On Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:24:01 -0500, micky
wrote:

On Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:50:52 -0600, "Doug"
wrote:

On Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:37:39 -0800, Paul Drahn
wrote:

On 1/7/2012 2:05 PM, Doug wrote:
I've got a house that the door chime stopped working (making a chime
noise). I know it's not the outside button and the two wires outside
that connect to the button (that go thru the outside brick wall) when
touching each other showed some spark. One repair guy asked me if
it's a 16v or 24v transformer and I don't know. He seemed to say it's
not a part of the chime box inside. I thought everything was self
contained inside the chime box that mounts on the wall. Is this a
DIY job??? Any good URL to watch on this repair?
Another question: Are your door chimes wireless?

Paul


Wired but I'm thinking of a wireless system as I think it might be
cheaper to fix????

Have one of you hold the button down, while the other stands on a
chair and puts hir ear next to the bell, to see if it hums at all.

Or better yet, take the plastic/wood-like cover off the bell and look
at the horiztontal rod before and while someone pushes the button.

Use your finger to flick the little horiszontal rod (most of which
goes through an electro magnet) back and forth sideways, to see if it
bounces back at all. There is only 16 or 24 volts there and it's not
enough to even feel it, let alone hurt you (unless you get startled
and fall off the chair!, assuming you can feel it) , plus you don't
have to touch the wires themselves, only the rest of the mechanism.

When the button is pushed, the magnet pushes th e horitizontal rod to
the right (or left?) and it hits the flat chime plate, usually a
rectangle about 4 or 5 inches high, 1/8'" thicik and an inch or inch
and a half from front to back. Uusally dark goldish color. Hit it
yourself with a pencil and and it should ring a little bit.


Actually, MOST work opposite to that. The solenoid pulls the plunger
back against a spring, and when you release it, it comes back by
spring action and hits the gong, with the spring pulling it back again
from the gong. That's on single tone gongs. Dual tones hit one gong on
the power stroke and the second on the rebound. The power stroke gives
the short "ding" while the rebound, undamped, gives the long "dong"

Look for insect leftovers, like Claiir said. maybe they are keeping
the rod from moving, or the plate from vibrating.

Once the little thin spring broke, that goes around the rod and
pushes the rod back where it was, and so it got pushed up to the chime
plate, but never went back. So the rod couldn't get up enough
velocity to ring the chime. It just made a little thump, or maybe it
made no sound at all. Push the rod back where it was and push the
button again. If it rings once but not again, maybe the spring is
broken.
Or mabee it's sticky - like I said.