Princess 6 VDC Dial Lamp Power Supply

[TelePlay]

Just built another one so took a picture this time. This is for a Princess phone using a GE-259 (6V) incandescent lamp.

This foolproof (impossible to plug something in the wrong place) setup allows the owner of the Princess phone to

1) connect the phone's white modular cord directly to a wall phone jack (phone will work but dial lamp will not light)

or

2) plug the phones's white modular cord into the only modular jack on the adapter block and plug the black modular cord hard wired to the adapter block into a wall modular phone jack (phone will work but he dial lamp will not light)

or

3) plug the phone's white modular cord into the only modular jack on the adapter block, plug the black modular cord hard wired to the adapter block into a wall phone jack and plug the 6 VDC wall wart into a wall power outlet (phone will work and the dial lamp will light). This allows the phone user to pull the wall wart out of the wall power outlet at anytime (to turn off the phone's dial lamp for some reason) and still have a working phone.

Bill of Materials for this build:

1 - modular block adapter
1 - 6 VDC wall wart power supply
1 - 3 foot long modular cord
1 - modular plug
4 - spade lugs
2 - 1 inch long pieces of shrink wrap (cord strain relief)
1 - plastic wire tie (the cord restraint)

Total cost: Under $9.00


For the modular cord, one end has a modular plug installed and on the other end, the red and green conductors each have a spade lug attached - the yellow and black leads are cut off).

For the 6VDC wall wart, the plug is cut off and a space lug is attached to each of the conductors.

To assemble the modular block, the spade lugs from the red and green leads of the black modular cord are attached to the red and green terminals inside the block. The power cord spade lugs are attached to the black and yellow terminals inside the block (in this case, the red and black spade lug leads from the wall wart were attached to the black and yellow terminals inside the block).

Inside the phone, the modular cord red and green leads are attached to L1 and L2, the black and yellow leads are attached to the lamp power terminals. If using the original 5 conductor round line cord, appropriate wiring adjustments must be made.

Time to build: less than 30 minutes


Tools Needed:

Wire cutter
Wire stripper
Spade lug crimper
Modular plug crimper
Philips screw driver
Heat source to shrink the shrink wrap in place

[FABphones]

No doubt about it, when you do something you do it well.

Great think through for the design and function, and very nice work.

If I ever manage to find a black Princess I'm in with a chance of actually seeing it light up now! Thanks for sharing.

[HarrySmith]

Nice job. I am saving this post for reference.

[TelePlay]

To add to the above lighting harness, a 5 conductor Princess line cord typically has red, green, yellow, black and red. The red and green are the phone line (L2 and L1), the yellow conductor is for grounded ringing and the black and white conductors are for 6 VDC power to the dial lamp.

The yellow conductor is attached to the "G" terminal on the network. This is for grounded ringing and must be changed for use with modern Red/Green conductor line cords which no longer use grounded ringing.

While this change from grounded ringing to bridged ringing can be done at the line cord wall connector, the better way is to remove the yellow conductor from the network "G" terminal and tape it off (a piece of shrink wrap works great). A short strap (wire conductor) is used to connect the network "G" terminal to the "L1" terminal. This is needed because while the black ringer wire on "G" could be moved to "L1," the black ringer wire is too short to make it to "L1." As such, the conversion using a short wire conductor, with spade lugs on each end, to connect the "G" to "L2" is an easily built, permanently conversion. After that, red and green from the line cord attached to "L2" and "L1" will ring the phone.

=====

And if it is necessary to change out the original round 5 conductor line cord (if cut off or damaged) to a modular 4 conductor cord (with red, green, black and yellow conductors), these are the lengths needed for the red and green (phone line) and black and yellow (6 VDC power conductors for the GE-259 or equivalent lamp). It's easier to measure out the conductors and put spade lugs on them before feeding the modular line cord into the phone. The red and green are 2.5" long, the yellow and black (lamp power) are 8" long. The original yellow grounded yellow conductor is not needed (per above) so the modular yellow conductor takes the place of the original 5 conductor cord white conductor.

The original round cord restraint, if present, can be removed and attached to the modular cord as its restraint.