Western electric 127E ringer box

[tinkerer]

I have a Western Electric Ringer box 127E or 127F that I was going to hook up with a Candlestick phone that I have.  I hooked it up to the house line and it makes it so you cant call the house and there is no dial tone.  It did ring once however.  I was wondering if it needs some kind of capacitor wired in or what?

[LarryInMichigan]

tinkerer,

You always need a capacitor in series with a ringer.  Otherwise, the DC from the phone line goes straight through the ringer coils and takes the line off-hook.  You should be able to buy a non-polarized 1 microfarad 250V capacitor at your local Radio Shack and wire it in series with the ringer and have a working ringer.  You may want to add a 1K or higher of resistor to limit the amount of current.

Larry

[tinkerer]

Thank you for the help

Chris