Ken's Payphone Thread

Over the past couple of years so many local businesses in my area have removed all the payphones (don't make any money any more). There is only two locations in my area (in a 4 mile radius) that still have them: a gas station/convenience store and the Capital Mall in west Olympia (Washington state). The mall reduced the number of payphones from 22 down to just 4 of them. I'm seeing lots of "as removed from service" and refurbished payphones show up on ebay in the $50 to $200 price range.
 
Ken -

I bought this a few years back from a guy who had a phone route. The guy removed the electronics because (at the time) I just wanted a cool bank for the kids to drop their coins. And what a bank it is! The lock mechanism on these payphones is impressive.

It's all chrome and says Protel inside. I'll admit I haven't read your payphone thread in it's entirety. Do you have a ballpark estimate on the cost to replace the missing electronics?

Thanks in advance.
 

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Handset wiring for everyone's reference:

Over the years several manufacturers made the handsets and wiring colors vary between them as does receiver impedance. I believe (going from memory here) that Western Electric cases use a low impedance handset while GTE/Palco/Quadrum/hybrid cases use a high impedance handset.

The three common wire colors are:

Red & black wires: microphone
Yellow & green wires: receiver

Red & black wires: microphone
White & white (two whites) wires: receiver or amplified receiver

Red & green wires: microphone
Black & yellow wires: receiver

The easiest way to determine which wires are what function is to use a single AA battery (or C or D) and use the colors I show above for the receiver function. If you here a loud "click", then you've found the two wires to the receiver. Obviously, the wires you didn't use are for the microphone.

If you need to order a handset, it helps to get the correct one by telling your supplier something like this: "I need a handset for an Elcotel smart phone in a genuine Western Electric case". This should help your supplier send you the correct one.
 
I'm hoping there is something you see that you say "Man, that guy is a moron"...

White wire on Yellow - Red or Green Dial Tone
White wire on Black - - Red or Green Dial Tone
White wire on Red - Green faint Dial Tone

I'll look thru the thread, but hoping something in the pictures below jumps out at you.

Thanks!

-Dennis
 

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That does indeed look like a 120 B "regulated" GTE phone company chassis a.k.a. a "dumb" chassis. It does appear you have a newer keypad which can work with either a dumb chassis or a smart chassis made by Protel (still in the payphone business).

Your dip switches on the keypad need to be set correctly: the two position switch should have both levers slid to the up position to work with a 120b board.

On the main 120b board in the phone, both of the "Array A" and "Array B" jumpers need to be set to the "ET" position (emergency pre-pay) for use on modern phone lines.

The terminal markings "RX1" and "RX2" denote receiver connections whereas "TX1" and "TX2" indicate microphone (transmitter) connections.

I think you got a phone that was originally set to operate on a regulated telephone company "coin line" service.
 
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Thanks Ken, I have moved it to be White-White-Black-Red in the wires, and now when I talk, I can be heard on the other end. But the volume on the payphone receiver is now very very low.

Any ideas on making it louder?
 
Receiver volume is generally controlled within the keypad assembly. You'll probably need to find the installation instructions for the keypad assembly you have. Maybe some dip switch setting or jumpers need to be moved on the keypad. Has your coin relay been reset to standard coin line service instead of "post pay" operation?
 
Got a free payphone from an operator he gave me the bottem key but did have an extra one for the side. He opened it up for me and said good luck. Anyway to get a new lock for this thing.
 
Here is where to buy locks and keys for payphones:



https://www.payphone.com/Locks-and-Keys/



Locks/keys are dependent on the brand of payphone case (housing).



GTE/Palco/Quadrum/hybrid use a different style lock than a genuine Western Electric/A.T.& T. case.



How can I find what brand I have all it says on the inside in the boards is protel?
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You have a GTE/hybrid case (it's designed to *look* like a Western Electric case). In all likelihood, you have Protel smart boards inside the phone case.
 
Pay Phone information

I'm not an expert on pay phones. I have one in my shop just to keep my free loading friends who visit (and interrupt my daily chores) who in the past made calls from my house phone and put toll calls and a few long distance charges to my phone bill. That has ended with the pay phone. I used the forum below to get the phone in operation. The main person on the forum I used goes by the name, "payphone installer". He is retired from Cincinnati Bell and while working there he was the pay phone division Manager. He now owns and operates his own business (14+states) called Combined Communications. The forum url is below. Ken, although living on the west coast may know of or possibly has communicated with "payphone installer".
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php

Thanks, OT
My pay phone photo :)
 

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Only payphones that have keypads that match up with its 7-pin keypad connector can easily be converted to coinless operation with that PCB. I have an Intellicall payphone that I'd like to convert to coinless, but unfortunately its keypad has a 20-pin connector, and I have no idea how to figure out the pinout in order to possibly make an adapter.

Actually, I'd rather use the internals of a tried-and-true Western Electric 2500 (and get a nice dual brass bell ringer in the process), but again, the keypad is a problem. If my payphone had a rotary dial it would be so much easier (just use the internals of a Western Electric 500 or 554; the dial would wire right up as-is).

I've had this in the back of my mind for a dozen years now, but not knowing the pinout of the Intellicall's keypad was a roadblock, and information about Intellicall stuff in general is hard to come by.

Recently I took a keypad for a 2500-type desk phone apart and when I saw its internals, it made sense as to how they work; at least for the newer type which uses a rubber membrane with carbon-coated pads for the switches, like a typical gamepad, remote control, or computer keyboard does. The older/original type that was invented by Western Electric in the 1960s uses a series of leaf switches.

I could see the layout of its matrix by looking at the PCB that sits directly beneath the rubber membrane (it only has traces on it, no components). It uses 7 pins for 12 keys, like this:

2500 keypad pinout.png

For example, when you press the "1" key, pins 1 and 5 are shorted together, and when you press the "9" key, pins 3 and 7 are shorted together, and so on.

My Intellicall keypad assembly only has the metal keys, the rubber membrane, and the traces-only PCB (so the tone-generating hardware must be located on the Intellicall chassis), but it has a 20-pin header (because it also has pins for the hookswitch, built-in electronic "ringer," handset cord, and a switch that's the same idea as an interlock switch on an arcade machine). Using a meter in continuity mode while pressing each key, it didn't take long to identify the 7 relevant pins...

Intellicall 2500 payphone conversion 3.jpg

... which correspond with these 7 pins on a 2500 keypad (35A11 type) that I bought for $10 so I could use its tone-generating PCB (I have no use for its plastic keys nor anything else on it):

Intellicall 2500 payphone conversion 4.jpg

The "DuPont connectors" that are typically used as front panel connectors in PCs fits the header pins on the Intellicall keypad's 20-pin connector, so I got some out of my junk pile and a few minutes later I had it wired to the 35A11 type tone generating PCB which in turn I wired to the ITT 427 type network of an unknown-brand 2500 type desk phone, and the Intellicall keypad worked perfectly:

Intellicall 2500 payphone conversion 1.jpg

Intellicall 2500 payphone conversion 2.jpg

I have it all mounted in the payphone housing now (with a real Western Electric 425 type network instead of the annoying ITT 427 type) and it's a fully working phone, but I'm waiting on some stuff in the mail to make a better mounting setup, one which includes a Western Electric C4A ringer (the type of ringer used in model 500 and 2500 phones, and I'll be using an older metal-framed one, not that cheapened plastic-framed version from my unknown-brand 2500), because that built-in electronic ringer is a joke.
 
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I have it all mounted in the payphone housing now (with a real Western Electric 425 type network instead of the annoying ITT 427 type) and it's a fully working phone, but I'm waiting on some stuff in the mail to make a better mounting setup, one which includes a Western Electric C4A ringer (the type of ringer used in model 500 and 2500 phones, and I'll be using an older metal-framed one, not that cheapened plastic-framed version from my unknown-brand 2500), because that built-in electronic ringer is a joke.

It's finished for now. I used Molex connectors that I already had on hand, so I ended up with 3 of them (one 9-position and two 2-position). I'd rather have just one Molex connector, so I ordered a 14-position one today.

It all works perfectly and the Western Electric C4A ringer sounds great in there (plus it doesn't mess with my phone line like that built-in electronic ringer did).

For the most part, this phone is now a Western Electric [2500] in a third-party housing, kind of like the old "Design Line" phones. During the Bell System era, if you wanted a Design Line phone, you bought and owned the housing and handset but Ma Bell "retain[ed] ownership of the transmission and signaling components," so you still had to pay a monthly lease fee on "your" phone.

None of those Design Line phones weighed ~50 pounds though.
 

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