Need help wiring large talk/ring condenser into AE 40

[RotoTech99]

Dear Forum:

I have an AE 40 that I am getting ready to install the large base mount talk/ring condenser.. I am however a bit befuddled trying to identify its leads on the wiring diagram as well, and am reluctant to wiring it in without knowing the leads, their colors, and where they go.

The wiring diagram is a bit confusing admittedly to me

My AE 40 does not have the housing mounted smaller condenser.

Please, can someone identify the leads from the large condenser, and where they connect to?

BTW: I am planning to go by the schematic to wire the AE 40; I don't plan to add the small condenser, however.

I am planning to use the high impedance biased ringer if I can locate one for it once I finish putting the condenser in, so I will also need to know where its leads connect to as well. If I cannot locate a high impedance ringer, I will opt for the low impedance biased ringer.

One last question: Does the ringing condenser leads go on the low impedance biased ringer terminals, or is a extra set of strap wires needed to correctly connect it?

If the large condenser and its leads could be highlighted/colored on the diagram, that would help a good deal with my inquiry.

Thank You, Rototech99

[unbeldi]

It's not clear what you already have and what you are looking for.  Do you have the condensers already or not?  With "large condenser" do you mean the physical size or the capacity?  An AE 40 requires two condensers.  One for the audio circuit, and one for the combined ringer and dial filter function.  AFAIK, in the AE40, they were always contained in the same metal canister mounted on the base plate.

The audio capacitor has a large value of 4 µF and it is connected between terminals  T and 3.

The second capacitor is used in the ringing bridge when the set is on-hook.  When the handset is lifted, the hook switch reconnects this capacitor in series with a resistor across the dial pulsing switch for suppression of arcing and radio interference.

The size of this capacitor depends on the type of ringer installed. For frequency ringers the capacity used is a function of ringing frequency.

This post shows commonly found wiring diagrams from the US and Canadian factories for the AE 40, as well as an easier to understand circuit diagram drawn according to the AE sources. This makes the function of the capacitors (C1, C2) much clearer than the those wiring diagrams.

I believe AE's condensers always were ink stamped with the condenser designations.  See, for example, the attached image.

[RotoTech99]

Dear Unibeldi:

The one you have pictured is the one I was referring to that has dual condensers mounted in the same canister on the baseplate.

I am in the process of getting it for my AE40.

My trouble is I cant read the diagrams clearly enough to tell which leads go where from it on the diagram, even the revised one. That is why I asked for a diagram that better clarifies which wires are the talking circuit ones, and which are the ringing circuit ones, and where they go respectively.

Also, sometimes the leads colors aren't clear due to wear or age.

[G-Man]

This wiring diagram from the TCI Library makes it extremely clear on how to connect your condensers, but first, make sure that your set uses the same wire colors.

• http://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/document-repository/doc_details/1856-ae-40-ae40-tl

• The Black/White wire from the ringer connects to terminal 5, as does the Black/White wire from the hookswitch.
• The other ringer wire, Green/White, connects to the L2 terminal.
• Both the hookswitch’s  Green wire and the condenser’s Green wire connect to terminal 4.
• The other condenser wire, brown, connects to terminal L1.
• The Brown/White wire from the other condenser section connects to the C terminal along with the Brown handset wire.
• Both the Black condenser and the Black induction coil wires are connected to terminal 3.

[AE_Collector]

A good place to discuss the large canister "double" capacitor mounted to the baseplate and the much smaller canister single capacitor that frequently is but not always mounted on the brass threaded insert on the side of AE40's. I have never paid much attention to how they are equipped but have wondered why some 40's are equipped with both canisters while others arent.

My guess without doing any research is that the "double capacitor" has the right rating for a SL ringer but if the set is equipped from the factory with a frequency ringer there is the smaller capacitor installed of the correct rating for the ringer. If so, then the larger canister capacitor on the baseplate is likely just a single capicitor. I have seen double capaicitors on the baseplate plus the smaller single capictir installed as well. Could this be a phone that originally was equipped with a SL ringer but then was later converted to a frequency ringer? The smaller capacitor was added when the ringer was changed and it was easier to just leave the double capacitor as is with half of it now unused?

All just guesses, any thoughts?

Terry

[G-Man]

As usual Terry, you are spot-on. Notice that a value is not shown for the ringing condenser, only "As Req[uired]."

I also have not paid attention, but one of these days I will open a crate of AE40s that were sold for PAX service; I suspect that I will find a dual value condenser since the sets were intended for use only with +/-20~ ringing and not on multiparty lines with frequency-selective ringers.

A good place to discuss the large canister "double" capacitor mounted to the baseplate and the much smaller canister single capacitor that frequently is but not always mounted on the brass threaded insert on the side of AE40's. I have never paid much attention to how they are equipped but have wondered why some 40's are equipped with both canisters while others arent.

My guess without doing any research is that the "double capacitor" has the right rating for a SL ringer but if the set is equipped from the factory with a frequency ringer there is the smaller capacitor installed of the correct rating for the ringer. If so, then the larger canister capacitor on the baseplate is likely just a single capicitor. I have seen double capaicitors on the baseplate plus the smaller single capictir installed as well. Could this be a phone that originally was equipped with a SL ringer but then was later converted to a frequency ringer? The smaller capacitor was added when the ringer was changed and it was easier to just leave the double capacitor as is with half of it now unused?

All just guesses, any thoughts?

Terry

[RotoTech99]

Thank you, my AE40 appears to be factory wired, aside from the missing base condenser.

The diagram is fairly easy to read; it does have a slightly confusing aspect if you aren't used to how to read it, which is my issue. The extra advice and photos helped clarify what I needed to know.

I have seen AE40's with and without the small extra condenser.

This particular AE40 has Sony tags and serial numbers on it, I will post a photo of the baseplate as soon as I can today; this AE40 is a definite fixerupper, but the CRPF folks have got me off to a good start for which I am grateful.

[RotoTech99]

Attached below are the photos of my AE 40 baseplate with the Sony decals in relation to my post...

Also, engraved was the Sony name with 1363 with it.

I apologize for the quality of them.. They were converted to greyscale and edited to remove excess image that would make posting them tricky due to size.

[unbeldi]

A good place to discuss the large canister "double" capacitor mounted to the baseplate and the much smaller canister single capacitor that frequently is but not always mounted on the brass threaded insert on the side of AE40's. I have never paid much attention to how they are equipped but have wondered why some 40's are equipped with both canisters while others arent.

My guess without doing any research is that the "double capacitor" has the right rating for a SL ringer but if the set is equipped from the factory with a frequency ringer there is the smaller capacitor installed of the correct rating for the ringer. If so, then the larger canister capacitor on the baseplate is likely just a single capicitor. I have seen double capaicitors on the baseplate plus the smaller single capictir installed as well. Could this be a phone that originally was equipped with a SL ringer but then was later converted to a frequency ringer? The smaller capacitor was added when the ringer was changed and it was easier to just leave the double capacitor as is with half of it now unused?

All just guesses, any thoughts?

Terry

The capacitor drawn in the wiring diagrams is unspecified, because its value depends on the type of ringer, and the labels are always drawn for the all sets, irrespective of that. The values of those capacitors are well known from the catalogs and other bulletins.

I do not believe that any AE40's had two separate units installed in the factory.  AE made double condensers for each ringing frequency, each had a 4 µF unit and the appropriate size for the second part, depending on the ringer installed, from 80 nF to 0.7 µF. The earlier low-impedance SL ringers used a 1 µF value.

Each of these condenser packs also had a different order number as replacement part.

It was probably only when a ringer was changed later upon install or refurbishment, that a second capacitor was installed when the set had to be moved to a different signaling frequency, in order to avoid having to replace both sets of wires, as they were soldered into the circuit.

[AE_Collector]

I do not believe that any AE40's had two separate units installed in the factory.  AE made double condensers for each ringing frequency, each had a 4 µF unit and the appropriate size for the second part, depending on the ringer installed, from 80 nF to 0.7 µF. The earlier low-impedance SL ringers used a 1 µF value.

It was probably only when a ringer was changed later upon install or refurbishment, that a second capacitor was installed when the set had to be moved to a different signaling frequency, in order to avoid having to replace both sets of wires, as they were soldered into the circuit.

That makes sense. But I wonder how the move of the two condensor wires from the base to the main body of the phone was handled when the small condensor was added later? It would have seemed easier to just replace the double condenser to avoid having to deal with moving the wires elsewhere.

There were single condensors rather than doubles mounted to the baseplate on some phones. Could have been changes made during the almost 20 year production run as well. Maybe at some point in time AE only made doubles for the more common ringer frequencies and used two seperate condensors for the less common frequencies.

Terry

[unbeldi]

I do not believe that any AE40's had two separate units installed in the factory.  AE made double condensers for each ringing frequency, each had a 4 µF unit and the appropriate size for the second part, depending on the ringer installed, from 80 nF to 0.7 µF. The earlier low-impedance SL ringers used a 1 µF value.

It was probably only when a ringer was changed later upon install or refurbishment, that a second capacitor was installed when the set had to be moved to a different signaling frequency, in order to avoid having to replace both sets of wires, as they were soldered into the circuit.

That makes sense. But I wonder how the move of the two condensor wires from the base to the main body of the phone was handled when the small condensor was added later? It would have seemed easier to just replace the double condenser to avoid having to deal with moving the wires elsewhere.

There were single condensors rather than doubles mounted to the baseplate on some phones. Could have been changes made during the almost 20 year production run as well. Maybe at some point in time AE only made doubles for the more common ringer frequencies and used two seperate condensors for the less common frequencies.

Terry

I don't think there were any "more" or "less" common frequencies. For each of the three frequency ringing systems, all five frequencies had to be used, unless there were only two stations on the circuit, but then straight-line ringers could be used with divided ringing.  The high-frequency ringers (over 40 Hz or so) all used the same ringing capacitance (0.08 µF) actually, so it was not necessary to produce 15 different types.  I think only about six or seven were needed. I think I posted a table at one time somewhere here.

Running one new wire from the condenser (in the housing) over to the ringer seems simpler than changing the connections on the base plate, simply cutting out the existing ringing cap.  But I myself haven't actually found a set with two condensers, to examine what they actually did.  They could have even simply cut off one wire from the ringing capacitor and connected it directly to the ringer.  IIRC, the contacts are within an inch of each other.

Of course, I do think that AE also would have made single valued condensers for the base plate, given the wide array of configurations needed by telephone companies.  I will pay more attention to sets on eBay, w/r/t to the capacitor issue, I don't actually recall having seen many two-capacitor varieties.

[AE_Collector]

Okay, that is interesting about only one capacitor value being required for ringers of 40 (or so) Hz and up. My thought was that generally the higher the frequency of the ringer the less that AE would produce. This is because there were party lines of 2, 4, 6, 10 parties etc and in most cases I would expect a 4 party line to be comprised of 20 and 30 Hz ringers, 6 party lines to be 20, 30 and 42 Hz ringers etc. Thus only the relatively small number of 10 or 12 party lines would likely make use of ringers in the 50 or 60 Hz ranges.

But, none of that matters much if all the higher frequency ringers used the same capacitor values. That woukd have evened things up quite a bit as far as the number of variations of the dual capacitors.

I will take a look at my Excel spreadsheet that I have recorded all the details possible regarding a large number of AE sets from my collection, input from CRPF members and telephones observed in eBay listings.

Terry

[unbeldi]

Okay, that is interesting about only one capacitor value being required for ringers of 40 (or so) Hz and up. My thought was that generally the higher the frequency of tge ringer tge less that AE would produce. This is because there were party lines of 2, 4, 6, 10 parties etc and in most cases I would expect a 4 party line to be comprised of 20 and 30 Hz ringers, 6 party lines to be 20, 30 and 42 Hz ringers etc. Thus only the relatively small number of 10 or 12 party lines would likely make use of ringers in the 50 or 60 Hz ranges.

But, none of that matters much if all the higher frequency ringers used the same capacitor values. That woukd have evened things up quite a bit as far as the number of variations of the dual capacitors.

I will take a look at my Excel spreadsheet that I have recorded all the details possible regarding a large number of AE sets from my collection, input from CRPF members and telephones observed in eBay listings.

Terry

I think for party lines with less than the maximum number of stations, I think they would initially spread the frequencies as much as possible.  In fact the fifth frequency of each ringing system is close  to the straight-line frequency and was the last one used when needed.  They were originally added in Kellogg's five-frequency system for a different reason than to add another party to the line. There is a Kellogg bulletin that explains the system.

But each company used different capacitor values depending on the details of mechanical and electrical design of their ringers. In my tables here, I tried to lump them together, but it's not right to do so and I need to change it.

Here is another table from the AE parts catalog, 1957.  The bottom row show the capacitor values.
One of these days, I have to sort out the part numbers of these, I don't know off-hand whether these include the 4µF unit as well, or whether these are the standalone types.

PS: So, this table shows only five different ringing capacitors, if I counted correctly.

[unbeldi]

I will take a look at my Excel spreadsheet that I have recorded all the details possible regarding a large number of AE sets from my collection, input from CRPF members and telephones observed in eBay listings.

Terry

It would be nice to have your data in a database that can be sorted easily in different ways, by different criteria.
Is the data in many separate files/documents?

Like our Poplar1 started doing for the WECo features and dates, it would be nice to do so for AE as well, although it needs to be done differently because we don't have exact dates on each part. Instead, I have used patent dates, and features present to try to date some sets, at least with mine I think I am pretty close.

[AE_Collector]

I have a half reasonable level of ability in Excel so I force it to do what I am trying to accomplish! As I went along I just kept adding more columns for more detailed info on each phone. Thus some if my records are much less complete than others. Of course the records I created from phones that had fairly complete and detailed pictures on eBay always have one missing picture of specifics of some part if the phone. I have only included a relatively small number of my own phones so far and need to go through more of them. We had very extensive refurb shops here thus most of my phones have gone through the shops several times rendering specifics more hit and miss.

My data is in one Excel sheet but with several tabs breaking it down into sub groups of similar models. All the models 1,2, 34, 35, 40, 43, 44, 47 & 50 are in a single tab as many aspects of these AE phones are similar.

I have always wanted to spend some time looking up patents to try to date AE phones better but so far that isn't on the radar for me. I suspect that between many of us here we could put together a lot more detailed info on AE phones, we just need a way to get it all together and we likely need a specific focus to start. Several of you are good at checking the patents and the AE books, both things that I do very little of.

What and where is Poplar1's WECo list?

Terry