In article ,
Music Man wrote:
Hi,
Would somebody here possibly know how to get residue off copper washers
other than filing or sandpaper and pass on the knowledge to me please.
A fairly mild choice would be Copper-Glo (if it is
still made/sold). However, I suspect that these are not copper, but
rather are (or were) brass, but the corrosion has leached the zinc out
of them, so the surface looks like copper, as that is all that remains
on the outside.
(I'm rewiring a single phone line into the house from the Network
Interface box outside the house. The original line goes back probably
to at least 1920, the wires' jacket are similar to old TV aerial antenna
wire. Also the old line consists of two porcelin fixtures one is fused,
the other looks like it was at one time an amplifier, but currently it
is just wired to bypass the fixtures (but still on the porcelin
terminals),
An amplifier is highly unlikely in a residential setup.
However, lightning suppression hardware may be there. These typically
had a porcelain socket, into which a pair of graphite blocks separated
by a thin piece of mica with a hole in it to form a spark gap were slid.
They should be between each signal wire (Green and Red) and the ground.
a type of button tack(s) secures the three wires thru the
run, 3 solid insulated wires, one HOT (red) at 48 volts, one GROUND, the
other I suspect leads to GREEN (no voltage) and I suspect also ground,
also all three wires are not color coded.)
Both red and green should be above ground level, though how much
is a function of whether a phone is drawing current or not. IIRC, with
an old standard phone connected and off the hook, you will see something
like perhaps 6V between the Red and Geeen wires, and both will be above
ground (though not the full 48V which you see with an open circuit on
one of the two signal wires.) The ground wire, aside from being used to
shunt mild lightning strikes to ground, also can serve as a connection
for one side of the bell -- if you have a party line connection.
Normally, the bell is also connected between red and green. Connecting
from one side to ground gives the possibility of ringing the bell on one
phone or a different one, depending on who is being called. (Varying
ring frequencies also can be used to selectively ring different bells,
as can coded rings (e.g. "short long sort" or something similar.)
I found the short, within the customer side of the Network Interface. I
think probably the result of a lightning ZAP! The item in question is a
terminal screw (ZINC I think) and three copper washer to a broken
terminal lug. I added a crimped on terminal lug to the internal GREEN
wire (I suspect it is the GROUND)
No -- for phone wiring, green is *not* ground. (At least in the
US). It is one of the two signal lines for conventional phone service.
I don't know what kind of color coding is used with things like ISDN,
but I do know that frame-relay circuits produce a much higher voltage on
some of the wires (and they use two pair -- one for incoming and one for
outgoing.)
and I have 48 volts DC (I'm assuming
DC) across the RED and GREEN terminals, so I think I'm good to go with
running the new line. Oh, yeh, I will disconnect the telephone modular
plug input while rewiring.
Measure what happens when you connect the phone across the line.
The 48V line should drop about the same amount that the one which looks
like ground rises. If the one near ground *stays* near ground, then you
have another short, which will introduce a lot of noise into the phone
lines, even if it does allow it to work.
I don't know why the corrosion, but it looks to me like the process of
disimilar metals touching one another. I'm just looking for a soulution
to clean the residue off, maybe it is oxides, maybe it is zinc.
And maybe it is the zinc having leached out of the brass of the
washers, leaving the surfaces copper colored.
If the wire comes into the building at an angle sloping down,
then water can run down it when it is raining outside, Ideally, the wire
should drop down, and then loop up to drip the water outside, or at
least before it reaches the terminal blocks.
Presently I got the scew and washers soaking in apple cider vinegar
chancing that it may work, but it may not. I remember HCL acid cleaned
ZINC residue off steel pins in a mold repair shop I once worked. I have
no idea where to get HCL acid. Muriatic acid maybe (HCL?), but I don't
know the chemical composition and I know for concrete work it quickly
etches, so kind of potent I think, but as to copper, I don't know. If
vineger doesn't work I guess I'll try muriatic acid next, then sulphuric
but 'm just guessing, water rinses in between.
Frankly, I would suggest that you eliminate the antique wiring,
and replace it with a more normal telephone terminal block. (And
another has already suggested eliminating the interior terminal block,
just trusting the protection in the gray plastic box outside.
======
Anybody know where I can get wire strippers for 4 wire telephone cable,
below 22 gage solid coper---wire measures .037" diameter????
At one time, this was done with a set of needle nose pliers
which had been ground on one jaw a half-inch back from the tip (and the
tip had been ground narrower back through this area). The grinding left
a gap just about the same as the wire diameter, and perhaps 3/4 of an
inch long. The wires to be stripped were put in this region, the pliers
closed to crush the plastic insulation, and the pliers were pulled to
the end of the wire, stripping off the insulation (and leaving a bit of
it curling back where it was first crushed.)
======
Telephone company suggests THEY repair, but at about $100 an hour
service charge, so I will attempt this 1st, myself!
Well ... good luck.
Thanks in advance for any help. Yes, I am a neophyte at this---critique
away, I can take it!
You have what I know about it, at least.
Good luck,
DoN.
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