Hello All,
I hope I am getting to the entire group any way? I have just bought an AE40 rotary phone made by Phillips Electrical Works. I have connected two of the three wires coming to my phone to two of the four wires coming from my land line and I have a good dial tone, I can dial out and receive calls but the ringer does not ring? Can anyone help me with this issue? I am looking forward to having my antique rotary phone on my office desk and hear that great old ring.
Cheers,
Blake A.
Welcome!
Congratulations on the new phone. The AE40 is a classic; not many beat it in Art-Deco styling.
The lack of ringing probably comes from one or both of the following. Make sure the ringer is actually connected. It used to be that ringing was accomplished via a ground connection on one side of the ringer in the phone. This is what the third conductor in the mounting cord was used for. Modern ringing is implemented in bridged configuration across the two conductors of the local loop, the green (tip) and red (ring) conductors. It may simply require you to connect the third conductor (probably yellow) to the proper side, which would be the green wire, as the other side of the ringer is likely connected to the red "ring" lead. If that doesn't work, try connecting it to the other conductor, there is no guarantee anymore that telephone lines are installed with the "proper" polarity preserved. You can also accomplish this inside the phone, by moving the appropriate ringer wire to correct side of the line terminals.
The second issue might be that the ringer is a frequency selective ringer, that won't ring at all on modern lines, which typically use a ringing frequency of 20 hertz. On party lines, when one line was used for multiple subscribers they used different frequencies to selectively ring one particular party, so that not all subscribers would be disturbed. This is a little harder to resolve. Some ringers can be successfully retuned to a lower frequency, I have at least two AE40 were this worked just fine. The ringers were 33 Hz ringers, and simply moving the weight on the clapper was sufficient.
PS: older AE line cords also used two different color schemes for the line cords, black, white, and red. I believe, red was the ringer ground connection then. I have also seen brown, orange, and green.
I recently got an AE40 myself and my ringer was grounded, as many of my phones have been when I 1st got them. I prefer to correct these inside the phone. Look to see if one of the ringer wires is connected to 'G' on the terminal block that your line cord connects to. If so, and you want to go this route, you can move that wire to 'L2'. In this wiring diagram, it says the wire is GR-WH (green-white). I'm not sure if the color code was the same in mine, but if not it did match the wiring diagram in the base of my phone. See if yours has a similar diagram on a small folded paper stuck on the inside of the base.
(http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=10436.0;attach=60264;image)
Hi Unbeldi,
I am unsure what wires need to be switched. I have taken a picture of the inside of my phone and the wiring diagram found inside. I have tried to attach the two pictures and hope you get them. I am hopping you could point me in the right direction.
Thank you Blake A.
I have taken a picture of the inside of the phone and the wirring diagram found in the inside. I am not sure what wires you are referring to could you point me in the right direction from this picture? Thank you for any help you can give me.
Cheers, Blake A.
I highlighted the line cord wiring in both the diagram and inside shot.
The diagram already indicates the ringer wire going to the correct terminal for bridged ringing. But your phone is wired differently. You can move the spade tips from the terminal with the yellow wire to the green one. Oddly, it seems there are two, I thought it would only be one. (sorry, that is just the perspective).
You can also simply install a small piece of wire from the yellow wire to the green wire.
Move the spade-tipped ringer wire that is on G (where the yellow wire from the wall is in your photo) to L2 (where the green wire from the wall is). Then, the yellow wire from the wall will be connected to the G terminal, but not to any other wires.
(Personally, I think it is a mistake to suggest combining two conductors at the connecting block on the wall, either for an AE 40 or for a WE 302. Although this is the accepted practice for non-modular 500s, it's not for 302s or 40s, which originally had 2-conductor cords for non-party lines.)
The ringer wires in your set need to be connected to terminals "5" and "L2" which is shown on the wiring diagram.
Since you are taking wonderful pictures, would you show us the ringer on the base plate too?
We can check whether it is a frequency ringer, or (hopefully) a "straight line" ringer, as they were called.
Quote from: poplar1 on August 12, 2015, 07:36:39 PM
Move the spade-tipped ringer wire that is on G (where the yellow wire from the wall is in your photo) to L2 (where the green wire from the wall is). Then, the yellow wire from the wall will be connected to the G terminal, but not to any other wires.
(Personally, I think it is a mistake to suggest combining two conductors at the connecting block on the wall, either for an AE 40 or for a WE 302. Although this is the accepted practice for non-modular 500s, it's not for 302s or 40s, which originally had 2-conductor cords for non-party lines.)
Thank you for the great help with the illistrations on the wirring diagram and my picture from inside my phone. I had tried to change those wires earlier in the day but it did not change anything. I have now removed the ringer wire from under the yellow wire terminal and connected it to L2 which is also the green wire terminal. Still no ringer, when I call in. Please see new picture of wirring and the ringer on the base of the phone. Cheers, Blake A.
The ringer wire now seems fine.
Your ringer is luckily a straight-line ringer, it is indicated on the ringer label with "S.L.".
However, seem to see that there is a spring loose resting on the coil. This is a bias spring which should be connected somewhere, and I believe it is where my red arrow points to. See new annotation.
I don't know if this will fix it. Do you feel any vibration when the phone is suppose to be ringing?
Hopefully NORTHERNELECTRIC won't mind my modifying his wiring diagram by highlighting the ringer wiring.
Ok, I have connected the spring, it was quite easy a the end loop just fit over the tab nicely. Still no ring or vibration when it should be ringing. I feel very excited that we are getting closer to correcting the problem. I can't wait. Cheers, Blake A.
Quote from: G-Man on August 12, 2015, 08:48:41 PM
Hopefully NORTHERNELECTRIC won't mind my modifying his wiring diagram by highlighting the ringer wiring.
It's not mine, but one posted elsewhere on this forum by someone else. I merely found it and linked it to my post. I would have highlighted the relevant part of it in some way myself but it was the tail end of my lunch break at work so I hoped that my accompanying text would serve to draw attention to the relevant part. Thank-you G-man and unbeldi for marking up the diagrams and photos to help Blake.
PS. G-Man, it was originally yours anyway. I found it here (http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=10436.msg110909#msg110909).
I can't help to wonder whether there are actually wires attached on the ringer. I can't seem to detect them in the picture and I thought they should be rather visible. They should be soldered next to the those two screws at the end of the ringer coils, the screws are located very close to the gongs. There is clearly some solder there (shiny).
Are they just hidden underneath the ringer?
Do you have a multimeter by any chance?
I think you might be correct! I do not see any wires attached to either of those posts! Where we the wires to go? Sorry I do not have a meter. Hope you can make this out from the next picture?
Cheers, Blake
Quote from: unbeldi on August 12, 2015, 10:26:49 PM
I can't help to wonder whether there are actually wires attached on the ringer. I can't seem to detect them in the picture and I thought they should be rather visible. They should be soldered next to the those two screws at the end of the ringer coils, the screws are located very close to the gongs. There is clearly some solder there (shiny).
Are they just hidden underneath the ringer?
Do you have a multimeter by any chance?
Your post prompted me to open mine up and have a look. Blake's ringer has been disconnected. The solder joints I believe connect the coil windings. The ringer wires connect to the 2 screw terminals. Is that a couple of taped off spade connectors I see between the capacitor and leftmost coil?
Hey Unbeldi,
I think you might be correct! I do not see any wires coming off the ringer near the end by the bells. Where are they to be going? I hope you can see from my next picture. Cheers Blake
Here is a (somewhat crappy) photo of the ringer connections on my ae40.
THATS IT!!!!!!!! We did it... A very big thank you to everyone on this forum that helped me get my AE40 phone working correctly. It rings like mad, sounds SO great. I found the two wires for the ringer connection tucked one of the round units. They had been disconnected, taped up and stuffed out of sight. Please see last picture of the wires and the ringer before I hooked it up.
Thank you again everyone. I'm a very happy guy.
Cheers,
Blake A.
Quote from: unbeldi on August 12, 2015, 10:26:49 PM
I can't help to wonder whether there are actually wires attached on the ringer. I can't seem to detect them in the picture and I thought they should be rather visible. They should be soldered next to the those two screws at the end of the ringer coils, the screws are located very close to the gongs. There is clearly some solder there (shiny).
Are they just hidden underneath the ringer?
Do you have a multimeter by any chance?
Perhaps unbeldi's new nickname should be
Eagle Eyes!!Good Job Spotting what the rest of us failed to see.
Quote from: NorthernElectric on August 12, 2015, 01:36:21 PM
I recently got an AE40 myself and my ringer was grounded, as many of my phones have been when I 1st got them. I prefer to correct these inside the phone. Look to see if one of the ringer wires is connected to 'G' on the terminal block that your line cord connects to. If so, and you want to go this route, you can move that wire to 'L2'. In this wiring diagram, it says the wire is GR-WH (green-white). I'm not sure if the color code was the same in mine, but if not it did match the wiring diagram in the base of my phone. See if yours has a similar diagram on a small folded paper stuck on the inside of the base.
(http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=10436.0;attach=60264;image)
Thankyou so much for this post, this was the last piece of the puzzle to get one of my Dad's old AE40's working again. The phone now dials perfectly, it sounds great talking on and it rings fantastic. Thankyou so much!