School me on AE ringers

[mentalstampede]

I'm working on an old AE90 wall phone, and I believe I have a harmonic ringer on my hands. It doesn't work on a standard line, anyway, and the clapper is unbiased. From the markings, I'm going to guess it's a 50 hz ringer.

Is this indeed what I have? And if so, can anyone direct me to a source for a straight line ringer that will fit an AE90?

[G-Man]

I'm working on an old AE90 wall phone, and I believe I have a harmonic ringer on my hands. It doesn't work on a standard line, anyway, and the clapper is unbiased. From the markings, I'm going to guess it's a 50 hz ringer.

Is this indeed what I have? And if so, can anyone direct me to a source for a straight line ringer that will fit an AE90?

You are correct that it is a 50~ frequency ringer. There is a slight possibility that with some hacking you will be able to make it respond to 20~ ringing.

Perhaps someone on this or one of the other collecting list has one available otherwise you will have to resort to eBay.

[mentalstampede]

Perhaps someone on this or one of the other collecting list has one available otherwise you will have to resort to eBay.

Ironically, the only one I can find on ebay happens to be a beautifully polished duplicate to the one I have!

Do you know if the ringer in an AE80 set will interchange with this?

[G-Man]

Perhaps someone on this or one of the other collecting list has one available otherwise you will have to resort to eBay.

Ironically, the only one I can find on ebay happens to be a beautifully polished duplicate to the one I have!

Do you know if the ringer in an AE80 set will interchange with this?

They are interchangable.

[dsk]

I'm not sure but Steve Hilsz has helped me earlier.

http://www.navysalvage.com/

dsk

[mentalstampede]

Steve currently has the dial out of this phone!

However, I found a solution. My brother suggested that a simple capacitor swap might be enough to make it work at 20~ and he was correct. I removed the .08 uF capacitor from the circuit, and substituted a .47 uF my brother had, and with a slight tweak to the bell geometry, it rings beautifully. The new capacitor has room to nest in the upper part of the phone behind the dial without further modification.

Thanks for the suggestions! 

[AE_Collector]

All of the newer AE 80/90 ringers removed the capacitor fro mthe frame of the ringer and substituted smaller tubular capacitors with axial leads and spade lugs crimped onto the ends of the leads. This capacitor was wired on at the network board using Terminal 16 (I think) as a connecting point for one of the ringer leads to one of the capacitor leads. Then you want the other ringer and capacitor leads on 8 & 10.

Glad the modification worked out so well for you!

Welcome to the forum.

Terry

[Greg G.]

Steve currently has the dial out of this phone!

However, I found a solution. My brother suggested that a simple capacitor swap might be enough to make it work at 20~ and he was correct. I removed the .08 uF capacitor from the circuit, and substituted a .47 uF my brother had, and with a slight tweak to the bell geometry, it rings beautifully. The new capacitor has room to nest in the upper part of the phone behind the dial without further modification.

Thanks for the suggestions! 

Will this work for any frequency ringer, or just that particular one?

[G-Man]

Steve currently has the dial out of this phone!

However, I found a solution. My brother suggested that a simple capacitor swap might be enough to make it work at 20~ and he was correct. I removed the .08 uF capacitor from the circuit, and substituted a .47 uF my brother had, and with a slight tweak to the bell geometry, it rings beautifully. The new capacitor has room to nest in the upper part of the phone behind the dial without further modification.

Thanks for the suggestions! 

Will this work for any frequency ringer, or just that particular one?

The value of the capacitor is determined by the inductance of the coils and the desired frequency that the ringer is to respond to.

So a combination of electrical and mechanical tuning will cause the ringer to respond to a specific frequency. When either of these factors are varied the ringer will also respond (up to a certain point) frequencies it was not originally intended to.

In a working environment they could be finicky and that is one reason that the Bell System seldom used frequency ringing even though they were the first to develop it. It is arguable whether their tube ringing was superior to frequency ringing but the seemed to think it was less troublesome.

Since we are not concerned with having these legacy ringers respond to only now defunct frequencies, changing capacitors and hacking the mechanical tuning will sometimes allow them to ring on 20~ or 30~.

Since there is not precise means to determine a specific way to accomplish this, trial and error is the general manner that is used to accomplish a (hopefully) successful conversion.

In determining the value of the capacitor, looking in the TCI Library at the parts list for the various frequency ringers should serve as a rough guide.

[Greg G.]

Steve currently has the dial out of this phone!

However, I found a solution. My brother suggested that a simple capacitor swap might be enough to make it work at 20~ and he was correct. I removed the .08 uF capacitor from the circuit, and substituted a .47 uF my brother had, and with a slight tweak to the bell geometry, it rings beautifully. The new capacitor has room to nest in the upper part of the phone behind the dial without further modification.

Thanks for the suggestions! 

Will this work for any frequency ringer, or just that particular one?

The value of the capacitor is determined by the inductance of the coils and the desired frequency that the ringer is to respond to.

So a combination of electrical and mechanical tuning will cause the ringer to respond to a specific frequency. When either of these factors are varied the ringer will also respond (up to a certain point) frequencies it was not originally intended to.

In a working environment they could be finicky and that is one reason that the Bell System seldom used frequency ringing even though they were the first to develop it. It is arguable whether their tube ringing was superior to frequency ringing but the seemed to think it was less troublesome.

Since we are not concerned with having these legacy ringers respond to only now defunct frequencies, changing capacitors and hacking the mechanical tuning will sometimes allow them to ring on 20~ or 30~.

Since there is not precise means to determine a specific way to accomplish this, trial and error is the general manner that is used to accomplish a (hopefully) successful conversion.

In determining the value of the capacitor, looking in the TCI Library at the parts list for the various frequency ringers should serve as a rough guide.

If learning electronics ever becomes something fun for me, I'll keep this in mind.  Right now it doesn't, but I appreciate the info. 

A couple of years ago, I called around to the local Community Colleges in a quest for a class that would teach me basic electronics that I could take as a stand-alone class for the purpose of this hobby.  I didn't want to take it for credit either since it was for my own personal enjoyment and not geared for a degree program.  I eventually gave up because all the classes were for degree programs (I don't need no stinking English class!) and also oriented for digital electronics.