# Anyone know how to make an analog phone ring?



## joker (Sep 25, 2007)

Looking to add a phone in my electric chair room for a startle I want the phone on the wall behind the patrons and thought it'd be fun to make it ring while they're waiting on the actor to throw the switch.


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## BioHazardCustoms (Aug 5, 2009)

It could probably be done with a microcontroller and 3-5 volts of juice. Not really sure.


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## diggerc (Feb 22, 2006)

I looks like it's not an easy circuit to replicate 
To ring your telephone, the phone company momentarily applies a 90 VRMS, 20 Hz AC signal to the line. Even with a thousand ohms of line resistance, this can still pack a bit of a shock so be careful when you are probing around trying to find a POTS line. (plain old telephone service)
Prop phones can use this.
http://www.productionadvantageonline.com/Miscellaneous-SFX/TELE-Q.aspx


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## Xpendable (Sep 19, 2006)

If you're talking about a real phone with an actual ringing bell, you'd need more than 3-5 volts of juice. The ring voltage is usually somewhere between 60-90 VAC at about 20 cycles per second. Note that I said AC current, not DC!

What you *could* do is add your own plunger type solenoid that operates on 12VDC to "ring" the bell and pulse the solenoid with a microcontroller. There's lots of ways of doing this:

You could do this with my MonsterShield prop controller and the editor software to pulse a relay on & off rapidly, and the solenoid would be connected to the relay. You should be able to use the editor to get 20 pulses per second no problem. The relays will fire plenty fast.

You could do it with a Prop1 and some relatively simple coding.

You could do it with an Arduino and a power transistor like a TIP31C, a diode, and separate 12V power supply.

No matter what you do, you probably will not be able to easily use the solenoid that's already on the phone. It really would be much easier adding another 12V solenoid.

Another thing you could do is *simulate* the phone ringing by using a triggerable MP3 player, amp, and speaker. Just have it play a recording of a phone ringing. Again, you could use the MonsterShield for this, but it would not be the cheapest option.


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## mrdonl (Sep 5, 2012)

Gut the phone and put an alarm bell set up in it instead. Your goal is to only get a realistic ring tone correct?


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## heresjohnny (Feb 15, 2006)

find an old fashion phone ring sound byte and loop it


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## Lunatic (Oct 3, 2006)

Just call it....
I'm a lunatic. Did you expect a better answer? Good suggestions by previous posters.


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## joker (Sep 25, 2007)

Thanks for the input...a lot to think about here. 

Initially I just wanted it to ring, but what if someone picks up. Would be cool to be able to actually talk to them.

I've found a way (haven't tested it yet) to hook two phones up with a set of 8D size batteries in series between them to allow 2 people to talk to one another over them. 

I may just have to simulate the ringing. Was hoping for a cheap easy solution.


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## Haunted Spider (Sep 6, 2010)

If you can hook two phones up, have the one off the hook on the other end and have creepy whatever playing into the talking end. The other phone can be retrofitted with an alarm bell that sounds like a ring, or put a small speaker with and MP3 on a trigger that has an old time ringer to it. It doesn't even have to be in the phone, just built into the stand the phone is on.

check out this video on one a guy made.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Maybe just run a phone line there, plug the phone in and dial that number?? The phone will ring until someone picks up, then you can talk to them! At least, that is the way I think they used to work...LOL!


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## jcgorla (Jul 9, 2011)

AH, you need a Tele-Q phone ringer. They can be found on eBay. I plan on ordering one soon to have a ghost phone this year.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/370519181773?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649


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## JeffHaas (Sep 7, 2010)

There's a circuit on Bill Bowden's hobby site that will ring a phone:
http://www.bowdenshobbycircuits.info/page11.htm#ring2.gif

Look for "Telephone Ring Generator Using Small Power Transformer". I also found a mention on another site that someone put together a version of this circuit that you could control with a microcontroller. I don't have the details, but I'm looking into it.


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