WE'VE GOT A HEARTBEAT! The 1910's ringing machine is working!

Surprise thing happened today! Our big 600 watt ringing generator runs, and outputs ringing voltage. Wow!
Previous video on how this machine works:
• The Machine that Makes...

[@DeviantOllam]

It was such a thrill to swing by that recent day and happen to see much of the work taking place right there in front of me amid everyone's excitement! ☺️👍🔔

[@ConnectionsMuseum]

Couldn't agree more! So much exciting stuff is happening all at once!

[@TheChipmunk2008]

it is great to see you here...

[@realidiotouthere]

awh, so nice to see beloved Dev watching beloved Sarah. love both of y'all

[@DeviantOllam]

@@realidiotouthere ☺️ Sarah is one of my favorite people in the whole city here and my world is brighter ever since she entered it. 🌞

[@micahnightwolf]

Two of my favorite people, together? What is this crossover episode?

[@ozzy6900]

I believe this is the ringing machine from the Southern New England Telephone Co. (SNET) Hartford 01 office. If true, I am the last switchman who operated this machine for an emergency feed to a failed ringing plant in the Hartford 02 Toll office. If this is the same machine, it had been idle for many years when I fired it up. It immediately produced 105 volts and 24 Hz. The interrupter discs required a lot of tender care, with hours of buffing off years of corrosion. After a few days of work, the old machine was ready to provide full ringing plant service to the Hartford 02 Toll office and the Hartford AT&T plant office while repairs were made to the Hartford 02 ringing plant. This machine powered the Toll office for roughly a month then after the repairs were made to the Toll ringing plant, I sadly shut this machine down for the "last" time. If this is my machine, seeing my old friend again brings back memories. Take care of her, she was a good machine. MJF retired SNET, AT&T, Frontier technician.

[@d46512]

In what year did you retire that machine?

[@ozzy6900]

@@d46512 If memory serves me, I shut the machine down in the summer of 1989. It then sat idle for several years until the office was gutted and demolished.

[@CuriousMarc]

Awesome news! I remember you telling me that this awesome machine would never work again and that made me sad. Now I’m happy again!

[@joshkarpoff3341]

Please be careful! I saw you rest your arm on the end of the machine by all of those brushes/ commutator ring and saw how close your sleeve was to all of those moving parts and just had flashbacks to all of the lathe safety videos they made us watch in machine shop class. Anyway, congrats on getting some impressive history working again!

[@CharlieTechie]

Thought the same thing (retired firefighter, and I have seen a few.)

[@edwinsinclair9853]

Clean the slip rings with pouncing paper. Brushes with twill jean cloth only. That's what we used in step office I worked in. Keep track of where brushes go.

[@millenniumtree]

Woo-hooooo!! So proud to have recorded this moment! I feel like I won the lottery - my very first visit and this happens right in front of my eyes. :D

[@uucsc]

Love your ambitions, kids. It was before my time and I am 72.

[@GusFernCa]

I hope that your next video will be reasonably technically detailed and you can demonstrate everything that this ringing machine can do and all of the sounds that it can make. As a kid, I was always fascinated by telephone sounds and how they were generated in the day. Your museum is definitely near the top of my list for things to do on my next trip to Seattle!

[@ConnectionsMuseum]

We already have a video where I talk about how this machine works. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kIjdZJmDg8uBpsk The next video on this topic will be more technical though, yeah

[@josugambee3701]

I have never clicked on anything quicker in my life!

[@RoelAdriaans]

6:58 Hangs casually with a loose sleeve above rotating discs.. Very nice that you got the old machine to work again!

[@lpbkdotnet]

This is beyond exciting! That’s a beast of a ringing machine, so cool to see it run again.

[@Dr_Mario2007]

I am surprised that damages to the magnet did not affect it all too much, now that you guys got satisfactory phone line voltage from the ringing generator. It would be nice to see it actually being used in the circuit, especially with vintage phones that relied on that particular AC frequency for ringing.

[@linxj6]

That looks a lot like a Hammond organ tone wheel generator! Must be the same concept. I wasn't lucky enough to work on this older equipment when I worked at the phone co.

[@GothGuy885]

Awesome! everyone at the museum is so lucky on finding Acquisitions 🌟🌟Congrats! 🌟🌟

[@alohawuff]

Don and Andy had told me that the issue with it was, was operating cost, noise and ongoing required maintenance. The Motor-Generator set is (obviously) not as efficient as the solid state ring generator - at least not at the demand level of what the museum needs.

[@erikaenterprises5153]

Very nice video and congrats on getting this 1910's ringing machine up and running. You mentioned starting at 5:05, "I wish I had an analog meter …". If your museum doesn't have one, then I might suggest sourcing either an appropriate Bell System KS-16979 or KS-14510 (preferably a Triplett 630-D or model of Local Loop Tester) multimeter. Anyway, I love your channel and look forward to watching any future videos on your other ringing machine project as well.

[@ConnectionsMuseum]

Thank you! We have tons of them, but I didn't have one nearby when we were doing this, and didn't feel like walking across the room to grab one. I was just too excited :)

[@5cyndi]

This is good. I’d like to see more of the ring generator in action, like the waveform and testing

[@vburke1]

That is one seriously smooth and quiet ringing machine.

[@johncloar1692]

Nice progress. Good to see old equipment back up and working. Love the work you all do, thanks for the video.

[@jackaustin3576]

I worked on those ringing machines with Southern Bell and Bell South....Cleaning the armature with flexible stones....Also the old Time of Day machines....

[@jazbell7]

That is really neat. An old machine with a 20Hz alternator on a shaft with motor. If the shaft turns at 1800 RPM, the alternator would have 12 poles for 20 Hz output.

[@rearspeaker6364]

another form of a motor-generator set, just with a specific purpose.

[@BarefootedRay]

Hi Sarah, you have never heard from me before. I’m totally blind. The chances are, but I will probably never be able to make it out to the museum, but, whenever I watch your videos I feel as if I am there every time. Congratulations on the ringing machine. I see I was probably born too late to be a phone freak. But, I really can’t wait to see how y’all got that thing working. And I can’t wait to hear that machine generate legitimate ringtones and re-order and Busy Signal etc. I just love what you’re doing. I feel as if I’m going to class to study a subject which is a great interest to me. Keep it up.

[@jonimiller1954]

Simply brilliant! I love old tech, and your enthusiasm is infectious! On my list for my US visit! Joni.

[@trevorhaddox6884]

Oh no! You popped an SED! (Stink Emitting Diode) Bet that led to some coughing/gagging.

[@PrimRoseLane]

Never thought I would see another of these running. I do remember one that had a lovely fireworks display when you started it.. yeah it was retired back then. 1980s.

[@davida1hiwaaynet]

It's wonderful to see this working! I do remember your previous video where you said it had been damaged and couldn't work again. I really enjoy your videos. You and your museum friends are SO enthusiastic about these old machines. It's all that matters at the time and I really feel that and love it!

[@GenaTrius]

I knew it, I knew it! I'm hoping to come by the museum some time soon with a couple friends, and I've been sorta catching up on the videos, right? And I just saw the video where you said it wouldn't work, and it's as if that motorrotor's machine spirit was calling out in the background, "spin me! spin me! spin me!" Wow! I can't wait to see this marvel in person!

[@phillipwalker8018]

What great news!!! I saw the clip of you putting the frames together and hooking everything up and soooooo wanted to be there! I've been wiring things up since I been old enough to electrocute myself. :) If even just to connect a single wire or something. But I have to say it's a toss-up as to which is more fun to watch. The video of you getting the machine to work or your talking about it. Your enthusiasm and passion for it has been more than evident in all the videos you've been producing. Hope there's lots more good news to come!! Thanks for sharing.

[@TheChipmunk2008]

of course we're interested in this sort of thing.... question ... in the USA did they use resistance lamps in series with the ringing voltage to protect the unit? Sorry if you've covered this before. In the UK the GPO/PO Telecoms/British Telecom used nominal 660 ohm resistance lamps in series, to protect it from shorts... In normal usage, the resistance is tiny, but if shorted, the lamp will light, and get to 660ohms ish...

[@jtmiller3782]

Brings back memories of my time with nytel back in the 1960s.

[@Harryset1]

Good morning - and above all - Congratulations! The KZbin Algo decided in it's own wisdom to show me your vid at breakfast time - so i could see your great success. I collected - and repaired old phones and "Stuff" connected with "telecom" gadgets for some decades now - and i can easily understand your pure joy and excitement So all the Best to you, your colleagues, and the Museum from Germany - Greets, H.

[@BerthaTurtleOfficial]

I love your videos, thank you so much for getting me into old telephone tech!

[@FrankBenlin]

Congratulations. It's great to see the excitement for getting it running. Cast iron can be properly welded if done right.

[@christineheermann8059]

It was nice meeting you today.

[@elisa_5445]

This video made me remember when I was watching a video explaining that old phones used batteries because they needed DC, and I thought "this is stupid, why not just rectify AC with diodes?" then I remembered that diodes didn't exist at this times lol

[@DrJaneLuciferian]

It's so much fun seeing old tech being brought back to life :^)

[@TheSonicfrog]

How thilling! ... but then again ... I am easily thrilled ...

[@electrohustler3621]

Great job! I hope to visit someday.

[@chriholt]

Absolutely amazing - I am always fascinated by old school telco technology, and this fits the bill for sure. Thanks Sarah!

[@starlite528]

"We were told..." Don't ever let other's judgment cloud your own. Take a fresh look and make your own!

[@thomashenden71]

The ringing machine is really working, plus the LED lights - I guess Christmas comes early this year! 😄🎄

[@ATOMSHAMRADIO]

Its amazing how technology has changed😮

[@TheChipmunk2008]

the reason the meter is going o/l... is because it's not true RMS, and is ASSuming sine wave... ringing was meant to be a peaky voltage, to drop magneto indicators or causing a 'ting' from bells over circuits way higher in resistance than a sine wave could even be detectable over....

[@magnawavezone]

Amazing! Thank you for sharing…

[@JamesHalfHorse]

Love it. Always great when you get something that will never work again... working.

[@ilRosewood]

Absolutely fabulous work.

[@thesleepingmage543]

Congratulations! That really cool!

[@PiotrEsdenTempski]

holy moly!!! That is extremely exciting! Congrats!

[@xAEROPLANEx]

Thanks for the update!! Fantastic news and looking forward to what you guys do with the new ringer as well. 🔔

[@rgsparber1]

Congratulations!! Gotta love those mercury cadence switches.

[@ducksauz]

Congratulations! That's super cool!

[@KenRose-ju4yf]

We were walking out from a tour at the end of the day yesterday as you were fiddling with the light bulb and worrying about that bearing noise (any news?). Happy to have been there at an important moment! Love what you all do, thanks!

[@JasmineShedd]

That is so totally awesome I'm glad it still works!!!

[@Obliterous]

So awesome see how happy y'all are with this! Maybe I'll get teh free time to come by on an open day sometime soon

[@DavePurz]

This is SO awesome!

[@ATOMSHAMRADIO]

Really cool stuff

[@joeblow8593]

Nice. Thanks

[@RangieNZ]

The RGB bed backdrop, is a great place to film a video Sarah.. Great news re getting a other piece of gear closer to doing it's job. :)

[@patrik3623]

Great jobb!

[@Egress.]

Exciting!!!! Can’t wait for the video on the civil defense stuff.

[@funzone35]

wippy looking fwd to seeing the video it works cool and wicked

[@Ranger_Kevin]

That is so cool!

[@billmoran3812]

That’s really cool! I’ve seen those big ringing machines running in a number of CO’s 40 years ago. Hey, I noticed those power panels in the background were from Hartford CT. I did a lot of work with SNET back in the day in many of the CO’s. Did that ringing machine come from Connecticut? If so, do you know what CO? I really want to make the trip to the museum, now even more so.

[@ConnectionsMuseum]

The ringing machine itself came from Seattle. We have the machines from Hartford in storage, but we are displaying this one because it looks more interesting. (The ringing machines in the 1960s hid everything under covers)

[@PINKBOY1006]

Oh my goodness this is wonderful! I HAVE to make the trek out to visit you guys again. This is HUGE news (at least to a massive phone nerd like me)

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

Woohoo--this is exciting!!!!

[@wayneheigl5549]

did the ringing machine supply the motor driven interrupter bay with all the different cams to make all the different tone spacing , busy, ring, reorder, so on .

[@TheFrogfather1]

Being near blown up selenium rectifiers is going to smell... interesting 😷

[@mackfisher4487]

A mechanical work of art, one looks at the new solutions to obtain the same functions there sterile in comparison. Good job

[@noisytim]

aw, that's so cool !!

[@lyledal]

It was not until I saw this video that I learned that there was a special machine who's purpose was to generate the phone rings. It just never occurred to me.

[@BazilRat]

It's ALAAAIVE!

[@sklegg]

Keep on choochin’

[@ds99]

I am excited for this. Plus the digital network you recently acquired. I have a question of course. If this ringing machine is supposed to ring phones or create busy signals, what happens if 2,000 people dial numbers on the exchange. Is this one machine capable of ringing 2,000 phones simultaneously? I would think with so many phones connected to ring that it would drain the power so much that none of the phones would ring. Also, if these 2,000 phones are all connected to the exact same ringing tone, how come you can’t chat with the others on the line listening to the same ring tone? If they are all connected you would think it would mean they could talk.

[@kuebbisch]

Sure it will ring that many phones, but not simultaneously. The ringing for one phone is 2 seconds of ringing followed by 4 seconds of silence. But the ringing machine will ring groups of phones, so one third of the phones will ring while two thirds have their silence period. Then the next group gets 2 seconds of ringing power while the first and third group will stay silent and so on. So at any given time only 1/3 of the connected phones will ring truly simultaneously

[@ds99]

@@kuebbisch Those differs from my understanding. That means there would have to be 3 ringing circuits on the machine. It was my understanding just one ring connection for each ringing machine and the phones all rang simultaneously. Perhaps the machine is smart enough to increase the power if there’s too much resistance.

[@kuebbisch]

@@ds99 No: The generator will generate a permanent 90V/20Hz ringing voltage. But since an individual phone rings only 2 seconds out of 6 it would be a waste to size the generator and to generate the ringing power for just 2 seconds and then switch it off of 4 seconds. Therefore there will be at 3 cams that interrupt the power and create the ringing cadence so that you have 3 outputs for ringing phones. Each cam is rotated from the previous one so that no two phases ring at the same time. So A will ring for 2 seconds, then B, then C and start over. This is then distributed and a third of the connection frames use one phase. So your neighbors phone would ring simultaneously with yours, but a block away the phones may ring 2 seconds before or after your phone. There was some tricky circuits to ensure a timely first ring though, so that you didn't need to wait in the worst case for 4 seconds until your phone starts ringing when you got a call.

[@eDoc2020]

They say it's a 600 watt generator in the video description. Assuming perfect power factor that would be 6.7 amps at 90 volts. A standard ringer is 7k ohms or about 13 milliamps. That's roughly 500 phones ringing at once, or 1500 when you consider the 2-4 second ring pattern.

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

In the end a central office will just make sure they have a ringing machine adequate for their subscriber count, which is why you've got ringing machines in different sizes.

[@thetechdudemc]

Can the DMS-10 do Centrex? That could be an interesting video, also interfacing it with analog switches using MF since no DMS in service is using MF afaik

[@holysirsalad]

Just found this channel so I'm not familiar with what the museum has. I'm not sure if a -10 supported Centrex services, we certainly never ran any, but we did have some MF trunks at time of commissioning before TDM made its way to our little rural CO.

[@rosssilverwood6276]

Soo cool!🎉🎉🎉❤

[@outthereassociates7155]

Congratulations! 📞

[@nerdful1]

Nice

That is soo cool

[@TwoSpiritLife]

Congrats Sara! I definitely need to take a road trip out there now!

[@VictoryHighway]

Why was 90V @ 20Hz chosen as the ring signal?

[@ConnectionsMuseum]

Turns out that most people can crank a magneto by hand to generate about 16Hz AC. When machine ringing took over, they raised the frequency a bit from 16 to 20hz because of the speed of the AC motors that drove the machines (1200 RPM). The 90 volts thing is just an estimate. Ringing could be anywhere from 80 to 115 volts AC depending on how the power system was configured. Since voltage and current are inversely proportional, the higher ringing voltage means that you can ring fewer phones simultaneously. The opposite is also true. If you want to ring many more phones, you can lower the voltage to give you more amperage.

[@VictoryHighway]

@@ConnectionsMuseum ah, so the frequency was a hold over from the old manual-crank days. It’s amazing how many technology design decisions (and compromises) were made to maintain backward and/or forward compatibility.

[@holysirsalad]

@@VictoryHighway Well not necessarily the cranking part but that's the frequency needed by the electromechanical ringers. Backwards compatibility is critical, but that very simple design persisted until electronic ringers in the '90s. At a higher freq you'd get a much harsher sound or even a buzzing, and more stress on the hammer and other bits inside the ringer. Lower frequency would just be clanking lol. An large increase in voltage would potentially have negative safety and reliability impacts as it increases the risk of arcing, injuring technicians, or shorting out sets... a much lower voltage wouldn't be enough to make the ringer work as well. Very much a case of "we did it that way so we must keep doing it that way". Fun fact, a modern VoIP ATA can still ring an old phone!

[@emmeryncariglino4983]

I love the bit where you're passing around meters; love being among people who all have their own tools.

[@colinstu]

So if it wasn't really damaged (or at least to the extent that it was described as), I wonder why that whole story was spun up anyway? Did they really just not try it again after dropping? Did they not want it run for some other reason? Odd.

[@ThisisMindoMint]

Wow

[@OpossumPiper]

Yay!!!!!!

[@JoeHamelin]

Far phreeking out!

[@kencarlile1212]

Woo hooooo!

[@KeritechElectronics]

You're such a bunch of cuties! Nice work on the old machine, I love engineering challenges. Looking forward to the next one :) (Someone telling you the equipment will never work again... You instantly want to fix it, no matter what the cost. It fills you with determination.)

[@Srinathji_Das]

Love you, your work, & this lovely video! 💜💙❤️🧡🩵

[@pedromorgan99]

cool ta

[@danbrit9848]

reduce reuse recycle

[@Fluxkompressor]

First rule of fixing stuff: Don't trust the guy that tried before you. Check everything. If he says "I measured this and that and replaced whatnot" he didn't do jack! He could not figure it out, it is still broken, you have to deal with it from the ground up Second rule is RTFM by the way. So many *I know a guy, that "repaired" it* situations could be avoided if these people had the slightest knowledge of how that thing operates just by reading (and understanding) the manual

[@bertspeggly4428]

You guys need to get yourselves an AVOMeter.

[@rogergreenwood1536]

Talking all over the guy trying to explain it is unforgivable. Oh hang on, I FORGIVE YOU. Great enthusiasm triumphs 🙂

[@ka9dgx]

I just cringe when I see a high mass shaft like that without covers.... please be careful, it can pull you in and do horrible things faster than you can imagine.

[@CharlieTechie]

Wow, it's alive! You and your staff do great work! (Troubleshooting tip, never believe what others say until you test and try it.)

[@thedtubeteam7981]

Wow