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Other Vintage Household Electrical or Electromechanical Items For discussions about other vintage (over 25 years old) electrical and electromechanical household items. See the sticky thread for details. |
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1st Oct 2016, 9:49 am | #1 |
Octode
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Reading/Fakenham, UK.
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Electric bell
Does anyone recognise the make of this bell? There's a close up of a symbol inside.
It rings gently with about 20V DC, but would be much louder at 30 or 40V, but my PSU only goes up to 25V. Thanks. Ian |
1st Oct 2016, 10:32 am | #2 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Leominster, Herefordshire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
Looks like "telephone" quality there. First trembler bell I've ever seen with a built in spark suppression network.
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1st Oct 2016, 10:40 am | #3 |
Nonode
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: South Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
Looks like a buzzer I had back in the 60s. Should have been a bell but the clapper and bell holder had been removed/broken off. I'm sure I used to run it off a 4.5V battery. It may have been given to me by a GPO engineer.
Keith |
1st Oct 2016, 10:51 am | #4 |
Octode
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Gloucestershire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
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1st Oct 2016, 11:22 am | #5 |
Octode
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Reading/Fakenham, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
That looks like the chap! Thanks very much.
Ian |
1st Oct 2016, 12:48 pm | #6 |
Nonode
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Cambridge, Cambs. UK.
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Re: Electric bell
ISTR bells like this being installed as fault alarms in the Post Office Strowger exchanges.
They had a hard life because faults were frequent and rectification sometimes took a while. I remember seeing one bell where the clapper had worn so much that it had practically disappeared! Martin
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1st Oct 2016, 1:00 pm | #7 |
Dekatron
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Location: Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
There is a similar buzzer: http://www.britishtelephones.com/buzz20.htm
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1st Oct 2016, 1:08 pm | #8 |
Rest in Peace
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Location: Solihull, West Midlands, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
The capacitor looks more modern than the resistor. Is it a later addition, or merely from a repair?
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1st Oct 2016, 2:01 pm | #9 |
Octode
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Gloucestershire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
Hello,
Circuit (how to change voltage and single stroke etc) and some more info. here http://www.samhallas.co.uk/repositor.../0000/N656.pdf Yours, Richard |
1st Oct 2016, 4:15 pm | #10 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
The phone installation at a friend's house had a number of the old 4-connection jack plugs scattered round the house, into which the sole phone could be plugged. A centrally-located permanently-wired bell alerted you to an incoming call if the phone was unplugged. I don't remember what the bell looked like.
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1st Oct 2016, 5:56 pm | #11 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Biggin Hill, London, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
That bell would have been a telephone-type AC bell (not the DC trembler bell discribed here). It could have been the same mechanism and gongs as a 700-series telephone and would therefore sound much the same as a normal telephone of the period.
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1st Oct 2016, 7:41 pm | #12 |
Dekatron
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Location: Leominster, Herefordshire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
ISTR that the GPO was for some reason not keen on any installation where all the bells could be disconnected unlike today where simply unplugging all phones does just that.
I wondered about the capacitor too but I think nealy film type cxaps probably overlapped the last of the carbon resistors of the type used. If it's not original it's a neatly done replacement.
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1st Oct 2016, 8:25 pm | #13 | |
Heptode
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Location: Edinburgh, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
Quote:
Previous installations relied on the 1000 ohm capacitive loop-back in the fixed bell for line testing when all telephones were unplugged. It was rather rare to have a plug and socket installation and so subscribers may have been more likely to leave the phone unplugged, and calling subscribers to report an unanswered telephone as a fault, thereby making retention of an unswitched bell desirable from the point of view of the GPO. |
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1st Oct 2016, 8:28 pm | #14 |
Retired Dormant Member
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Re: Electric bell
...not to mention the lost tariff for an unanswered call, of course!
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1st Oct 2016, 8:55 pm | #15 |
Dekatron
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Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
Now I think of it, when I was a student in the 1960's, the Students' Union had a phone for official use that could be plugged in in different meeting rooms. It was normally kept locked up in the Bursar's office and had to be signed for when you needed to use it.
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2nd Oct 2016, 12:17 am | #16 |
Dekatron
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Location: Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
As Tony says, were getting confused here. The subject of the thread is a DC bell, whereas we've drifted onto normal AC ringers, not the same thing at all.
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2nd Oct 2016, 7:54 am | #17 |
Hexode
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Glossop, Derbyshire, UK.
Posts: 487
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Re: Electric bell
Hi the bell looks like a PABX night service bell DC one as a GPO eng I fitted a few like that
( one at Smiths factory that was always going faulty until I moved it 20 feet up the wall?) Dave
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2nd Oct 2016, 2:10 pm | #18 |
Dekatron
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Re: Electric bell
My workround back in the days (to silence the permanent ringer for non disturbance) was a bit of folded paper jammed between the clapper and gong on the fixed bell
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2nd Oct 2016, 5:30 pm | #19 |
Dekatron
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Re: Electric bell
Back in the 1980s at work they had an internal exchange that filled a whole cupboard.
It used to fail to the night bell ringing like mad during almost all thunder storms. We used to wrap the clapper in that blue industrial tissue paper to keep it quiet for most of the day while the engineer fixed it. |
2nd Oct 2016, 5:39 pm | #20 | |
Nonode
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Location: South Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK.
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Re: Electric bell
Quote:
Keith |
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