[harpua728]

I have an old doorbell chime box that's currently not working. The lights on the doorbell outside are lit but when I press the doorbell, there is no ring. Oddly enough, when I press the front doorbell I hear a buzz sound but I don't hear this when I try ringing the back door.

Not sure if this sounds like an issue with the wires or just the chime box.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Arrow3030]

It's probably time to clean the chime mechanism or replace it. They can be valuable so do some research before spraying windex or whatever all over it.

 

[jmon]

Old doorbell chime box pretty much says it all. It may be time for replacing. I agree, it could be the chime box itself is bad.

However, before you give it the last rights; You can try checking all your wire connections to the chime. Make sure they are tight and contacts are clean and not rusted. Check wiring for cracks, damages or frays.

Hope you can get it working again.

 

[AllanJ]

I would say, inspect the chime box first.

Electromechanical chimes have solenoids and plungers (short rods about the thickness of a pencil) inside. The plungers can swell due to corrosion and no longer jump up and down to hit the glockenspiel ("xylophone") bars inside. If the corrosion is not too bad you can push the plungers out and sandpaper them.

 

[harpua728]

So the buzzing I heard when ringing the front bell only (no buzz when ringing the back door) was not coming from the chime box. It was coming from inside a wall that's about 5 to 10 feet away. Here's what I found when I opened it up.

Any ideas??

 

[Arrow3030]

That's your door bell. Try pushing the plunger to see if it frees up.

 

[harpua728]

Plunger? Where would that be in my photo?

 

[Arrow3030]

It looks red I think...it's the part that hits the bar

 

[gregzoll]

Another vote for a bad chime unit with the solenoid fried, along with the spring worn out and plunger hard to move.

Get a new unit and you should be fine. You can usually get the chime, transformer and a button or two for around $25.

 

[harpua728]

I'm still vi fused as to what my previous picture is of. Is that the transformer?

I have this chime box in a different room.

 

[harpua728]

For what it's worth, my doorbell plays a song/tune rather than a "ding dong."

 

[AllanJ]

In the example above, I think the plunger is inside the gold tube that is behind the black fiber terminal strip.

You will need to do wire tracing to find out how the chime box in the different room is connected.

One way to trace wires is to do resistance or continuity checks. This is done using the ohms function of a multimeter. Always turn off the power before doing these checks.

You touch the two meter probes to any two locations and the meter should read close to zero ohms to indicate you have continuity, or a continuous connection such as a wire (or a short circuit).

For best results the probes should be touched to single items as opposed to a terminal with wires attached. Label and unhook the wires from the terminal and touch that meter probe to one thing at a time for each measurement.

(If the two places you want to touch the meter probes to are too far apart, you can use a long single conductor wire such as THHN type with alligator clips on the ends as a meter probe extension. Fourteen gauge is a good all purpose size that can be used for other test purposes as well.)

 

[harpua728]

The odd thing is that when the doorbell functions properly, it plays a tune from the old wooden chime box. However, now when I push the doorbell (the front one only), I hear a buzz from whatever is in the wall. Does this mean I have a transformer (somewhere), a "doorbell" in the wall (original pics), and then a chime box on a separate wall??


I am thoroughly confused!!

 

[AllanJ]

There is definitely a transformer somewhere, perhaps inside or mounted on the outside of the breaker panel or mounted on a wall in a closet.

Yes it is possible to have a "doorbell" (yours is the same thing as the innards of some chime boxes) inside a wall and a chime box on a separate wall.

Now it is worth making a few more voltage (not continuity) measurements.

Open up the chime box mounted on the wall of the other room.

Measure the voltage between every combination of two terminals that have wires from them going into the wall, while someone else presses the door button.

Here we want to see if power is getting to this chime box.

Did the chime box on the wall ever work consistently?

Try unhooking the red wire from the "front" terminal of the gizmo inside the wall and leaving it loose. Repeat all of the voltage measurements to see if anything changed. This is to check if the gizmo in the wall is drawing enough power that there is not enough to operate the chime box on the other wall.

 

[gregzoll]

The odd thing is that when the doorbell functions properly, it plays a tune from the old wooden chime box. However, now when I push the doorbell (the front one only), I hear a buzz from whatever is in the wall. Does this mean I have a transformer (somewhere), a "doorbell" in the wall (original pics), and then a chime box on a separate wall??


I am thoroughly confused!!

A buzz means that the Solenoid in the unit. There is no way to replace them, because it is just two magnets that fire the rod against the bar. If it plays a tune, it would be electronics inside that would need the rod to touch one of the bars to trigger the relay to allow the music chip to work.

You need to replace the unit, You can try moving the Front door wire to the Backdoor screw if there is one and see if it still works that way. If it does, that points to my first point.

 

[gregzoll]

Allan I an thinking bad spring and the Solenoid is bad.

 

[harpua728]

A buzz means that the Solenoid in the unit. There is no way to replace them, because it is just two magnets that fire the rod against the bar. If it plays a tune, it would be electronics inside that would need the rod to touch one of the bars to trigger the relay to allow the music chip to work.

You need to replace the unit, You can try moving the Front door wire to the Backdoor screw if there is one and see if it still works that way. If it does, that points to my first point.

Which unit would I replace? The wooden chime box that plays the tune, or the larger unit that's embedded into the wall?

 

[gregzoll]

Then one embedded in the wall is most likely the issue. If you can bypass it and just use the other, you may be fine.

If you unhook the wires for the buttons and use a piece of #14 long enough to make a U with the ends stripped to see if it buzzes on front or rear, then it may be the unit. If you swap the transformer if not integrated in the unit and still buzzes, it is the unit.

Not much in the way of troubleshooting these.

 

[harpua728]

Mystery solved...sort of.

I went back to the basics and checked the actual doorbell buttons. I never thought to do so since they were lit up and I assumed all was good there. I unscrewed the doorbell and touched the wires to see if the bell would ring. It didn't. So I put the wires back into the screws and screwed the bell back into the door frame. I tried the bell one more time for good measure and voila...it now works. Both doorbells work all of a sudden.

Now there is still a buzz that comes from the embedded doorbell unit but the chimes play a split second later. That may have always been there but I never noticed.

Is this anything to worry about?

Also, how did my problem get solved and why didn't the bell ring when I touched the wires?

 

[AllanJ]

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