I built an intercom from vintage rotary phones! 

I’ve been scouring youtube for a video detailing how to build an intercom system using specifically soviet era phones for hours. Finally found this channel and I’m absolutely floored by the production quality. Everything was perfect. When I saw the number of subscribers I was shocked. I fully expected to see several million. This channel deserves far more recognition. Thank you so much for all the information. I’ll be watching on repeat till I finish my own!

sometimes the youtube algorithm does good things like recommending this channel, just awesome

This channel is a goldmine. I'm so glad I clicked on the link on twitter. Teaches a lot abt tech and life in a beautiful way! Look forward to seeing all your videos!

I am SO excited to watch all your existing and future content. Came over from the friendly CRT robot build. Incredible!!!

Beautiful video! What a wonderful project!!! It was such a pleasure getting to spend 15-20 minutes with you Thomas, as well as "meeting" your beautiful family!!! I truly enjoyed this project and seeing your passion for every facet therein, Thank You !!!

Loving the production quality.

My uncle had an old mechanical exchange up in the attic, that he wired all the house phones into, so you could dial an extension and ring any other rotary phone in the house. 1 for ground level, 2 for second floor, 3 for the attic third floor. If you were up in the attic and someone operated it, you could see all the rotary actions move on the mechanics to connect the call and disconnect it. And of course you could dial out on the single house line or two. So you are missing that critical part to connec them all, some mechanical exchange. By the time I got around to setting up my own similiar system, it was the 90's, and you could buy something called the RingRite which would allow 2 or 3 phone lines to share the same line, and with the multi ring tone service from the phone company, the RingRite box would capture the first ring, and depending on the ring pattern from the phone company, route the call to the right phone and subsequent rings would be heard on that phone. So basically with one phone line, you could have 3 different numbers with 3 different ring patterns, and the box would capture it and route it to the right phone in your house so everyone could have their own telephone number and never have to get called to the phone somewhere else... but still only pay for one telephone line.

Rather than being technical and dirty nerdy, you videos are so wholesome and full of life nerdy. I love them. Thank you so much sir 🙏🏼.

First video of yours that I watch and I'm already addicted. I'm not a techie myself, but the quality of the production and the stories you tell are engaging. I'm looking forward for more!

What an epic! Fantastic project, Thomas. And really well shot/edited, too!

I just watched every single one of your videos and i can't imagine a how perfect your contents are. In every aspect , your videos are crazy good. Content , editting , story telling and everything is just perfect. Hope to see more from you in near future. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. God bless 😍

Loved the video. Especially loved the end with your chandelier and friends as you spoke of in the beginning of the video, beautiful and touching. Well Done!

Really glad i found your channel. Its a wonderful place to nerd out and your filming/editing is really well done. Please, keep it up!!

Having access to a big electronics market like that would be so fun! Thanks for the video.

Hello. Thank you for such a fun video. That was my childhood dream, unfortunately, I had no knowledge or resources to do so. Maybe I will do it now. I remember when I saw an advertisement you were looking for old Soviet electronics to repair, I thought it was a kind of scam and someone was looking for electronics just for the gold scrapping. I am so glad I was wrong and you bring a second life to those devices.

Great video Thomas! Absolute joy to watch, and really cool that you made it work!

This was so much fun, missed my city streets driving down to Eliava 😁 loved it, interesting and entertaining, Loved seeing Khatuna and the kids too 😍

love the chandelier subplot

Such great videos. Your projects are so much fun and the production quality is pretty unmatched on RU-vid. And also, a wonderful family that you've got. Hope the best for you guys

I'm gobsmacked by the production quality of your videos! After watching tech videos on RU-vid for years, I'm almost unsure what to do by not being segued to the sponsor and not hearing the same 12 soundtracks they all use. THANK YOU for your thoughtful, unique projects, tone and especially what I can only describe as a cinematic quality so severely lacking on most of RU-vid, particularly in the tech informational/educational realm. You have a new fan and I hope you get many, MANY MORE.

Thomas, this video’s got it all! Engaging! Great work.

Absolutely inspiring and stunning project. The atmosphere and feeling in your videos are superb!

That's farly one of the easiest way to connect two phones including ringing :) I also run some vintage rotary dial phones here at home (german W28 and FeTAp 611), but they are connected to an ond PBX, which is connected to a VOIP adapter, so I can use these phones to make calls to the outside world :) I think the problem you have with the connectors for the phones is, that they short out the upper connections on the phones on your circuit diagram. The capacitors are there to block DC current running to the relay and let AC current for ringing pass through. If you put both upper connections on the sleeve of the jacks, they short out and bypass the capacitors, so DC current can run from on side to the other. So if you pick up one phone, the relay of the other phone also will close and disconnect the ringing. Solutions for this are isolating the jacks (as yu did) or putting the positive side of the DC to the sleeve (positive ground). If you want to build this with a microcontroller, you can also use an series inline relay with DC on the phone. If you dial a number, the relay should flicker. You can sense series relay that's on for a certain amount of time as a picked up phone, and each short pulse on the relay as a number count. a certain amount of downtime on the relay can be detects as hung up phone. On german phones pulse dialing was 40/60ms per number, so I think I would try around 350ms for pick up/hung up and everything below 150ms for number pulsing.

The other day I was watching phone related videos, thinking about different ways I could use an old rotary phone in this day and age. I am glad I stumbled upon this video. Project as interesting, storytelling was relaxed and enjoyable, describing what you are doing in very natural way, as if we were there following your work in person. Then I watched rest of your videos and they were just as great! Excited to see what you come up with next. Good luck with all the things new job and moving brings to your life!

man i`m realy facinated with the project and the production of your content, everything is amazing, congrats!

Saya dari Indonesia, saya harap channel ini bisa berkembang dengan sangat cepat🤲 Kualitas produksi konten, materi, dan informasi yang disampaikan sangat luar biasa. Saya melihat channel DIY besar lain dengan kualitas di bawah anda, sangat mudah untuk melampaui mereka💪💪

What a wonderful episode Thomas! Amazingly shot, pleasure to watch🙌🏻

Dude, so glad your robot video busted out into everybody's consciousness, your work is so great! The market is so cool! Your music game is so on point! Love the tune at 7:27! Such a great vibe. Not to mention the high quality production, great story-telling, fascinating tech and realistic representation of the struggles of engineering something from nothing. Love it!

Excellent work. Amazing video production quality as well. Well done!

What the fuck, this is at the level of stuff made here, practical engineering, etc, The quality, music, narrative, heck its even super interesting! RU-vid recommend this Channel more and let him grow! Saludos from Spain❤

I love this so much, you're telling about five stories at once and the production is funny, technical, detailed, touching and just wonderful. I really hope you have zillions of subscribers soon, never more deserved!

Thanks for the passion and simple repurposing of these old phones. On the schematics and metal enclosure I trust you added a nice solid earthing wire to both upper and lower lids. Also a good idea to minimise the 240 AC wiring by having the fuse and switch near the inputs to the transformers where possible. Add additional insulation over any exposed 240v.

I tried to make a similar intercom system with my kids as part of a Homeschool project. However, I only had a page or two of poorly written instructions and the project flopped. Back then RU-vid was mostly cat videos, so I never used it as a school resource. Oh how I wish this video existed long ago. Oh well, nothing stopping me from trying to still make one for myself. 😂 awesome video! ❤from Texas!

Super cool ☎️ project ❤ Thank you for sharing kind sir.

I love your explanations, you make them easy and fun to follow along for beginners

The days of instant and fast content, I love your content it shows you are your passion in people and technology ❤🎉

Wow! Thanks for your work

This looks awesome! Nice simple invention, this is the second video I watch (watching it on lunch breaks), I don't want to watch more than 1 a day because I don't want it to end. This channel is amazing ❤🎉 very happy to have this suggested for me, I came up when watching a Adrian Digital Basement episode. Same vibe, but not so much only on computers.

Thank you for sharing that journey. I really enjoyed the simplicity and the retro phones used in this project. I pray God's blessings on your computer shop. Something I would love to have one day.

Wow I am really impressed about the quality of your videos! Good job!

Уже соскучился! У вас так мало видео... )) а вообще, очень интересная и полезная идея для частного дома. Спасибо и будьте здоровы!

Your channel is amazing! I’m annoyed RU-vid didn’t suggest it sooner. I’m burning through all your videos ❤

You should add a momentary button to control the ring after picking up the handset, like a mine phone. That way if one gets knocked off the hook the other isn't ringing incessantly until you can hang up the other. Fantastic build! I have casually considered something like this and I love how simple your system is.

Yes yes yes yes yes. Absolutely love the use of these. Very clever AC/DC switching system.

Beautiful work, both he electronics and the production. Here in the States, we called this a "ring down" circuit; they were typical for field communications at football games.

I love all the choice of songs, now a subscriber. Kudos!

Looks like a lovely space to be in.

mate youve got a real eye for production, your videos are inspiring my inner child, thank you! ♥

I have never saw a video like this , I love your ideas and Project.

I get lost with the technical part , but these videos are mesmerizing to watch ! Such well done video and amazing craftsmanship. Keep rocking !!!!!!!!!

Greetings from Texas, USA! Loving this channel. Awesome content. Thank you for sharing your work. I’m positive you will have millions of subs in the future! Have. A great day

Love the style of his videos

fun build, thanks for the video

By far the best video editing on RU-vid. Worthy of big production companies

Great video and project. That large transformer looks so cool, it would deserve a transparent acrylic enclosure.

5:23 - at first i thought it would be "ave Maria"! 😁 Astonishing videos you made! Those phones, chandelier, but also people and this market. Music and production. Really enjoying it! Total gem!

My dad did this for my sister and I when we were younger, fun times. We could talk to each other from our bedrooms for hours on end without having to go into each other rooms, the things parents will do to stop their kids getting out of bed 😁 edit: ours were also very crackly but it just added to the experience!

8:45 Twisting the stranded wire before crimping the terminal often leads to the wire falling out of the terminal. The wire is simply unscrewed from the sleeve. Crimp only the straight wire!

Great project!!!!! When I was young (probably you just surround the 50's too), I dreamed with this project. Until I went to the university to study Electronics Engineering, I faced this challenge. But I did with key telephones, using audio transformers and I felt great, when felt the ring sound.. But your project is harder, because this rotary phones needs those heavy transformers... Awesome project!!!!

Beautiful!!

Proud of you Thomas!

Nice analysis of how to make it work

It's great. I love your project. It's incredible but you can do it. Thank you for this video.

Your channel is EXCELLENT. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Great job!

On the old pre rotary phones the ringer uses DC.

very enjoyable and interesting Thomas!

You must have a big team making this kind of video quality.

This video, and channel, are great and it needs more views and subs. Glad I found it.

I am not sure how but you became my favourite channel on yt. Actually i know why but this is hard to describe, like i have personal connection with you and your videos, something like your goals are mine as well and when i am watching i get the feeling like we have achieved the result together even i have not moved my ass of my chair :D

So glad I found this channel.

Immediately subbed, dude do this as your full time job, youre damn good man 👨

Refreshing to see a channel without built-in paid sponsor reads.

Very cool video! Enjoyed watching!

Love the videos you are doing. Thanks.

Your channel is a gem everyone should discover

love your music choice as well❕

i love that market! 😀

Really well done. Subscribed.

Awesome 🤩 !

Sir... You are so professional when it comes to making videos 😉

what a fun journey

Love your vids, great content. Watching from Mexico

Those phones are likely using analog microphones; causing the crackling you hear. Analog microphones use loose carbon granules and tended to shift while the handset is used, this causes the crackling sounds. It could also be static electricity within the phone itself too. Phones are so fun!!!

Brilliant!

Very interesting and informative

First of all respect for the technical aspect it's awesome. Production quality of the million subs channel. Secondly, I always respect Georgian people.

I am a new subscriber here. I am happy that I found another YT Channel whose contents are interesting.

Awesome video!

This channel is everything I need

I love this!

good job man!

So much relaxing classic cinematic beutiful ☺️🫠 video editor and camera person should be awarded 😊

😮😮😮 love it 😍

I really like the way it’s produced and how he uses recycled parts

Omii this channel is incredible

1:00 We(You) put the Able in Feasible 😅❤

you are gonna make me cry bro, i was born in neighboring Armenia (live in the US now) and i completely understand the courtyard vibes, keep up the great work.

Just found my new favorite channel

Would be cool built small Step by step telephone exchange, because in Georgia still doesn't exist telephone exchange museum.