This is the page for when I added a Western Electric C4A Bell Ringer to my Payphone. Page under construction
I have a payphone. My payphone has an Elcotel series 5 board that comes with an electronic ringer that doesn't sound very good and is kind of quiet. I want to replace it with a Western Electric C4A ringer (the one in those classic rotary phones). First I needed to find out how these things ring. Well when the current from the phone line goes through the red and black wires, it makes a striker move back and forth, ringing the 2 bells rapidly. The actual phone in a rotary phone is referred to as the "network" that does the actual processing. This is needed in order to have the ringer ring when there is current, but an alternative is this capacitor: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/w%C3%BCrth-elektronik/890334025039CS/5038880?so=80754224&content=productdetail_US .Â
C4A ringer
Phone "network"
Good example of a C4A ringer with the network connected to a payphone board. Photo from philtel.org