door bell not ringing

[Chris]

Hello..

My door bell has stopped working correctly. Need some advice before tearing everything apart..

The button outside is illuminated.. When pressed, light turns off, but does not trip off door bell unless I press and hold multiple times. (when doorbell goes off and depress button, the button stays off until chimes end.. times when doorbell does not go off while holding down and release, light goes back on..

Don't think it is switch because light works, and turns off when press down.. so, I think the circuit is being completed to the door bell..

My guess is either transformer or bell itself.. But, if transformer is not working correctly, no current would be going to the switch, correct??

Transformer is about 5 years old.. Door bell is OLD..

thanks.

Chris

[John Grabowski]

*Remove the button and short the wires together momentarily to see how well the doorbell operates.

[Twayne]

Not necessarily correct, no. Kill pwr to the xfmr and ohm out the wires & contacts. A relay is probably not working correctly.

[clare]

No relays. The switch contacts are likely bad - shorting the switch will confirm. If shorting the switch doesn't work, most likely cause is a bad chime, since power is getting to the button light.

I'm betting onr a bad button though

[RBM]

Couple of possibilities: First, it sounds like you have a motorized 4-8 note chime, and not the typical ding dong. Some of these old models require 24 volt transformers to work properly, not the typical 16 volt. Check inside the chime for the specs. Second, many of these old motorized chimes don't work properly with lighted push buttons. Do what John Grabowski recommends and shunt the two push button wires to see if that makes it work properly. you may have to eliminate the lighted PB

[HeyBub]

It's the button.

[krw]

If it's the button, why does the light go off when pressed? Seems to me it's a high impedance somewhere, the transformer perhaps.

[Ed Pawlowski]

wrote

It goes off because it breaks the light contact, but does not make a good enough contact to ring the bell. BTDT

My doorbell was broken for 20 years and I finally fixed it. Thankfully it broke again; this time it will stay broken. People that I want to see know to come to the side door.

[krw]

That's not how doorbell switches work. There is only one (normally open) contact with the light across it (there is no "breaking" of the light contact). When the button is pushed the circuit is closed, causing the bell to ring and the light to go out. If the light goes out, the switch is closed.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 12/19/2010 10:12 AM [e-mail] spake thus:

Yes, really: where do you figure a relay is here? Now, if it's some kind of mil-spec doorbell, maybe it has a relay ...

[Earl]

you need to press the button.

[Ed Pawlowski]

wrote

Maybe, but it is still not good enough to ring the bell. At least it was in my case. Replacing the button fixed it. Easy enough to check rather than the OP insist it is not without doing the simplest check first.

[krw]

That's true enough.

[clare]

Don't bet on it. All it has to do is pass as much current as the light needs to turn the light off - which may not be enough to run the chime. The ONLY way (well, the simplest, anyway) to know is to short the button.

[mm]

It's not the transformer. They dont' break like "this" whatever this is.

I'd pull out the doobbell button and touch the wires together. That's better than the assumption you've made.

I think the button is dirty inside. It's the only part of this system that is outside, and who wants to live outside? Would you put your children on the front porch year after year, never letting them come in? Would you do it? Yet you do it to your doorbell button. You should be reported to the police. Button-abuser!!

You deserve all the troubles it's giving you, considering how you treat it.

It's dirty enough to not let the bell work, but not so dirty that the light doesn't go out. That's not hard. The neon light has a fairly high resistance. The button when closed will have a resistance lower than the light, so most of the current will bypass the light. But not enough will pass to power the doorbell, which has to move the hammer, the rod inside the solenoid, fast enough to make the plate vibrate when it hits it (and also against a spring, a weak spring for sure, but it makes the power requirement slightly higher).

[mm]

Read my other post.

Yes, high impedance, in the doorbell button. :)

[cjt]

What neon light? I thought we were talking about a doorbell button.

No neon light I've ever seen will fire on 24 volts.

[cjt]

For that matter, doorbells generally work on less than 24 volts. The 24 volt system is for the HVAC controls.

[mm]

I don't remember this ever happening, but if the switch could oxidize, I suppose most of the bare wire could oxidize. Not the part that is not open to the air when the screws were tightened, but it coudl work out, I suppose, that when you rub the wires together, you won't make good contact between them. If you have a hard time making the bell ring, scrape the bare wires with a knife** until a good portion of them are shiny. YOu should do that anyhow before you attach the new switch. (If you could shine up the part of the swith that makes contact, you wouldn't need a new switch either.)

**I have a friend who uses sandpaper to clean wires, but he's not very good at home repair, despite owning a home for 30 years, so I don't know whether to recommend that or not.

[Colbyt]

I just love when the regulars argue. The threads can get so long.

Shorting the wires is a quick easy test.

Checking the label of the chimes is sound advice.

Please do put us all out of misery by letting us know the cause or we could be debating this next year at this time.