Pay - Phone Moddage

A

antoniohawk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 3, 2003
Messages
326
I got this pay phone from a friend of a friend and was wondering how the hell I can open the sucker. I know the opening of it isn't really an electronics questions, but eventually, when I do get it open, I'm gonna convert it into a working phone and will need some help in that area.
 
Does it still work? Seems to me all you need to do is figure out how the coin system tells the phone enough money is in, and just bypass that part. Or you could keep the coin system and keep a jar of quarters sitting next to it :)

If the payphone doesn't work, just buy a cheap phone and connect things up, the keys would be the trickiest part, since it's almost certainly a matrix keypad, you'll have to do a bit of work to ascertain which pin goes where, and whether pushing a button is supposed to make something go high or low. You could possibly use the phones original keypad, but it might not fit right, and it probably has rubber buttons instead of metal ones that most payphones have.
 
I would suggest trying some 2600 newsgroups or other. usually the phreaking community would know a lot more and be able to help you.
I hope i'm not overstepping my bounds here by recommending you to a more questionable community. though it is the only place i can think of that would give you some good help.
 
Originally posted by SacLANd
I would suggest trying some 2600 newsgroups or other. usually the phreaking community would know a lot more and be able to help you.
I hope i'm not overstepping my bounds here by recommending you to a more questionable community. though it is the only place i can think of that would give you some good help.
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That's what I was going to suggest as well.

You could also try contacting the local phone company - see if they'll help - though they'll probably be dickheads and tell you to fuck off.

The newer payphones are pretty much unopenable if you don't have the key and don't want to completely destroy the thing.
 
If you legally own the phone (eg, if it's an old style payphone that they tossed out) then you could probably get keys from the telco for it. A friend of mine has a 50's payphone on his wall (with individual penny, nickel and dime slots on top - it's badass) and managed to score keys off the telco.
 
Well, it's a regular pay phone like you'd find around gas stations and such. It came from a local community college that had no need for it or something. At least that's the story i was told.
 
I'm entertaining the thought of a payphone project myself (in fact anything coin operated, which in part thanks to inflation are generally disappearing). With the advent of cell phones, payphones are now a money losing venture for modern telco's, and they are being removed in droves. You can purchase them legally from many places on the web or from ebay. They common touch-tone styles can be had for about $100, while the older dial types demand much more from collectors.

If you cannot locate keys to open your phone, you might consider drilling the lock and using a replacement lock set which you could probably find through Google or ebay. You will still need the 'T-Bar' key for the coin vault, those are relatively easy to find and are generally not keyed themselves, but require the other lock to be unlocked first. [edit] You'll need some very good quality cobalt (not carbide coated) drill bits and preferably a drill press to do this, the lock assemblies are very tough [H]ardened steel. You might research for some lock drilling tips before you start, it's not as easy as you might think.

I found this page that details a coin-op controller circuit for modern payphones from a link from the Bell System Memorial page, which has some good history and info. Check out their page on the modern payphone which has some good info on the innards of these payphones.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks, that helps a lot. A local locksmithing company offered to drill it for around 20 bucks if i remember correctly. It would be really nice if I didn't have to go that route, but lately it seems to be the only way to go.
 
OK, what kind of lock is on it? Lock picking is much easier than you might think, my friends have just gotten into it.

Anyway, once you get it open there are several possibilities. One thing you need to determine is what class of payphone it is. All payphones are not created equally. Does it say the name of a major telco like Bell, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint? If not, it probably says some small or local company on the info plate. I'm guessing this is the case, seeing as your local community college had the authority to hand it over, if it was from a major telco they most likely wouldn't own the phone.

So, what this means is that it is a COCOT (Coin-Operated Customer Owned Telephone) IE it's not a real payphone.

THIS IS GOOD!!!

A real payphone generates tones when you put money in that tells the phone company how much you put in, and when you've put enough money in the line is open. This means a special connection to the phone company is needed.

This is not so with a COCOT. A COCOT is a box that emulates a payphone but uses a regular telephone line like you and I have in our houses. The validation of coins is done internally, and when enough money is put in the line is 'unlocked' by the payphone not the phone company.

What this means is that you can hook up the payphone to a normal telephone line and use it like a normal payphone. There may be some way to lock it into giving free calls. There is also likely a modem in the phone that allows remote administration of the phone's features.

However, first you need to get it open. Have fun.
 
Thanks a lot, I now about 10 times as much about payphones as I did before I started this project.
 
how bout some pics then?
if you really wanna be [H]ard then mod some ITX motherboard in it. it would really be something original.
 
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