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Kitchen phone array

Started by NorthernElectric, February 04, 2016, 03:47:46 PM

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NorthernElectric

I have been working on a 'kitchen phone array' which will serve dual duty as a means of display and a working array of telephones.  I had originally intended on installing a switch so I could select which telephone was live at any given time, and posted about that here.  dsk suggested I wire all the phones up live with the ringers connected to the 3rd wire and use a switch to select just the ringer.  For now, to get the project moving, I have gone with that suggestion partially.  I grounded the ringers in all of the phones and have all the phones wired live via station wire on the back of the board through a terminal strip.  The ground wire is jumpered to L1 on the strip and I only connected the yellow from one phone to it.  So I can dial out or take calls on any of the phones but only 1 will ring.  I will worry about switch selective ringing later.

The layout is already on it's 2nd revision.  I originally had an AE90 on the left side of the board, but a couple of weeks ago I picked up a Uniphone #2 so naturally I wanted that on display.  That gave me room to put my G1 on there as well.  The photo below shows the current layout, with space in the bottom left for a 684BX subset to complete the G1.

The 2nd photo is a side view of the top of the board to show how it's mounted.  I used a door stop molding to make a french cleat.  Thanks to WesternElectricBen for the french cleat idea (from his post here).  The half that is attached to the wall is wider than the board so that it could be securely screwed into 3 wall studs.  There was about 3" of the molding left over, and I cut that in half to make 2 feet to screw onto the wall side of the the bottom corners.  I can just lift the whole thing off the wall to work on it.

Good plywood is expensive so I used a leftover piece from another project which had been outside for a while.  I intend to paint it when I am finished and am hoping that the paint will cover the stains on the wood.  If not I may just call this a prototype.  I am also thinking about improving on the cleats.  If I had a 45 degree dovetail router bit, I could probably make some from scratch on my router table but for now the stop molding cleats seem to be plenty strong.

L-R, NE Uniphone #2, NE G1, AE50, NE 352, NE 554.  The 554 is equipped with a shoulder rest and extra long curly cord so will be the phone of choice for taking calls while cooking.   ;D
Cliff