CLASSIC AMERICAN DIAL PHONE GETS A GSM MAKEOVER For sturdy
utilitarianism, there were few designs better than the Western Electric
Model 500 desk phone. The 500 did one thing and did it well, and
remained essentially unchanged from the mid-1940s until Touch Tone
phones started appearing in the early 70s. That doesn’t mean it can’t
have a place in the modern phone system, though, as long as you’re
willing to convert it into a cellphone.aluminum die casting product
Luckily
for [bicapitate], the Model 500 has plenty of room inside the case once
the network interface is removed, because the new electronics take up a
fair bit of space. There’s no build log per se, but the photo album
makes it clear what’s going on. An Arduino reads the hook switch and
dial pulses, while a Fona GSM module takes care of the cellular side of
things. It looks like a small electret mic and a speaker replace the
original transmitter and receiver. As a nice touch, the original ringer
is used, but instead of trying to drive it electrically, [bicapitate]
came up with a simple cam mechanism on a small motor. Driven at the
right speed, the cam hooks the clapper arm, rings one bell, then
releases it to let the clapper spring back to hit the other bell.
Everything is powered by a LiPo, so it could be taken to the local
coffee shop for some hipster hijinks. We’ve seen similar
retro-mods like this before using phones from all over the world; here’s
a British take and one from Belgium, both using phones with equally
classic lines.
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