Central office lines should tolerate 8 pulses per second or more (1.25 seconds for 0). If it works there, you can then speed up the dial by adjusting the governor.
Quote from: jholland on January 10, 2014, 09:34:24 PM
I don't understand how the pulse rate could cause the vonage device to not break dial tone. since when you dial the number 1 it only pulses 1 time, thus the vonage device couldn't know what the pulse rate would be.
2 different values. It is looking for 60 miliseconds between pulses of a given digit dialed, and a larger value for interdigit pause (the time between numbers, while you are winding up the dial for the next digit.) This is how it distinguishes a 2 (two pulses) and two 1s (two pulses). If a dial is too slow, it may see 7 as 1,1,1,1,1,1,1.
Thanks again for all your help! making this thing work has become a mission!
Disconnecting the wire didn't help, I will try to resister idea but will need to buy one. I will also track down a neighbor with an POT service.
I still don't understand how the voyage device could not recognize the timing correctly. If I just dial a 1 and only a 1, it should break dial, but since I have not dialed any other numbers there would be only a single pulse and thus no timing between pulses.
thanks,
jeff
I must admit, this has been a challenge. Let us know what happens on someone else's line. :)
Think something like this might work??, its not exactly cheap
http://www.oldphoneworks.com/pulse-to-tone-converter.html
jeff
Quote from: jholland on January 10, 2014, 10:24:28 PM
Thanks again for all your help! making this thing work has become a mission!
Disconnecting the wire didn't help, I will try to resister idea but will need to buy one. I will also track down a neighbor with an POT service.
I still don't understand how the voyage device could not recognize the timing correctly. If I just dial a 1 and only a 1, it should break dial, but since I have not dialed any other numbers there would be only a single pulse and thus no timing between pulses.
thanks,
jeff
Jeff, I see your point now--since it's not breaking dial tone with 1 either. I think you've so far stumped the panel on this one.
The only other thing I would try would be to move the white receiver wire from W on the dial to BB, and listen (at a safe distance) to make sure the dial tone is constant during the entire dial operation. When the phone is working, the dial tone should stay during the entire windup and until the dial comes to rest after the first digit. Some defective dials disconnect the line during windup, but I believe your pictures indicate that this is not the case.
Keep the receiver a safe distance away from your ear while it is pulsing and the W/BB contacts are bypassed.
Quote from: jholland on January 10, 2014, 10:33:48 PM
Think something like this might work??, its not exactly cheap
http://www.oldphoneworks.com/pulse-to-tone-converter.html
jeff
Before you do that, I would ship the dial to Steve Hilsz who will clean and calibrate it for $6 plus shipping.
I have never used one, but many have. There have been mixed reviews of some. OPW has carried a couple different brands of these, and there is no reason for one not to work, except that you will notice that it requires time to charge and is line-power driven. You might call OPW and talk to Mike there before buying.
Try going to the top-most level of this forum and search for rotatone or dial gizmo or pulse to tone converter and see what things have been said about them.
Frankly, with all the alternatives to POTS lines out there, I think these will be needed more and more in the future.
Quote from: Phonesrfun on January 10, 2014, 10:41:23 PM
I have never used one, but many have. There have been mixed reviews of some. OPW has carried a couple different brands of these, and there is no reason for one not to work, except that you will notice that it requires time to charge and is line-power driven. You might call OPW and talk to Mike there before buying.
Try going to the top-most level of this forum and search for rotatone or dial gizmo or pulse to tone converter and see what things have been said about them.
Frankly, with all the alternatives to POTS lines out there, I think these will be needed more and more in the future.
Future shock? Since another Dial Pulse phone works, I would hold off on buying a converter for now and just calibrate the dial. It won't hurt to try adjusting the governor and/or sending the dial to Steve.
I will first try to test it on a POTS, if this works then I buy the adapter. If not, its off to the cleaning....
I did search the voyage forums and while the newer units don't support pulse dialing, I have an older one that does.
thanks
jeff
You noted that the dial tone should stay on entire the dial comes all the way back. Mine works the opposite. I lose dial as soon as I start to dial, the dial tone does not back until the dial returns to rest.
thanks,
jeff
p.s My wife just stopped by and says I am officially a geek!
Quote from: jholland on January 10, 2014, 10:53:32 PM
You noted that the dial tone should stay on entire the dial comes all the way back. Mine works the opposite. I lose dial as soon as I start to dial, the dial tone does not back until the dial returns to rest.
thanks,
jeff
p.s My wife just stopped by and says I am officially a geek!
Poplar1:
I think in order for our new-found geek to get the results you mentioned while moving the white wire to BB, he will also need to remove the red/slate wire from R. The reason why is that wire is designed to shunt out the entire phone during dialing. I just tried it on mine. Something that is kind of unique to a 300 series phone.
Jeff: Try doing what you just did, but also remove the red/slate from R. You can then say you've really joined the geeks.
I moved both wires and no difference I could notice, I lose the dial tone as soon as I start dialing and it comes back as soon as the dial returns to home.
Have to call it quits for tonight. Will check out a neighbor with POTS tomorrow
thanks!
jeff
Quote from: jholland on January 10, 2014, 10:47:58 PM
I will first try to test it on a POTS, if this works then I buy the adapter. If not, its off to the cleaning....
I did search the voyage forums and while the newer units don't support pulse dialing, I have an older one that does.
thanks
jeff
Or, if it works on a POTS line, you could have the dial cleaned and calibrated, and skip the adapter.
Quote from: jholland on January 10, 2014, 11:10:33 PM
I moved both wires and no difference I could notice, I lose the dial tone as soon as I start dialing and it comes back as soon as the dial returns to home.
Have to call it quits for tonight. Will check out a neighbor with POTS tomorrow
thanks!
jeff
What I was wondering was: with both wires moved, does the dial tone go off before the dial is released, that is, while you are winding it up and while you are holding it before releasing the finger wheel? (If so, then it is disconnecting the line, which could also return a new dial tone, the same as if you hung up the phone and picked up again.)
Quote from: jholland on January 10, 2014, 10:53:32 PM
You noted that the dial tone should stay on entire the dial comes all the way back. Mine works the opposite. I lose dial as soon as I start to dial, the dial tone does not back until the dial returns to rest.
thanks,
jeff
p.s My wife just stopped by and says I am officially a geek!
May be different at what point the ATA removes dial tone, compared to a central office. (Can someone with Vonage confirm this?) But in any case, if you now have the white receiver wire on BB and the red-slate wire removed from R, then the dial tone should not go away before the dial is released, because the dial pulsing contacts should have continuity except when they are actually pulsing out a digit.
I suspect your Vonage ATA is a VDV23. I find these to be very fine units. I don't know what other adapters Vonage uses currently, but I think they started with these perhaps 3 years ago, perhaps more.
Mine outputs just over 48V, and when taking a connected 1952 WE-302 off-hook, the voltage drops to about 5.0 to 4.5 V.
Normally I have about 4 devices on that port, an FXO port of a Cisco router, a Panasonic 308 and a 616, and usually either a WE 102 with 534 subset or a 202 Imperial with a 685A subset.
Well, I was finally able to track down a neighbor with a POTS and the phone dialed out perfectly the very first time I dialed! I am thus guessing that it is some incapability with my Vonage device (Motorola VT2442-VD).
Do you think that sending out the dial for cleaning and tuning might do any good, or is this a lost cause. Recall, I have an electronic pulse dial phone that works fine on the voyage device.
Also, the phone is in generally very good cosmetic shape, but could use a little polishing up. Any good things to do or not do to polish the plastic case and the handset?
thanks,
jeff
Steve will calibrate the dial so that it will be the same speed as your working electronic one. Then both should work on your ATA.
how do I get in touch with Steve?
Jeff
Here's his web site. I think there is a page describing his dial repair.
http://www.navysalvage.com/
Steve does great work, I couldn't have been more happy!
He is also really nice, and has an abundance of parts.
Ben