THE SOUTH POLE..........[312] 677-7140 Building a Silver box -by- E.F. Hutton Following is a complete tutorial on how to build a silver box from scratch. When making this project, please note that neither I or 'The AT&T Phone Center' takes any responsibilty for any harm that comes to you , or your equipment. Also note that the owning of a 'Silver Box' is not in any way illegal, but if used 'incorrectly' can constitute a threat to the phone company, and they will come down hard on you if you don't watch yourself. First off, you must know what a silver box is: it is basicly a touch tone dialing device, but it has 4 extra 'keys' (tones) that are used by test/repair men, to access certain 'hidden' features of your local phone company (loops, call backs, etc.). These four keys are given the names 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', and they are usually located (when placed on a semi-normal keypad) to the right (a whole extra column). I am going to make this as simple as possible, but if you have any questions, please address them to "E.F. HUTTON" on the AT&T phone center at (312)-674-2578. PARTS LIST (I will list the radio-shack number in brackets) ---------- 1- Tone encoder chip (TCM5089N) [rs# 276-1301] 1- TV colorburst crystal (3.579545 mhz) [rs# 272-1310] 1- Sixteen pin IC sockett [rs# 276-1998] 1- IC experimenter board [rs# 276-159] 8- SPST (single pole, single throw) switches [rs# 275-624] 1- 'Project box' NOTE-->: THE TONE ENOCDER CHIP IS A 'CMOS' CHIP, WHICH MEANS IT DIES EASILY WHEN IT GETS ZAPPED BY STATIC ELECTRICITY. PLEASE GROUND YOURSELF BEFORE HANDLING CHIP, DO ALL SOLDERING TO THE SOCKETT, AND DON'T REMOVE/INSERT CHIP WHILE POWER IS ON! 1 [] First connect the socket onto the IC board, make sure there are no solder bridges (shorts) and try to use a low wattage soldering iron (you will be soldering on the 'metal side' (the side with the metal etching)). Now insert two 3-9 inch wire (22 guage, stranded) into the holes corisponding to pins 1 and 6 (make pin 1 to the left, facing AWAY from you (up)), these two leads are the voltage in leads, carefully solder them to the underside (as always). 2 [] Now insert three 5 inch leads to holes 3,4,5,9,11,12,13,14 and solder carefully. (when I say holes, I mean holes corisponding to pin #'s). These are the 'collumn' switches (3,4,5,9) and the row switches (11,12,13,14). 3 [] Next, insert a 5 inch lead into hole 16 ( this is the output lead) and solder. 4 [] Now for the crystal, insert one side (either) into hole 7, and the other into hole 8, solder carefully, and clip off excess wire from the bottom. 5 [] Next you get to insert the chip into the socket, remember to ground your- self, and line the notch side up to the 'top' (where pin1 is) , make sure the chip seats cleanly, and don't force it! --> OK! YOU ARE ABOUT HALFWAY DONE... TAKE A BREAK, GET A COLD DRINK OF YOUR CHOICE, AND INSPECT YOUR HANDIWORK, MAKING SURE THERE ARE NO SHORTS (SOLDER BRIDGES) OR 'COLD SOLDER' JOINTS (IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO GO OVER EVERY CONNETION WITH THE IRON AGAIN). 6 [] Now back to work, you have reached the point of 'test and pray'.... Connect the leads from pins 1 and 6 (step 1) to a nine volt battery (or any other power source that is between 3-13 volts DC) making sure that the lead from hole 6 goes to neg(-), and the lead from hole 1 goes to postive (+). Connect the lead from hole 16 to one side of a small speaker, (any junkie one laying around will do) and the other side to negative (-) of your power source. Now take leads from holes 4 and 11 and touch them to the negative (-) side of your power source... If you hear a tone (and it sounds almost like a touch tone) you have done everything correctly-- go on to the next step, if not--- go back to step one, and check everything thru. 7 [] Well, congradulations!!! you are now ready to finalize your box.. all that is left is to mount the switches in your 'project box' and 'hardwire them in'. I suggest you arrange the switches in a format you can understand. I have mine mounted like this: s1 (row1) s2 (row2) s3 (row3) s4 (row4) s5 (col1) s6 (col2) s7 (col3) s8 (col4) Then connect a common lead to one side of ALL of the switches, and then to another hole corisponding to pin 6 (this is ground). Now connect the leads to their respective switches (opposite side of the ground). You have now completed the Silver box... just connect the power leads to a battery or other pwer supply (3-13 volts DC) and the output lead to a speaker (other side of speaker to negative (-) of DC power supply) and flip one switch for column, and one switch for row... and thats that! I will not delve into the usuage of a silver box... There are many other tutorials on that, also- there is a way of directly connecting the output into the phone line, but I have yet to figure it out.. FOLLOWING IS THE SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM THAT I DESIGNED FOR MY SILVER BOX, AS YOU CAN SEE IT IS NO BIG DEAL, AND HAS ROOM FOR MANY REFINEMENTS. (in 80 column format) (-) (+) _! 3-13 VDC !______ OUT ! ! ______ ! ! ---- ----- \ / ! ! ! \_/ ! (+)! !(-) ! +-! 1 16 !- +------------------------------- --+ ! ! ! ! ! NC -! 2 15 !- NC ! ! \ ! ! / ! ! + \---------+-! 3 14 !- +------------------------/ + ! ! ! \ ! ! / ! ! ! ! + \-----+-! 4 13 !- +-------------------/ + ! ! ! ! ! \ ! ! / ! ! ! ! ! ! + \-+-! 5 12 !- +-------------/ + ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! / ! ! ! ! +-------+---+---+----+-! 6 11 !- +-------/ + ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !--------------+-! 7 10 !- NC ! ! ! ! ! !CRYSTAL (3.579545 MHZ)! ! / ! ! ! ! ! ! !--------------+-! 8 9 !-+-/ + ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! -------------- ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! -------------------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-------+