I've been looking to dozens of these types of projects, this is by far the best documented and explained one I've found. Thanks!

Including the inner working knowledge is awesome. Highly enjoyed this.

I'm working with a friend on an interactive art project where we would like to use a POTS rotary dial phone. This comprehensive breakdown of your solutions was hugely helpful and should make completing and expanding our plans much easier! Thanks!

Loved the deep-dive, thank you.

What a fantastic modular piece to add to a larger puzzle! Beautiful and very informative as always. Thank you…going to try locating a dial phone later today….

Amazing walk-through. Thank you so much!

As you said - add Node-Red into the mix and you could get the phone to ring when someone opens a drawer, or dial a number to unlock a door elsewhere in the room. Great project!

This is genius. Thanks for your videos. Hope you are doing well during this crisis.

Thanks so much for the line by line details of the code. Your voice reminds me of "The Secret Life of Machines". Well done. I like how you contain the name of the sketch in the sketch. I had been typing it in manually but this is so much better. Really helps when you need the name of the source file when you want to edit the program.

Great video! I found one of those old phone at the dump and I brought it home. Unfortunately I was most interested only in the dialing mechanism and the ring bell, now that I have seen this video I realized I could have built a prop like thet for myself if only I hadn't trown away the rest. If I'll ever find another I'll keep everything. Thanks for sharing!

Just acquired a rotary phone but found the internals totally different. The hook switch, for example, has seven wires (ormally open pair, normally closed pair, and a SPDT set of three) and the ringer coil uses four. Working through making good use of the details from the video. Everyone needs a good challenge once in a while. One addition I hope to add is for a scenario with a message like "Don't talk. They are listening. Tap twice if you understand." and turn the receiver into a variation of a knock puzzle. I mean, it's there, and shouldn't be difficult to merge into code on a Nano. Thanks much for the inspiration.

If people do want to use the microphone they need to be aware that it's a carbon granule microphone that changes resistance rather than a standard microphone that generates a small voltage, reason being that tiny voltage would never survive transmission over long distances without amplification and a balanced transmission system whereas a variable resistance microphone basically uses current loop technology so you'd need to make the mic part of a potential divider.

This was very useful, thank you! I can now proceed with my project

Only real fans understand the reference at 59:47 😎 Thanks for the vid man!

You are a genius!!!

awesome!!

For true realism you need to include howler tone so if the handset isn't replaced properly then after a while a loud tone is played that can be heard even if you're just close to the phone to alert your attention to it.

cool Tele746, fitted loads of them in the past, normally 2 wire line is used and a cap is put acroos the line for the bell circuit, usually 48volt dc on uk phones, spent many aday running in cables and testing them on your tongue, alright till some one rung the line the approx 18 hz ringing across our tongue. the dialing is called loop disconnect.

Can you imagine making an escape room with people that have no idea how to dial a rotary phone? That would be hilarious!

Great project! Thanks for sharing. Any idea of why sometimes you hear a long beep instead of the greeting message? Mine does this about 30% of the time.

Hi Alastair, I love your videos so much. You explain everything very clearly. I've also seen the old one with the rotary phone. Is it possible to do the same things with a tone phone? Can you please make a video about that or give a short explanaition. I have also a second question: what kind of power supply do you use or recommend for powering an Arduino, LED stripes, 12 V locks and these things? I would be glad, if you can help me with these two questions. Thx and go on with your videos.

Besides the custom functions you could add the ability to dial 9 to make it work as an actual phone.

Nice project! Is it possible to make a call back or ring without dedicated swithc/button? (for example phone calls by it self after 3-10min, or you dial number and it calls back after some x min.) Thanks!

Hello, thank you for your page! I'm just starting out and am excited to get through some projects. However I'm not getting the difference in resistance over T5 and the T19, for the hook switch - it stays on value 1 do you reckon this is a faulty switch ? I have the same model as shown. I do get a change in resistance on T2. 13:37

Hello Alastair, is it possible to operate the phone by remote control, particularly the ringer aspect? My project requires that the phone can ring a few times when not plugged in, then when eventually answered a voice/message could be heard. Thank you and thanks for this wonderful upload.

Hi Alistair, been watching this vid a few times and going to give it a go. It looks like the motor module is sold out. Others that mention L293D look bulkier and more complex - would they work anyway or could you post a link to an alternative one? :-)

Any chance of making this code suitable for a 4x4 matrix keypad phone?

One issue I have is that it will only "pick-up" during the ringer break. If the ring is sounding and you pick up, it will just keep ringing. Any ideas?

Built one just like this a few years ago

Can you make it so that when it’s picked up a message plays and then people can record their own messages which are kept

Where can I buy a premade one? Having trouble finding one, thanks.

Hi Alister, I subscribed on the Patrion and set up the phone like yours. The only problem I'm having is the ringer was burned out on my phone so I'm using a motor to spin a small weight to ring a bell. I don't understand how to change your loop codes to just activate a relay on 3 seconds off 2 then repeat untill picked up. Any advice?

Excellent video, thanks....awesome prop, enjoyed your video, very informative....got a western electric 554 a/b 72 rotary wall mount...will this work?

I love this... phone hacks are cool enough, but when it's a GPO 700 series too? ... sigh! In mine, I just built my ATTiny board into the shape of the circuit board already in the GPO-746 and connected to the solenoids and dial from there. But I ended up needing to put a new microswitch for the "hook" because the existing one was on the GPO board. And I powered the bells from ATTiny controlled DC with an individual connection to each solenoid... which meant 20V DC not 40V AC.

Do I understand it right, that you will not include the arduino stuff inside of the telephone? So if it is external, do you re-use the old 4 pole telephone cable? So there will be 7 pins from the telephone to the cirquit: hookPin, dialPin, numberPin, 2 ringingPins, speakerPin and Ground. So 4 pole cable isn't possible, is it? I understood at the beginning of the video, that it will not be nessesary to open the original telephone housing?!

What does the F() function do? Also 12v moves the clapper ever so slightly on my phone, do I need more voltage or are there some component in my phone that interfere?

Do you ever sell any already made?

Hey, love the videos. I have a question about a project. I have an idea for her. I'm trying to program a phone so that a particular number will play a particular saved audio file. Like dialing one will play a particular file, dialing 32 will play a particular file. I didn't know if you had something in mind that could help. I have all the equipment for the audio guess book. Thanks in advance.

Hi Alastair, I've bought all the bits and pieces for this project. I'd like to buy the code and went to the Patreon page. I haven't used it before. I can't figure out what I'm signing up to though as it mentions a monthly bill based on a 'pledge, monthly max and number of paid posts'. How do I buy the Arduino code for this? Many thanks.

Is L298N Dual H-Bridge Motor Driver a good alternative for the mini motor shield?

Will these accessories be found in eBay in the states and work in similar fashion

Hello! I just discovered your channel and subscribed! I have a request. How can I make my own audio guestbook with a rotary phone. For example companies like FeteFone, After the Tone and Life on Record offer that service. But I don't want to spend 300+ for one time use. Thank you!

Can you make this into an audio guest book. How can we record "voicemails"

Hi, i don't understand something. How Can you connect Arduino cables with phone connections ?

Is there anyway you can record people talking into the telephone say to leave messages?

Is that an original phone or a replica?

it is possible to get a finished product?

Your bell ringer could have been done with a 555.

there is no positive and negative on telephones of that age they ran on 25 Hz AC

Good Idea until you get a Gen Z in the Escape and all that's going through they're minds is "WTF is that?".