I have a hand-painted 500 that some of you may remember and I just put on a modular cord as it had no cord, and it will dial out, receive calls, but will not ring. I looked on the site and couldn't find any info on it, even though I know we've discussed this before. So, I'm going to start fresh. What do I do?
The quickest check to make is to move the black ringer wire from the G terminal to the L1 terminal, and see if that makes a difference. Beyond that, checking all wiring to make sure it conforms to the standard 500 C/D wiring scheme can't hurt (except as it applies to the aforementioned black ringer wire).
http://telephonecollectors.org/library/weco/500cd.pdf
Tom if Bingster's suggestion (which is a good one) doesn't work, can you post a photo of your network? Or is your camera still AWOL?
Well, I moved the wire, now no ring and very low volume.
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff006.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff007.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff010.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff009.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff008.jpg)
Odd. It shouldn't have anything to do with the volume. In that case, make sure all the wiring conforms to the diagram I linked to up there, because there may be some mis-wiring going on. A photo of the network would be brilliant, as Dennis mentioned, though.
I cannot download PDF's on my laptop, which is all I got. I got some pics up, on a related note, my camera was between the seats of my Caprice.
Tom, the photos are great except for one thing. They're blurry and I can't make out head nor tails of what's what. Can you try again? It's better to back off a bit and let the camera focus than try and make out what is what from the blurry images. Sorry. We can tell a lot from the wiring as it is now but really need to see them clearly.
tom, try using the macro setting on your camera, when taking the close up shots. it is the little icon that looks like a flower. good luck with your ringing (lack of) issue. you are in good hands here. :)
Try this diagram, Tom. I converted the PDF to a JPG:
http://thegreatgildersleeve.net/sharedfiles/misc/WE%20500cd.jpg
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff2002.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff2003.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff2004.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff2005.jpg)
(http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu307/AtomicEraTom/Phones/MyStuff2007.jpg)
Tom:
Take the black ringer wire off the G terminal and switch it over to L1, where the green line cord connects.
-Bill
I did that and still, nothing.
Quote from: Phonesrfun on November 05, 2009, 08:49:36 PM
Tom:
Take the black ringer wire off the G terminal and switch it over to L1, where the green line cord connects.
-Bill
Tom, Bill & Bingster's suggestions to move the black ringer wire from G to L1 should make it work. Also, check your bias tension spring. That is the thin wire between the gongs. If you're looking at the ringer at eye level, with the gongs right in front of you, move the thin wire in the maze-like slot from the left side over to the right side. That "loose" setting generally works best.
Did it work before you changed the line cord?
Does it work after you followed Dennis' advice?
Tom:
There are several black wires in a phone. I am wondering if you are moving the correct one. The black ringer wire is the thick one. See the picture I have sent.
-Bill
There was no line cord, I put one on, then I had great sound, but no ring. When I put it back on with ends, it was very faint. I moved the wire from G to L1 and besides some initial smoke on the first phone call, there was nothing. I also tried the tension spring, as my mom actually taught me that (it was the first thing I learned about phones. :) All these things and still no ring.
Tom, in your photo it looks like there is a white wire attached to terminal K along with the slate (gray) wire from the ringer. There should be nothing else attached to K. Where is the other end of that wire connected?
Did it really smoke?
That extra white lead on terminal K is one of the receiver wires & needs to be moved to term. GN. This would account for low volume at the receiver.
Quote from: Dennis Markham on November 05, 2009, 11:33:37 PM
Did it really smoke?
Yes, just for a quick second when it should have been ringing, but went away at second glance.
I will fix the wire tomorrow, I have put the phone back together until tomorrow.
And to clarify what I wrote, the slate colored wire should be on K, but nothing else. I thought that looked like a handset or dial wire, if it is a later dial. How did it get there?
I haven't a clue. All I did was replace the lobbed off line cord, and moved the wire for the ringer as you all told me. Otherwise I haven't done anything else.
I totally missed the white receiver wire on K. Yes, Tom, that needs to be moved to GN.
-Bill
You have to help us out a little, Tom. The first step to any problem is to check your wiring against a standard wiring diagram, such as this one:
http://thegreatgildersleeve.net/sharedfiles/misc/500cd.jpg
http://thegreatgildersleeve.net/sharedfiles/misc/500cd.png
Then report back whether it works or not after you've got all your wiring to match the diagram.
Bingster, click on your link there. When I do I only get a small portion of the diagram.
Link fixed, and another format added in case there's a problem with JPG.
Tom:
Any luck with that 500?
-Bill
Busy schedule limits my time to work on phones. Hoping to tinker with it tomorrow depending on when I get back from the Antique Mall.
Ah, the antique mall. I have the day off tomorrow, I should do the same. Good idea.
You might come back from the antique mall with... more phones. :P
And an empty wallet. But phones are more relaxing than counting money.
I've had several 500 and 554s not ringing and found that the yellow and green lead on the line cord need to be connected together. I've seen several four prong plugs wired this way. In some cases with a "modular" cord, I've had to put on a jumper wire between the two terminals inside the phone. This has solved it many times. Just my two cents.
Jim:
Good call, but his phone has a bigger problem, in that it has one of the white receiver wires that should be going to GN that is connected to the ringer capacitor terminal "K" that needs to be moved back to GN. Looks like a previous owner did some creative wiring. I believe that by having it wired as it is shunts the ringing current through the receiver circuit, keeping the phone from ringing.
prior de-regulation, the subscriber could "hide" a set, that they were not paying for, by removing or wiring around the ringer.
It should be noted here that it was typical, at least for WE phones, for ringers to be connected to the red and yellow line wires. In the connector at the other end of the cord, the yellow and green wires were connected to the same terminal. If you are using a four-conductor line cord with a modular connector, it is best to not connect the yellow wire to anything in the phone, since it may connect to something on the other end, such as a second phone line or a DC voltage for princess/trimline lights. Wherever the phone wiring diagrams show the yellow wire being connected, a jumper from the terminal with the green wire should be connected instead.
It is certainly true that in the old AT&T dictatorship days, the Bell companies would ring customers' lines to measure the current drawn to determine the number of phones connected. If they concluded that a customer had more phones than they were paying to have, the phone company raised their bill. The obvious way to avoid this situation was to disconnect the yellow line wires so that the ringers would not be seen by the phone company. In my youth, I installed many clandestine phone extensions for people and made sure to disconnect ringers and warn the owner about the consequences of connecting additional ringers.
Larry
Quote from: bwanna on November 11, 2009, 06:18:30 AM
prior de-regulation, the subscriber could "hide" a set, that they were not paying for, by removing or wiring around the ringer.
Exactly the same was common in Norway, and we had a maximum of 2 telephones, and 1 extra ringer pr subscriber.
And we had a resistor of 390-400k Ohms in each outlet.
I'm not sure if they really measured anything before they had an error.
The resistor kept a sealing current, and eliminated some errors, have we forgot this today?dsk
d_s_k:
Actualy, I can say that I know about sealing current. It is a small current that is purposely allowed to be on the line so that the CO knew that the line was not open or if a line was down. It was small enough that it did not interfere with ordinary operation. I don't think US companies did this very much, or if they did, they used AC in conjuction with the ringer and the cap to test for a completely open line. We had no resistors across the lines here.
I first became aware of sealing currents in my discussions with Colin Chambers, who I have been trying to get to participate in this forum, but for family reasons has been pretty tied up during the last several months. He has registered, but never participated.
He also has discussed with me on numerous occasions the use of a transformer such as a TU-016 or even back-to-back loading coils to make an antisidetone network. When you posted the other day your ideas for a network, I called Colin to see if he had his circuit on his web site. At this point he has not. The diagram for his circuit looks remarkably like the Siemens circuit you posted the other day.
If you or anyone else are interested in his site, go to http://oldphoneguy.com/ ( dead link 03-18-22 )
There is a lot of stuff there, including a complete US Army Principles of Communications book from 1953 that has a lot of information about how telephones and switchboards worked at the time.
I, for one am very appreciative of your knowledge and input here, and I am sure others are too.
Well, I got her ringing today. Funny thing was another wire was misplaced, causing the phone to ring, when hung up on the receiver for a brief moment. Startled me at first. But it's now working properly.
good work, tom ;D
Thanks, I'm trying to take at least one day a week to clean or rewire my phones. I did good this week. Got 3 days in!