Rotatone makes continuous tone

[PaulR]

I have had a Rotatone connected to my 332 phone for years with no problem.

Having seen that the modern ones are much smaller and would fit into the case I have bought one for my 232. The only problem with the 232 is there are fewer terminals in the phone itself. The bell is separate and plugs directly into the wall socket.

I have wired it so that the white and red wires from the line cord are connected to the AC leads of the rectifier. I connected the positive to connection 1 on the phone. The negative is connected to number 3 as is the anode of the Zener diode and the blue lead from the Rotatone. The red is connected to terminal 6. As far as I can see this is according to the instructions. The remaining wires are connected to the dial as per the instructions variously found on the net.

I just expected it to work but when I plug it in I get the dial tone for a couple of seconds followed by a continuous tone from the rotatone. I can hear the dial tone behind this tone.

I have checked the wiring several times but cannot find any errors. Can anyone throw any light on what might be wrong? I an getting about 2.5V across the Zener.

[PaulR]

Just one more thing - I am not sure if it is relevant. It retains its old line cord. This is connected to a new one New red wire to old white, white to red, blue to green.

[Dave Moll]

How are these wired at the instrument end?

[PaulR]

The red and white line wires are connected to the AC terminals of the bridge rectifier which acts as a polarity "safety" device. There aren't terminals on the instrument itself for this so they are simply connected separately from the phone. The +ve from the rectifier is on T1 and the -ve on T3. The green (blue on the new part of the lead) wire goes to T2.

There is 9V across the rectifier output terminals

It worked ok when set up for pulse dialling.

[Graham G3ZVT]

There are three connections to the dial, common, pulse, and normally-closed (known as "off normal")

I suspect you have swapped the pulse and off-normal connections. I suggest you try all other permutations of the three wires.

[Dave Moll]

Looking at the Rotatone wiring instructions, and adapting from 332 to 232 your T2 should be connected via the ringing capacitor to the output of the bridge rectifier, while only the ringer should be connected direct to the ringing supply. I'm not sure whether this explains your problems, but it probably won't help.

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by Graham G3ZVT

There are three connections to the dial, common, pulse, and normally-closed (known as "off normal")

According to the instructions, the wiring of Rotatone to dial is:

D3: brown
D4: white
D5: orange

(D1 and D2 are unused)

Incidentally, the dial off-normal contact is normally open and only closed while dial is operating.

[PaulR]

Right - thanks all.

I can confirm that I have wired up the dial in accordance with the wiring diagram.

I have in the past found a similar diagram to the one for the 332 and can confirm that the (old) green lead is connected via the ringing capacitor to terminal 2. However the phone is connected directly to the wall socket and it relies on a completely separate bell for ringing. As T2 is only connected via the ringing capacitor I would expect it to get no voltage when the phone is not ringing and so be irrelevant for this purpose. I may well be wrong of course but that was what I thought.

When I got the original Rotatone I had it connected to a 232 on a bellset 44 and it just worked. I bypassed the bellset 44 and just used the terminals on the phone. I later removed it to put into a 332 which I used at work. I can't understand what the problem is now

[PaulR]

I think I will try swapping the Rotatones between the phones. I don't think the earlier one can stay in the 232 as there is little room but it will be interesting to see whether the fault moves with the unit.

[PaulR]

As I suspected it is a problem with the Rotatone itself. I put the new on in the 332 and the same thing happens. The old one works in the 232

I will contact the seller.

[PaulR]

I heard back from the seller.

He sent me some instructions and it turns out that it was in a test mode. Dialling 1 and holding the dial against the finger stop with the receiver down then picking up the receiver still holding against the finger stop and waiting for a beep cleared it.

Phew!