Replace 4 wire ringer with 2 wire?

[Konrad]

Lucky me, a friend of ours brought me an original non refurbished red 12-71 WE 500 all matching dates hard wired with original Ma Bell logo 4 pin plug  for my birth day.  Only problemo is non functioning ringer.  I'm going to go through wiring with fine tooth comb.  Last time I did that with a hard wired 66 all was happy.  I have enough WE 500s and wiring diagrams to compare and swap parts that should not be an issue. If I isolate the ringer as the malfunction I was wondering is a 2 wire would work.  I have a spare 2 wire ringer on a 2500 parts queen phone that was free.  Can it be done and is it safe?

Thanks.

[Dan]

I have done this substitution with success. Maybe others can help.

[TIPandRING]

Lucky me, a friend of ours brought me an original non refurbished red 12-71 WE 500 all matching dates hard wired with original Ma Bell logo 4 pin plug  for my birth day.  Only problemo is non functioning ringer.  I'm going to go through wiring with fine tooth comb.  Last time I did that with a hard wired 66 all was happy.  I have enough WE 500s and wiring diagrams to compare and swap parts that should not be an issue. If I isolate the ringer as the malfunction I was wondering is a 2 wire would work.  I have a spare 2 wire ringer on a 2500 parts queen phone that was free.  Can it be done and is it safe?

Thanks.

Can be done, but I'd like to see you get that original 4 wire working. What have you done so far?  I assume you've taken my advice and combined the yellow and green wires coming out of the line cord and connecting them together under the "green" screw effectively tying the yellow ground wire to the green tip wire for a complete ringing path???

[Konrad]

My goal is to get it working with the 4 wire or find a four wire replacement.  The original 4 prong had red and yellow combined.  I'll try yellow and green.  Doing the comparison thing and using the Bell Schematic I've got several 500's back to life. But there are a couple of variances from the schematic.  One is ground the other is the one dial wire is not the color on the schematic.  The only part I've had to replace so far is dead dials.  I've not had a lot of time to troubleshoot this phone.

[rp2813]

I just picked up a WE 2500 from 1978 that has only two leads coming out of the ringer, black and red.  The black lead terminates on L1 and the red one on K.  The phone won't ring.  I'm at a loss since I've only worked with 4-lead ringers on rotary models until now.   The 2500 schematic I looked at only has the configuration for a 4-wire ringer and not a 2-wire.  I had to reverse the polarity for the phone to break dial tone and be able to dial out so I moved the black ringer wire to correspond to the reversal I made in hopes that it might fix things but still no luck.  Any suggestions on how to get this phone ringing?  I would like to give it to a friend who wants a no-nonsense 2500 for daily use--if I can make it ring.

Ralph

[TIPandRING]

I just picked up a WE 2500 from 1978 that has only two leads coming out of the ringer, black and red.  The black lead terminates on L1 and the red one on K.  The phone won't ring.  I'm at a loss since I've only worked with 4-lead ringers on rotary models until now.   The 2500 schematic I looked at only has the configuration for a 4-wire ringer and not a 2-wire.  I had to reverse the polarity for the phone to break dial tone and be able to dial out so I moved the black ringer wire to correspond to the reversal I made in hopes that it might fix things but still no luck.  Any suggestions on how to get this phone ringing?  I would like to give it to a friend who wants a no-nonsense 2500 for daily use--if I can make it ring.

Ralph

What wire connects to "A". Is it yellow???

[rp2813]

Right now on "A" there are two green wires.  One comes from the line cord and the other goes to the switch hook.  Before I reversed polarity, the red line lead was terminating on A instead of the green one.  The yellow lead from the line cord is currently terminating on the ground screw.

[benhutcherson]

There's a capacitor between A and K that acts as an important part of the filter on the ringer.

In a normal 4-wire ringer, the capacitor is inserted into the middle of the coil.

I think that you could make a two wire work like this, though:

Connect one of the wires to L1(or L2, it shouldn't matter). Then, connect the other to terminal A (or K). Finally, jumper L2(or L1) to K(or A). If I'm not mistaken, this should make everything work.

I don't have a 4-wire WE ringer, but I'm pretty sure I have one or two from ITT or someone else buried in a box. I'll give it a try in the next day or two, and see if this arrangement will work.

[rp2813]

Thanks Ben, I have some other Brand-X 2500's I can take a wire off of for a jumper.  I'll try what you've suggested and advise on how it goes.

Thanks,

Ralph

[rp2813]

OK, I jumped the connection between L1 and K and there is no change.  I don't have any other phones with 2-lead ringer coils or I'd try changing it out.  I'm betting that the solution is a simple wire placement issue though.  Any further suggestions are welcome.

Ralph

[rp2813]

OK, circling back to the original post here I decided to open up one of my 500's and have a look at the ringer coil wiring.  Found them all in a row on the back end of the network block: R: L1, BK: L2, W: K, RW: A.  So that prompted the question:  What if I connected the two leads on my 2500's coil to L1 and L2?   Does anyone know if I would wreck anything if I tried this?  Again, currently the black wire is going to L1 and the red is termed on K.

Ralph

[Konrad]

OK my bad the ringer was turned down.  Turned it up.

Yellow to Green at junction wall box, 1st try no go

Yellow to red No Go

Using a known working 500 as guide, Black from bell to L1 (green in) and yellow going nowhere (yellow to yellow at junction box) OK

Then why did it not work at first???

Black from bell back to G and yellow to green at junction box working OK  Confused but happy that it's working.

[rp2813]

I started a separate thread on this issue (see: This Phone Wants to Ring but Won't) but none of the suggestions so far have worked.  I didn't try connecting both ringer leads to L1 and L2 yet but it sounds like that arrangement probably won't work either.  I'm wondering if I have a phone that simply won't ring with POTS.

Konrad, I didn't follow what you did to get your phone ringing but it appears you didn't need to use a jumper wire as was suggested for my phone.  Were you suggesting that maybe the same wiring scheme you used would get my phone to ring again too?

Ralph

[Konrad]

No I'm not suggesting what I did will fix your phone.  In fact the end configuration was identical to the starting one and then for some reason it worked    I either follow the schematics with changes for ground and/or just compare and rewire with a known good phone as my guide.  I don't have a land line and do my repairs direct to a VOIP router to avoid reverse polarity.  Once I start using extensions in the house I find reverse polarity but that's easy to fix if I know the phone is working.  The Vonage v-portal is a nice test tool as it tells you what number you are dialing, which told me my latest 202 dial is in need of repair as 8 thru 0 are not reliable.

[rp2813]

Yeah, this 2-wire arrangement has me stumped.  I've tried things suggested here as well as a few wiring schemes of my own that seemed logical, and still no ringer.  At this point I'm over this phone as I have a feeling a 2500MM may only work on a key system or something.  Sooner or later a POTS 2500 will come along that's wired the way I'm used to seeing things and will probably ring without me having to mess with it.