"newbie" question on WE302 condenser wiring.

[shortrackskater]

Hi
I'm new here!
I've had an old WE 302 sitting around for uh... 42  years now. I've been dusting it off like a statue all these years. I thought it was time to make it work again. So far, everything is going fine. I'm waiting on a new line cord and handset wires. But my question is on condenser wiring.
And... I may have answered this question just now as I took a picture to post! I could only identify the black and red wires and not the slate and yellow. But I noticed the camera picked up some color that my eyes didn't.
Still I'll post the picture and question.
Looking at the wires from the condenser running clockwise, starting at black.
I'm thinking it's: black, red, yellow, and slate? What the heck is slate anyway? Gray? It just seems one has more orange in it so I'm assuming that's yellow.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Kenton K]

Hi and welcome!

It actually doesn't matter which you use, slate or yellow. Yellow/Slate(gray) go to the .5mf capacitor and black/red are for the 2mf capacitor. It doesn't matter if they get mixed up. But the more orange one is probably yellow.

Ken

[shortrackskater]

I had a feeling that was the case... being it's a capacitor. I just wasn't sure if there was any polarity.
Thanks for the quick response!

[TelePlay]

Looking at the wires from the condenser running clockwise, starting at black.
I'm thinking it's: black, red, yellow, and slate? What the heck is slate anyway? Gray? It just seems one has more orange in it so I'm assuming that's yellow.

If you use the forum search function with the word "woolite" you will get a lot of links to member's posts about using Woolite to clean cloth covered wires. After cleaning, they will look like near-new, the colors will be much brighter. The methods posted are quite simple and they do work.

[shortrackskater]

I've been away for awhile but thank you for the reply!
My old phone works great now.

I just bought a GTE pay phone on eBay for $26! I'll likely be back on the forum soon with questions.

[RotoTech99]

Dear Newbie:

I have found from experience that the colors of the old wire jackets get discolored  due to a number of circumstances... But basically your  condenser wire colors for a four wire 195A condenser are
RED, SLATE, YELLOW, and BLACK.

SLATE goes to (K) on small base terminal board, YELLOW to (L1), BLACK to the dial, or dummy blank terminal, and RED to (C).

From personal experience, the BROWN-BLUE-BLUE wire is usually the trickiest to identify; Why it got designated BROWN-BLUE-BLUE is a new one on me... I would have called it just BROWN-BLUE-BLUE to simplify things a bit.

If you have any interest in AE DIAL equipped 302's wiring, there is a diagram in the WIRING DIAGRAMS under the WE 300 DIAGRAMS... It is named "ALT. DRAWING FOR WE 302 WITH AE DIAL"
for 302 sets with a AE 24A36 or AE 51 dial.

Hope this helps clear up why the old 302 wires are tricky to identify sometimes.

RotoTech99

[shortrackskater]

Ahhh forgot to clarify... my phone turned out to be a 304.
Here's the thread from last year that got me a working phone, after it sitting for over 40 years.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=13597.0