Arcade Collecting > Miscellaneous Arcade Talk

payphone for gameroom...

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richms:
Just came across this intructable that looks like it would fit into a gameroom quite well... http://www.instructables.com/id/Payphone-in-the-Home/?ALLSTEPS

shardian:
They are regularly on ebay already modified for home use. I believe it was Bell South that sold a bunch of modified ones for charity a few years back.

Ken Layton:
Yes you can get genuine Bell Telephone "retired from service" payphones on ebay. Many of the Bell Operating Companies are pulling out of or downsizing their payphone routes. A telephone reseller bought pallets full of them and has been selling them on ebay modified for home use (no coins needed). In general, these are genuine Western Electric/A.T.&T. cases (coin return bucket on the left) or GTE/Palco/Quadrum/hybrid cases (coin return bucket on the right).

Western Electric cases will generally come with a Western Electric 32a, 32B, or 32C series circuit board which was originally designed for telephone operator control of the coin collect/return relay coil.

GTE cases will generally come with a "smart" circuit board designed by the major private payphone manufacturers such as Elcotel, Intellicall, Protel, or Ernest Telecom. Early models (over ten years old) were operated by a small 'wall wart' style power transformer to power the circuit board and make the phone work. Later models (less than ten years old) are operated by the phone line in conjunction with a rechargeable battery similar to the battery in an emergency light or exit sign. If the battery is weak/dead the phone will not work. All "smart" board phones must be programmed in order to work. If you have purchased the respective board manufacturer's phone operating system program, you can program the phone yourself with your own computer, otherwise you must pay another company to program the phone like G-Tel (www.payphone.com). Be advised some older circuit boards from some manufacturers cannot be upgraded to dial area code numbers with anything other than a 1 or 0 as the middle digit.

MaximRecoil:

--- Quote from: Ken Layton on January 14, 2008, 10:52:27 am ---Yes you can get genuine Bell Telephone "retired from service" payphones on ebay. Many of the Bell Operating Companies are pulling out of or downsizing their payphone routes. A telephone reseller bought pallets full of them and has been selling them on ebay modified for home use (no coins needed). In general, these are genuine Western Electric/A.T.&T. cases (coin return bucket on the left) or GTE/Palco/Quadrum/hybrid cases (coin return bucket on the right).

Western Electric cases will generally come with a Western Electric 32a, 32B, or 32C series circuit board which was originally designed for telephone operator control of the coin collect/return relay coil.

GTE cases will generally come with a "smart" circuit board designed by the major private payphone manufacturers such as Elcotel, Intellicall, Protel, or Ernest Telecom. Early models (over ten years old) were operated by a small 'wall wart' styler power transformer to power the circuit board and make the phone work. Later models (less than ten years old) are operated by the phone line in conjunction with a rechargeable battery similar to the battery in an emergency light or exit sign. If the battery is weak/dead the phone will not work. All "smart" board phones must be programmed in order to work. If you have purchased the respective board manufacturer's phone operating system program, you can program the phone yourself with your own computer, otherwise you must pay another company to program the phone like G-Tel (www.payphone.com). Be advised some older circuit boards from some manufacturers cannot be upgraded to dial long distance numbers with anything other than a 1 or 0 as the middle digit.

--- End quote ---

Damn. How do you remember all that specific, detailed information about arcade machines, monitors, jukeboxes, changers, and now...payphones?

I just thought I'd mention that I've been researching payphones lately because I bought one for cheap recently (Intellicall 3003) and everything Ken has typed here aligns with what I've learned (would have saved me a lot of time if I'd just asked Ken to give me the rundown on payphones in general, lol).

Mine is an older model that is powered by a plug-in class II wall transformer (24 VAC 1.67 amps) and of course, it has a "smart" board, manufactured by Intellicall. If anyone gets one of these Intellicalls that have been selling for cheap lately, Intellicall seems to be a very helpful company. Not only will they patiently answer questions on their toll free number, but they will program your board for $25, or if your board is not working, they will repair and program it for $40. For $60 they will repair and program your phone, and give you the correct wall transformer and add an RJ-11 plug to the phone line (which is usually just two wires for hardwiring).

I don't know if my phone actually works or not yet. I'm still waiting for the wall transformer that I ordered from Mouser before I can test it. It is in decent shape cosmetically though (except for the handset, which looks like it was chewed on by a dog—though it is completely intact) and all the parts are there.

Ken Layton:
Elcotel, Intellicall, Protel, and Ernest Telecom are the "big 4" manufacturers of private payphones and the circuit boards that operate them. These 4 companies have been around since privately owned payphones became legal in 1985.

The reason I know so much about payphones is that the video game/vending operator I worked for over the years was the first to jump on the private payphone bandwagon here in 1986. We had a route of 15 payphones locally. Some did very well indeed money-wise while others were so-so. Plus the fact my dad worked for the phone company and introduced me to all the guys in the phone company payphone division.

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