Question Installation of Ring Door Bell Pro with old doorbell but not wanting to touch Consumer Unit

Killak

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Hello everyone.

I recently purchased a Ring Doorbell Pro thinking it was easy to swap from my old doorbell to my new one. Now realised its more complicated then I thought. I find the help guides and video's out there a bit confusing dispute spending quite a lot of time researching I am still pretty clueless (I only have a basic understanding of electrical work - I can wire up a 3 pin plug, thats about it!). I do not have a plug socket near my bell, and I still want to use my existing mechanical chime. So far my understanding is that Ring recommends that you must install a transformer into the consumer unit if you have an existing traditional style door bell. There is not way round that...is that correct?

Assuming that is correct...I don't want to mess around inside the consumer unit and I don't want to pay for an electrician so looking at other ways of doing it.

I think I've got a doable solution to installing without touching the consumer unit but just need someone to give it a once over to make sure I'm doing everything correctly.

So I'm using this video as the basis of my proposal


He is installing the Ring doorbell Pro WITHOUT an existing doorbell. He is simply running a 2 wire bell cable from the Ring door bell into the transformer, which he has put inside of an housing and attached to a wall, then attached a 3 pin plug to the transformer and plugged it into the mains.

What I want to do is the same thing, but rather than run the wire from the Ring doorbell to the transformer, I plan to run the wire from the old mechanical chime to the transformer, than attach the 3 pin plug to the transformer.

This is my step by step process

1) Turn off all power in consumer box
2) Locate the cable running from mechanical chime into consumer unit
3) Cut that cable and add into transformer. Attach 3 pin plug to transformer
4) In mechanical chime box, install the Ring Pro Power Cable

Need some advice with step 3, when I cut the cable what do I do with the cables which go into the consumer unit. Can't see a way of removing them without opening up the box?

Is what I've suggested OK and safe? Do I need to do anything else? I would be grateful for any advice

I've attached a picture of my mechanical chime box.
 

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Turn off power at consumer unit to the bell transformer. Test with mains tester that it is in fact turned off!
Unscrew the cable feeding power to transformer and terminate these connections using a Wago connector (or terminal block)
Install Ring transformer with 3 pin mains feed into box (I would use a 3 amp fuse)

Any reason why you can’t add the Ring transformer into the mains feed and use existing bell wire in mechanical chime box to feed DC power to external Ring bell unit?

As with anything mains related. If unsure you need to consult a qualified electrician before you give yourself a tight perm and maybe worse!

Fabien
 
I had existing wire, existing bell, and existing transformer.

This is really easy.

1. switch off electricity.
2. Take out existing transformer and replace with the ring transformer.
3. Install bypass cable for existing bell box. Serious you don’t want that as it likely will cause trouble and likely doesn’t work with the transformer output from ring. Besides with the ring the advantage is that you can have it ring in every room if you want or when outside the house ;)
4. Hook up the ring pro to the existing wire.
4. Plug in the supplied chime.

Where it got a bit more complex for us was that we have multiple entry points and the original owner has another junction for the cabling somewhere that I couldn’t find.
 
I'm an electrician and I have been toying with installing either a Nest or Ring doorbell. I understand they have been issues initially with these essentially US products and UK bell transformers, but I thought this has been resolved now, with additional devices?

I do hope nobody follows that jokers advice in the video. He has created a potential death trap, by not providing any cable strain relief on the flexible cable between his plug > flex > and entry into the enclosure. If somebody, a young child pulled that flex out of the enclosure, it may well expose live wires, which could prove fatal. And he's done a Domestic Installers course; don't think he was paying much attention!
 
Thanks for you all your advice so far. It's much appreciated.

Just so I got this 100% right, I've attached a picture of my existing bell transformer...(the black box on the right)

I've decided not to use a 3pin plug now. Am I literally just disconnecting this transformer and replacing with the new ring transformer? So am not touching the consumer unit apart from to switch off the power.

And then if I want to use the existing chime, I just don't touch it, or do I still need to install the Ring Pro Power cable to the mechanical chime?
 

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There maybe compatibility between your existing mechanical chime or not. Without knowing what it is it will be hard to tell. I can’t really see much about the specifications of your existing transformer. Iirc mine was 12v and the ring one is 24v. So that could be issue number one if your one isn’t rated to what the ring transformer supplies.

Then there is the wiring adjustment that you likely need to do. To put it very simplistically. Remember the ring will need a “closed” circuit to get power to it all the time. You old door bell circuit only closes when someone presses the button.

I would just put in the bypass wire, and use the chime pro that was supplied with the doorbell.

What’s the issue in using that one? You can move it to the location you want to have. Or add multiple.
 
Hi folks

I relise this is probably a dead thread now but wanted to share my solution for getting this to work.

I also searched for a long time to try and find a solution but there was nothing really available.

In the end, I did manage to get my old chime to work with the new Ring video doorbell pro but it required a bit of messing around with relays.

It might not be of any interest to you now, but I thought I'd send the write-up I made for it, just in case.

 

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