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GTE refurbed AE LPC-82-55 with totalizer

Started by mentalstampede, April 26, 2017, 07:59:55 PM

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mentalstampede

There has been some discussion of the totalizer boards that GTE retrofitted to their three-slot paystations recently, and as luck would have it I managed to get my hands on one this week.

This is a prepay phone, which appears to have originally been a chrome LPC-82-55. The phone came to me (apparently) complete, with a prepay relay mounted on the hopper, and a GTE branded pre-pay instruction card for the 217 area code.

I have attached high-res pics of the totalizer board. It looks like a pretty clever solution to allow for cal rates greater than ten cents. A jumper block is present, which allows rates of 10,15,20, or 25 cents to be set, and another jumper setting is labeled P or S. This one is set to P. My guess is that this is to configure the card for Prepay (P) or Semi Postpay (S).

The standard chute microswitch and restoring relay for two-nickel control have been removed and replaced with a pair of microswitches. The lower one is triggered when a nickle is deposited, and the upper one for a dime. Depositing a quarter does not appear to trigger anything other than the coin trigger at the mouth of the hopper. The coin gongs and their signal transducers are present and intact as normal.

A small sticker affixed to the backboard appears to be dated June 1978. All in all, this appears to be a pretty nifty way GTE came up with to breathe a few more years of life into their three-slot units.

I did come up with one nasty surprise. Even though this phone has a very nice-looking single coil prepay relay installed, someone has removed the coin trap pieces from the inside of the hopper and used a piece of tape to fix the vane in the collect direction. I'm assuming this has been done since the phone was removed from service.

Another curiosity is that there are only three wires attached to the relay. Terminal #2 is vacant.

Hopefully though, it should be pretty straightforward to make this thing functional and use it with one of Stan's controllers.
My name is Kenn, and I like telephones.

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something." --Robert Heinlein

Stan S

Kenn
Probably much more than you wanted to know about the AE Totalizer.
Stan S.

mentalstampede

Stan, this is perfect! This should be really helpful as I dig into trying to make this thing work. I tried hooking it up to dial tone last night, and there's something going on with handset audio I need to figure out. No dialtone, no sidetone. Dialing works, and dial pulses can be heard faintly in the receiver, but the called party hears no audio except for the coin signals. Hopefully this will show me enough of the changes from a normal LPB82-55 to make some sense of the wiring diagram.

Quote from: Stan S on April 27, 2017, 09:33:27 AM
Kenn
Probably much more than you wanted to know about the AE Totalizer.
Stan S.
My name is Kenn, and I like telephones.

"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something." --Robert Heinlein

Stan S

Kenn
Check that the windings of the induction coil are connected to the terminals. The wire was pulled taught when they were manufactured. Over time and temperature changes the wires sometimes broke where they were soldered to the terminals.
Stan S.