A friend of mine bought an old rotary phone and over a beer we developed the idea that rather than it collecting dust it could be made to use for a door bell. Told him that as a long as there's a way to activate the ringer with some smarts (speak Arduino board, ESP etc.) giving the Arduino a signal …

AFAIR a 40 V signal was required to drive the bell.

This seems to be a popular topic at the moment... See Capacitor help please (vintage phone)

[image] DrDiettrich: AFAIR a 40 V signal was required to drive the bell. More like 75VAC, although I think 40VAC would probably be OK.

Hello Take a view here to gain the knowledge. [image] BORSCHT BORSCHT is an acronym for the set of functions performed by a subscriber line interface circuit (SLIC) in the line card of a telecommunication system providing plain old telephone service. The letters represent the following f…

See Post #3. Perry Bebbington gives a great link to a very recent discussion. I believe just about every approach was covered. The main issue with using an old phone ringer as a doorbell is the needed supply to drive it. This varied from country to country but they were all similar methods for a rin…

Sparkfun converted a dial phone to cell around a decade ago. The project and ringer circuit is here .

[image] PerryBebbington: More like 75VAC Haha, more like 90 VAC at 20 Hz. Known as jingle juice, it can light up your eyes if you catch hold of it… ask me how I know. :expressionless: a7

That would make you a real ding-a-ling, for sure! :crazy_face: Almost as bad as an old colour monitor tube, back in the day. Remember the first one of those I got zapped by. WOW!

[image] alto777: ask me how I know. I don't need to ask! I worked in telecoms too!

Wow, thanks guys for all the input and suggestions. Started to take a glance at this and one thing is sure: This won't be an easy project Guess I have my work cut out for a while :slight_smile:

Ringing an old phone

Other Hardware General Electronics

6v6gt February 20, 2023, 2:25am 12

There is also this project which I published a few years ago:

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Ringing an old phone

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