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It's been a while - "modern" TeleMatrix 2500E hotel room phone...

Started by twocvbloke, February 23, 2017, 01:33:11 AM

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twocvbloke

While perusing ebay seeing what phones were available (being influenced by watching Cheers & seeing their 1A2 phones and the bar phones that seem to switch between being black 1A2s and 2500s), I happened upon this 2500-style phone, looks like it came from a hotel (and looking it's number up, it's a Best Western called the Phoenix Goodyear Inn in Arizona), probably all electronic inside, so this'll be different for me I'm sure... :)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/182464250543
(£10.00 & £5.99 P&P)

It does make me wonder if it was sold off officially or if it was "permanently borrowed" from room 131, could be handling stolen goods here... ;D

andy1702

It looks like a 2500 to me, although I'm no expert on US equipment. I've no idea how the light and the messaging should work. Other than that it looks pretty normal.

One thing I have noticed is the little plastic clip at the top of the keypad that should hold the clear face plate on seems to be broken or missing. That must be a real weak point because I've got one with exactly the same problem.

Andy.
Call me on C*net 0246 81 290 from the UK
or (+44) 246 81 290 from the rest of the world.

For telephone videos search Andys Shed on Youtube.

twocvbloke

Looks like the clip's there to me, just well-disguised in the under-lit pictures... :)

As for being a regular 2500, well, the handset has a single hole for the transmitter, indicating something electronic and probably glued in, there's the volume button by the hook, and being a hotel phone, it's most likely something cheap and cheerful that's easy to replace when broken or half inched by guests... ;D

The message waiting light, I think that works over the 2nd pair on the line cable, could be wrong but others here'll know... :)

andy1702

I just noticed something else... That keypad looks exactly the same as the one I've been having trouble with here http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=17471.msg180544#msg180544. So I'd be interested to know what you find inside.The big question is does it need some kind of power supply to make the keypad work.

Andy.
Call me on C*net 0246 81 290 from the UK
or (+44) 246 81 290 from the rest of the world.

For telephone videos search Andys Shed on Youtube.

19and41

Hope it isn't set up with anti tampering features to make it difficult to service.  Looks like an interesting unit with a past.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

twocvbloke

Quote from: andy1702 on February 23, 2017, 09:05:32 AM
I just noticed something else... That keypad looks exactly the same as the one I've been having trouble with

The problem there is you could say that about most 80s-onwards north american touchtone phones, even my Cortelco 2554 which has a modern electronic keypad, buttons look the same as yours but the internal circuitry is different, but as for this old hotel phone, we shall see... :)

Quote from: 19and41 on February 23, 2017, 02:18:00 PM
Hope it isn't set up with anti tampering features to make it difficult to service.  Looks like an interesting unit with a past.

I'm guessing that it might have its screws drilled out or replaced with rivets or something along those lines, but, such things never stop me, it'll just be the putting back together that'll be the fun part...  ;D

twocvbloke

Incredible!! This phone arrived today!!! And that was apparently sent by 2nd Class post!!! Talk about fast service!! :o

Unfortunately, I'm about to fall asleep, so my screwdriver review of this phone'll have to wait for about 12 hours (~8 to sleep, the rest to wake up!! ;D ), but so far, it's definitely a different feeling phone, and has an electronic tone ringer somewhere inside it as there's no mechanical ringer visible through the base (which is a proper stamped metal baseplate with some slight differences). It's also made by TeleMatrix Inc., and is a model 2500E, so something for you to look up in the meantime...  ;D

twocvbloke

Well, I've gone through the phone with my screwdriver, it reminds me a lot of that ProTelX Rotarepo telephone I bought & dismantled a few years back, with additional weights located in the thing to make it seem more "high quality", the plastics have yellowed, so could do with some peroxide if I ever got round to trying that process out, the line socket is damaged to the point it disappeared inside when I tried plugging a cable in, and there's also a bit of damage on the front which wasn't really visible in the original pictures, but looking closely at them I can just about see it, so, oh well, it's not exactly a showpiece of a telephone anyway... :)

The handset is a 2-piece screwed & clipped affair with a heavy iron weight in the middle with an electret microphone & generic loudspeaker, the phone base itself is an interface board with a few wires going there and there, it has a "Data" socket on one side (presumably for laptops and modem-equipped Psion personal organisers that were once popular with the yuppie crowd), the voice processing electronics seem to be on the back of the push-button dial (so very different to Andy1702's Ibex "746") with the board on the baseplate being merely an interface for the line sockets and the hookswitch, the latter of which is a clicky microswitch akin to those used in GPO 746-type phones...

And of course, the tone ringer is a piezo sounder attached to the finger cup with a hole drilled in it to let the sound out (ignoring the big holes in the baseplate!!), and the message waiting lamp is a simple neon lamp which does seem to flash when ringing, but not very brightly (could be something to do with my BT Linesman phone being a bit low on battery power!)...

Overall, it's not exactly a top quality product, but then, being used in a hotel room where it could see some abuse and/or theft, they probably wanted whatever was cheapest that worked, but I can see where the modern clonephones got their tooling and design ideas from... :)

Need to give it a wash after I've uploaded the pictures (which turned out oddly pink for some reason), smells very perfumey, a stale perfumey sort of smell...

twocvbloke

And a couple more looking at the base...

19and41

Doesn't look bad considering it was made sacrificially.   
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

twocvbloke

It's not too bad a phone, it's just very bare inside, I've just pulled the plastics off the keypad and the whole electronic assembly that makes up the phone (bar the handset), there's really very little to it, but there are a lot of electronic components to make up it's DTMF generator, the audio amplifier (for the handset volume button) and tone ringer circuit, and there seems to be at least two bridge rectifier circuits on the "network" board (I say "network" as it's in the space where a network from a WE (& derivative brand) (2)500 type network would reside), presumably one to power the amplifier and the other for the tone generator circuit...

The data socket is amusing though, it's just literally a passthrough, so you could connect the line cable to the side of the phone instead of the rear, which is handy considering the rear socket is damaged...  ;D

andy1702

I was just about to say are you sure that data connection isn't just another modular socket for the line cord?

I've got a very similar white version (somewhere) that is even lower quality. Mine is an ordinary phone, so no flashing light. The base is plastic and the front face doesn't have the clear plastic cover, it's just a plain moulded part of the shell. I was thinking it was a modern repro but now I'm not so sure.

The giveaway about these phones seems to be that two piece handset.

Andy.
Call me on C*net 0246 81 290 from the UK
or (+44) 246 81 290 from the rest of the world.

For telephone videos search Andys Shed on Youtube.

twocvbloke

I've seen some of the plastic-based phones over here, but haven't felt the need to buy one of those (and was hoping this phone wasn't one of those!!), there's the other version with the K-type handsets too (the squared-off handsets), but those are far easier to spot... :)

Anyway, I gave the plastics a good washing so it's all nice and clean, the handset was quite yucky with its oral and aural detritus, but it's all sanitised now, haven't done anything about that crack in the front as the plastic seems to have deformed on the corner so probably needs a bit of heat to soften it to push it back up where it belongs, but, I'll think about it... ;D

Anyway, spot the reassembly mistake... ::)

.....


twocvbloke

Nope, that's where it's meant to be, let's just say, count from 1 to 9...  ;D