Switchboard

[LivingGhost]

Thanks, I have (sadly) yet to do any modding myself. Good luck to you, this seems like a really great idea. It's just so, original. I'm sure it will really turn heads when people walk into your house.

[EM3Bilko]

Well, I found something that is cool and it was only $10.00USD at the first place we stopped at. The rest of the day I found others from $25.00-$149.00. So here are a couple of pics to show you what I found.

The $25.00 ones that I found had a plastic dialer ring where mine is metal. The metal rings are the older style than the plastic. So I did good because some of the prices were out of this boy range. This week I'll be getting it ready to test to see if it works or not. If it works then I'll have it operational on the switchboard. If not it will still go on for looks, so keep your fingers crossed that this thing works. Now comes the best part of finding this phone for $10.00USD, IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been able to dial out and talk to the person and had them call me back but it didn't ring, I heard one of our other phones ring and I picked up with this one and had no problems talking with them. So I need to work on the ringer, otherwise it works great. So now to disassemble to work on the ringer and also to mock up where the parts are going to be on the Switchboard. I have been taking this phone apart and checking numbers with the internet and have found I have hit a brick wall. I can get so far and then everything stops with giving me any information. The reason is that this phone use to belong to the Signal Corps US Army Telephone Set TA 236/FT Western Electric. That's why I have hit the wall. It does have the original handset which is Bakelite but with the end caps replaced with plastic and then it also has a part in it called the net and this phone has the second version of it which has a build-in equalizer for what ever reason it is used for I don't know. Also I believe that this phone was made in 1963 and I base this off of the number that I found under the phone's cover as it was molded in place. Otherwise most numbers have been removed from the unit and the information that this phone was US Army was also put on the cover when it was molded. So the parts were purchased from Western Electric, the covers where made for the US Army and then all parts were put together by the US Army in 1963. That's my story and I sticking to it. I made a decision which was to find a different phone. The one that I bought was just to big in the dial department. So I went looking and found a French style phone. Here it is.

So now with this new phone the dial is quite smaller. So now I needed to install this dial without the rest of the phone attached. So disassembled the phone and then measured the width of the dial so that I could measure for the hole and cut it out. So I decided on where I wanted the dial and measured and used a hole saw to cut the first part of the hole because I don't have a hole saw large enough for the dial. So I cut what I could with the hole saw. Here that is.

As you can see I still had quite a bit to go yet and the rest had to be by hand and file. Here that is.

Once I got the hole to the right size then I could fit the dial and the ring that goes around it, so here is how the dial and ring fit at this time.

As you can see from the pics, the dial and ring are fitting quite well at the moment. This is all that I'm doing for today but tomorrow I'll work at getting the dial mounted firmly into place. So until tomorrow all ideas and comments are welcomed and remember Happy Modding to ya.

[EM3Bilko]

My last update I had gotten the dial in place but not fixed in place so that it wouldn't fall out. This time the pic will show that the dial is mounted in place with homemade angle brackets. Here is the pic for ya.

Next I located a phone line connection box to mount to the outside of Switchboard and wire it to the inside because this phone is operational. So here are a couple of pics for that part.

Now that this part of the phone line is in, all that is left is to plug it into the phone itself but that isn't possible at this time because the phone is in pieces. The jack that the line will plug into is marked and isn't in the case as of yet, same as the jack for the handset is not mounted at this moment. Here are a couple of pics showing these two items.

At this time I'm trying to figure out how to mount the handset cradle so that it will close the circuit when the handset is placed into the cradle. In the last pic for the handset the other object is the plunger that is pressed down when you hangup the phone. I have to mount that part directly under the cradle so that it will be pressed down and that is also one of my problems which is how to mount that where it will be stable and not be a weak link of this system. Once I get that mounted then the rest will be easier I think. We'll see how things go, so until then all ideas and comments are welcomed and remember Happy Modding to ya.

[EM3Bilko]

This update is for the installation of the handset cradle. First thing I needed was a bracket to mount the plunger setup that will hang up the phone when the handset is placed into the cradle. I had to make the bracket and I started with a old CB radio bracket. Here is a pic of the bracket that I used.

Next thing I did was to drill another hole in the end of the radio bracket. I will be using the one hole that is already in the end. This second hole will match the mounting setup of the plunger unit. Here is a pic of the hole that I drilled while wearing eye protection at all times.

Now that I have the holes for mounting the plunger, I now needed away to mount this to the inside wall of SB and to be adjustable also. With the radio bracket there are slots for mounting the radio under the dash of a automobile, they will be used for adjusting the plunger. Now I used my jig saw with a metal cutting blade and eye protection to cut what I wanted off of the radio bracket. Here is a pic of the piece that I will be using and also a pic with the plunger unit bolted on the bracket.

Now with that done, I needed something to bring the cradle up from the area the handset will be. With the base of the phone there is a molded area which brings the cradle up over the dial area so the handset won't be in the way of the dial and also to keep it off of the table or whatever the phone is sitting on. So I cut this part off of the base of the phone. This piece had a purple plug in the bottom to keep the 2 holes aligned so that the cradle will stay straight in the upright position. This purple plug was still with the base of the phone when I cut the tower section off. I needed the purple plug to have a way of mounting the tower piece to the top of SB. So again I had to do some cutting with my coping saw. Now with the tower piece and the plug all cut out I now find that the plug is to big to go into the base of the tower piece, so I had to cut it down to size and file it a round as possible to go into the base of the tower piece. Once I had that part done I needed the plug to be glued into the base of the tower piece. Here is a pic of that purple plug in the bottom of the tower piece.

After the plug had dried I then drilled a small hole beside the hole in the purple plug. This hole is for the mounting screw that will mount the tower piece to the top of the Switchboard. Next was to mount the plunger unit and mark the area where the plunger meets the top board of SB. Once I had that marked off comes the plunger unit and I drilled the hole from the bottom where the mark was and then once that hole was drilled I also drilled another hole beside it in the same location of the holes in the purple plug. Here are some pics of those pieces that I just told you about.

Now that those pieces are together I now needed to adjust the plunger unit to the cradle unit as it comes thru the top. Here are some pics of that.

That is with the handset in the cradle.

That is with the handset out of the cradle. With that done I then mounted the main workings of the phone to the side panel of SB. Once the main electronics panel is mounted then I hooked up the wires from the dial back to where I removed them. Here are some more pics with the pieces all mounted.

Now I have to get the wiring of the handset into the bowels of SB to get it plugged into the handset plug but that is another update, so until then any and all ideas and comments are welcomed and remember Happy Modding to ya.

[hardnrg]

haha, this mod is so awesome... I like how you're bringing the retro elements into it

 

are you going to disassemble a TFT screen and mount it inside the switchboard cabinet?

[EM3Bilko]

haha, this mod is so awesome... I like how you're bringing the retro elements into it

 

are you going to disassemble a TFT screen and mount it inside the switchboard cabinet?

I have acquired a 7"screen DVD player that has A/V input. At this time I'm thinking about putting it into the top portion, in the center of it just left of the phone dialer. I'm waiting on the new graphics card at the moment. The mobo that is going into Switchboard is a Foxconn socket 939 and a AMD64 3000. It has built-in graphics which is a GeForce 6150. This unit will be my main PC and I have a gaming machine already. The new graphics card is a 7100GS with 128mb of memory with Turbo cache that can go to 512mb. I'll have 1gig of memory for this unit. I'm happy that you are enjoying this mod. It's the posting from people telling me how they like this and that, which in turn gives me more ideas to work into my mod. I'm working hard to get this unit finished so that I can replace this AthlonXP 2800 and get into the 64bit world as my main unit for internet and the likes. My gaming machine is running the AMD64 Opteron 170 and it's much quicker than the XP is. So until the next time, Happy Modding to ya.

[EM3Bilko]

This is the installation of my power switch for the computer that will be inside. I put the switch in the lower left corner where the upper portion meets the table area. So it required me to drill a hole large enough for the button that is attached to the switch to be able to move in and out without hanging up on the walls of the hole. So there you have the description and now here are some photos to look at. And that is all folks.

That is the power switch with the button on the end of it and that button is what needs to be able to move smoothly in the hole that I drilled.

As you know I'm going to have a keyboard inside of the table area. I didn't just want the front of the table area to open and have a keyboard just stuffed in there but I wanted the keyboard to be on a pull out shelf. I had the slides but they were of the size 24". I only needed 10", so the 2 footers got cut down to size. Here is a couple of shots of the slides.

As you can see from the last pic above that the slides are cut to size and all that is needed is to mount them and then the cutting of the shelf to size and mount it. So here are a couple more pics showing the slides installed but no board as of yet.

That is all I've been able to do because yesterday at Dollywood has me all bound up and swollen and it's been hard to work at all today. So any and all ideas and comments are welcomed. Also remember Happy Modding to ya.

[EM3Bilko]

This is a small update which is mainly for a frontal pic of the Switchboard. Todays work was to help dress the very top board which isn't the same as the rest of the unit. My hands are swollen and hurting more than usual. All of my updates so far have been internal and not much has been for the outside portion. Today was the work on the top board and then the feeding of the handset cable thru the front so that it can plug into the system. So here are the pics that I have for you.

There you have it for today. I will be getting started on the installation of the network as soon as I can get my parts. So until then, all ideas and comments are welcomed and remember Happy Modding to ya.

[EM3Bilko]

Today I got quite a bit done. I worked on the sliding drawer for the USB keyboard. Got it installed. Here, I'll show you.

The last photo of the above is showing you the magnet setup for keeping the front door closed but I changed the screws to look like they are holding it closed but they are not. Now I will show you that I put some trim on so it will hide the plywood look. I also put some trim where the table and the upper portion meet. So here are the rest of the pics showing how to apply this trim with an iron (a hot iron)really).

So as you can see with the photos, that I did get some work done and some almost done. I decided to make a changed to the computer setup in the bottom of the box. I drilled out all pop rivets and now I will only be using the motherboard tray as it is here.

My next pic will be the complete side panel is removed from the Switchboard to make marking out for the mobo tray easier.

As the last pic above shows that I have it marked and now to start cutting. I'll give you a couple more pics of my rough cuts and then the tools that I'm using to get this cut out.

My last pic is the openings fully cut out and all I have left to do is to put everything back together and then I start getting the mobo tray mounted so that the computer parts can go in.

So until tomorrow, all ideas and comments are welcomed and remember Happy Modding to ya.

[DemonaL]

looks tight man, can't wait till see it done, great job so far...

[coolcat97]

Yeah man, looking really nice!

[EM3Bilko]

Thanks DemonaL and coolcat97 for your comments. I'm working hard on this mod so that it will become my main pc other than gaming, for that I have a different computer, this Switchboard will run my DVD, TV capture card is going in and it will also be used for video and audio editing and then it will have a 8 port switch in it. The Buffalo G router will sit on top and then hook to the switch inside, then once I get my cables built then to hook a computer onto the network all I'll have to do is a cable in the front to plug-in.