WE302 Will not break dial tone

[jholland]

I am brand new to all this so please bear with me as I try to get the terminology all correct.  A little research has shown that I have a WE302 phone.  It had three problems and I have since fixed 2 of them (1. others could not hear you, sanded down contacts in handset and bent some pins to align. 2. Ringer did not work.  Rewired phone per one of the diagrams here, both ringer wires were connected to ground??)

The third problem has me stumped, it will not break dial tone.  What I mean by this is the when I try to dial out it still has a dial tone as I dial numbers on it.  On occasion it will stop after the 3 or 4th number is dialed, but generally it has the dial tone at all times.  This, of course, prevents me from dialing out.   I do run a vonage VOIP device, but I tested another pulse dial phone on it and it worked fine.

Looking at the inside of the dialer, it appears to be a 5H (this is what is stamped on it in red)  I did slip a piece of sand paper in between each of the contacts and shaded lightly in hope that this might improve the contacts and get it working.  It did not. 

All the contacts appear to be working correctly.  When I dial on it the very bottom contact is lifted up and the second to bottom contact makes contact with a center post, a small cam then pulses the top contact on and off the correct number of times according to the number I dialed, after which the the two bottom contacts go back to their normal position.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or fix this issue would be appreciated

thanks,
jeff

[DavePEI]

The first comment that should be made is NEVER use sandpaper on contacts! Never use anything more abrasive than a piece of Kraft paper on them.... I am rushed for time now, but I am sure someone will step forward and help more...

Dave

[HarrySmith]

Hi Jeff, welcome to the forum
Just throw it away and buy a new phone. You will be better off that way. Once you get this working it will be too late, if Phonitis has not already set in. Next you will want another phone, maybe a 500 or maybe another 302, in color! Now collect all the colors! Maybe you need some phone tools or some phone signs. How about setting up a central office in the basement. This is an incurable, progressive disese that will take over your life. You will spend all your time, thinking about, searching for and working on old phones, never mind all your money too! Then you will be out of space for all your phone stuff and need to move or build a phone museum.

Seriously, welcome. You have found the best forum on the net and the best bunch of people in the world. There are many knowlelgeable folks here who are willing to help. Sounds like the dial contacts or wiring may be at fault. Can you post some pictures? The back of the dial at rest and with the fingerwheel held at zero would be helpful. As Dave has already stated, never use abrasive on the contacts. Hopefully they are not trashed. A closeup of them may also help.

[Phonesrfun]

The contacts in the handset don't have the same treatment to them as the dial and hookswitch contacts, so if you have not sanded the dial contacts, you should be ok.  You mentioned that you moved wires around for the ringer in accordance with the diagram.  I would double check the ringer connections.  If you have it so that the ringer is directly bridged across the line without being in series with the capacitor, it could cause your problem,  The ringer and ringer capacitor should be wired as follows:

Ringer red wire to L1 on the 101A coil, along with the red line cord wire
Ringer black wire to terminal K on the little pad next to the induction coil
Capacitor yellow wire to L2/Y on the 101A induction coil along with the green line cord wire
Capacitor slate wire to terminal K on the little pad next to the induction coil (along with ringer black above)

That would be the first thing I would check.

When I had Vonage, rotary dialing worked just fine for me, so as you said, there is probably something with the phone.  Pictures of the wiring would help if the ringer is wired correctly.

[jholland]

Thanks, I will check the wiring again tomorrow, everyone has went to bed and will not appreciate me playing with the ringer on the phone.  It has now been wired up two different ways, both ways seemed to work except for breaking the dial tone.  I did actually sand very lightly the contacts in dialer, I hope I did not damage them.

oh, one more thing that may be related.  The ringer sounds pretty weak.  it works, but is not the full robust sound like it should be, sounds like a muffled ring like it is underpowered.  I was going to look at this next, but thought I would mention it in case is is related.

Thanks for the quick replies

[WesternElectricBen]

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

I can think of two things that would muffle the bells,

1: The bias spring is in the wrong place (possible that it would still work? I'm not sure)
2. A wire is touching the bell, you would just want to re-route it.

Ben

[Phonesrfun]

Thanks, I will check the wiring again tomorrow, everyone has went to bed and will not appreciate me playing with the ringer on the phone.  It has now been wired up two different ways, both ways seemed to work except for breaking the dial tone.  I did actually sand very lightly the contacts in dialer, I hope I did not damage them.

oh, one more thing that may be related.  The ringer sounds pretty weak.  it works, but is not the full robust sound like it should be, sounds like a muffled ring like it is underpowered.  I was going to look at this next, but thought I would mention it in case is is related.

Thanks for the quick replies

Sanding the contacts on the dial (not generally called dialer, just plain dial) is potentially harmful for the long term, but what's done is done.  Make sure also that while doing the sanding and cleaning that you did not bend the contacts.  The pulsing contacts should distinctly open and close as the pulsing is going on.  You might also check to make sure the wires to the Y and BK terminals of the dial are not shorted together, which would also cause your problem.  The weak ringer could be caused by the bias spring as Ben said, but if the ringer was connected without going through the capacitor, that could potentially cause a weak ring too. 

As you can see, there are many things to check.

Check for the contacts of the pulsing contacts of the dial switch
Check to make sure the Y and BK terminals on the dial are not somehow touching or shorted together
Check for proper ringer wiring
Check the bias spring on the ringer.  Try it in the two different slots.

[jholland]

Ok, I got the ringer working nicely.  I found the bells for the ringer are on an ecentric and I rotated them so they were a little further away from the plunger, it now sounds nice on the ring.

I checked all the wiring as described above and it all looks good. 

I have enclosed pictures of the dial at rest and with it dialed to number 0, hard to see the difference, the only thing I could see different in the pictures are that at 0, the little cam that allows the two lower contacts to move to the up position was rotated fully counterclockwise (as would be expected) and the two lower contacts were in the up position.

Please let me know if you see anything wrong in the pictures

jeff

[Phonesrfun]

Looking at the wiring, it all looks properly wired.  I believe the problem is with the dial pulse contact springs.  In your second and third pictures, the contacts for the pulsing are the left-most two contacts that the pulsing ratchet/pawl activates.  That pawl is the metal piece that has the rubber insulating tip on it.  Whether the dial is at a complete rest or wound up all the way at zero doesn't matter.  The pawl will be a little different, but the activation of the pawl and thus the action to open and close those contacts occurs only during the wind-down action of the dial.  Try it out dial a zero.  Wind it all the way to the finger stop and the pawl will only move slightly.  It s when you let go and let the dial finger wheel wind down that you should see the pulsing action of the pawl against the pulse springs, hopefully to open and close the contacts between them.  Let the dial go in slow motion by letting the finger wheel go slowly by holding it back with some back pressure.  You can see it pulsing slower.  Check to see that the contacts open and close.  If all they do is wiggle a little without opening and closing, then you have an adjustment problem.

[Contempra]

I'm not the best but in all cases I always clean the contacts gently..I did it on all my phones. especially on my 53 because It had not been used since almost 17 years and I've never had problems later with none of my phones.

[poplar1]

If you unscrew the transmitter cap and let the transmitter fall out, do you still have dial tone?

[jholland]

Hmm, still can not get this thing working!   I do want to check on 1 important thing:  When I start dialing when should I lose the dial tone?  As soon as I start to dial, I loose the dial done, but as soon as the dial springs back to the resting position, the dial tone immediately comes back.

1.  I have inspected all the contacts in the dial carefully and all appear to be contacting and opening fine.  There actually appears to be three different contacts that are made and unmade and all appear good when I look at them closely with a jewelers glass.  The pawl seems to be doing exactly as it should and pulsing the contact open the number of times equal to the number you dial.

2.  I did unscrew the mouthpiece from the handset (the transmitter?) and as soon as I let this fall out I lose the dial tone.  No idea if this is what is supposed to happen, but someone asked me to try this.

3.  I did undo one thing I did not mention here.  The cord to the wall has 3 wires on it.  I had the yellow wire connected to the wall along with the black wire as I had read somewhere that you needed to do this so it would ring since the standard now is only 2 wire.  I undid this, but it made no difference to anything and it does still seem to ring fine so I have left it without any connection.

thanks for any help

[Phonesrfun]

Unscrewing the transmitter cap and taking out the transmitter did exactly what it should do, and that is, it turned off the phone and dial tone went away.  That at least tells us something.

The yellow and black wires serve no function and it usually does not matter whether they are connected or not.  It is best to tape the ends of them and not connect them to anything.  If you had them connected together and plugged the phone into a receptical somewhere where there was a second line on the second pair, it would short out the second line.  Apparently you have no second line in your house.

If you take the phone off the hook and get dial tone, and then jiggle the hook switch up and down a number of times, does that get rid of dial tone?  Pulsing the hook switch accomplishes the same thing as the dial.  It turns the phone off and on a number of times for each number you dial.  Jiggling the hookswitch should break dial tone.

I would say that since taking the transmitter out did what it should do, and if jiggling the hook switch does what it should do, then the problem winds up being in the dial switch.

In fact, with the phone plugged in and dial tone in the receiver, with the cover of the phone off, manually open the dial pulse springs on the back of the dial with your fingers.  Does dial tone go away?

[G-Man]

Bill, please take a close look at the pulsing contacts shown in his photos. Are my eyes deceiving me or have they been bent to the other side of the pulsing pawl?

Thanks-
G-Man

[G-Man]

I’ll have to take a trip to the storeroom or open up a 302 to verify it but a closer inspection seems to reveal that someone has rearranged the contact pile-up with the pulsing contacts arranged in the wrong positions. Please take a look to verify if I am correct.

Thanks-
G-Man

Bill, please take a close look at the pulsing contacts shown in his photos. Are my eyes deceiving me or have they been bent to the other side of the pulsing pawl?

Thanks-
G-Man