Video doorbell V2 chime controller wiring issues

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I have seen many posts, but none seem to speak to my problem. I have 2 white wires, 2 black wires, 3 terminals (front, trans, rear), and I am trying to connect the chime controller. I have tried a myriad of combinations and the chime will not ring. It worked fine for many years with a regular doorbell. BTW, I also upgraded the transformer from 16/10 to 24/40. Can anyone offer help?

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Welcome to the Forum, @fabron72! :wave:

Uh…“offer”, yes. Actually help…? :man_shrugging:

I’ll try, though!

First off, I’d start with some follow-up questions:

  1. When you say that “the chime will not ring”, is that the main/only problem currently? Does this mean you were able to complete the installation of the doorbell camera unit itself and get it online?
  2. What kind of chime do you have? Mechanical? Digital/electronic? Is it compatible with Video Doorbell v2?
  3. When you describe your wires, are you talking about the wires going into the chime box? That’s what it seems like from context, but I want to be clear. If you could supply the “before” picture (which the app should’ve prompted you to take during the installation/setup workflow), then that might help me to understand your starting point. A photo of the wires at the transformer and description of the wires/colors at the doorbell camera installation location might be helpful, too.
  4. Did you select the “4 or more wires” option in the app when you installed the Chime Controller? Is it possible that you have two pairs of wires and they’re used as paired conductors? (I’ve seen this in some installations, though usually the wires in each pair are different colors because 4- or 8-conductor wire has been used.)
  5. Did you upgrade the transformer prior to starting the Video Doorbell v2 installation and have a working regular (“dumb”) doorbell button working for some time, or is the transformer upgrade part of this same process?
  6. Do you have a multimeter available?
While you're thinking about those, this section (click to expand) may or may not be useful to you.

I’m quoting myself here from another post (you can expand it or click to that other topic if it seems relevant) because there I tried to compile some chime box wiring ideas (both what Wyze recommends and what other Forum users have reported to be useful) and this is an easy way to repeat myself here. Before mucking around any more with the wiring, though, I’d look at Step 6 in the Wyze Help Center troubleshooting article about the chime not ringing and try that (as well as that article’s other suggestions).

Hopefully this is a good starting point. I look forward to your response and input from other Forum members.

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I will answer the questions in order:

  1. The doorbell V2 camera works very well and I have a chime at the doorbell but I need it to chime inside the house.
  2. I have the mechanical chime that came with my house and I have lived here 22 years. No idea how long it was here before that, but it always worked perfectly.
  3. I am referring to the doorbell wires and transformer wires that get attached to the chime. Sadly, I have not been able to locate the picture of the original wiring. I am attaching a link to a picture of the latest wiring arrangement on the chime, and a picture of the new 24/40 transformer.
  4. I have studied any wiring option I could find including “4 or more wires” and I have tried the suggested wiring schemes of them all. The best result I have gotten is the current wiring as seen in the picture.
  5. The new transformer was installed after much frustration from much trial error. The dumb doorbell was working with the original transformer.
  6. Unfortunately, my multimeter is not working. It was a cheap one and I am talking to the seller about replacing it. The other option is to just go to Home Depot and buy a new one.
    Current mechanical chime wiring and new tranformer and wiring
4

You have another separate chime at the doorbell? Or are you talking about the doorbell itself making a audible noise when the doorbell button is pressed?

Did you enable the mechanical chime option in the doorbell settings?

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I like @Omgitstony’s questions. I think we’re assuming the same thing about the ding-dong! sound coming from the doorbell camera unit’s speaker where you have that mounted, but it’s good to have clarification on that point.

I also like that he asked about enabling the chime in the app, because my recollection of installing mine the first time was that the app didn’t prompt for a chime type selection during initial setup. I thought to check it and set it myself (on the app’s Video Doorbell v2 Live Stream screen, tap :gear: Settings ➜ Chime ➜ Doorbell Chime Type ➜ Mechanical) because I’d installed an Arlo for my sister not long before then and that was part of its setup process.

What, if anything, did you learn by working through the troubleshooting article I linked earlier? Again, I’d probably try adjusting the Chime Type settings as directed before making any more wiring alterations, especially if your doorbell camera unit is getting adequate power, maintaining its Wi-Fi connection, and otherwise functioning as expected.

Mine is also cheap. :grin: Fortunately it’s still working for me several years on.

I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions so far, and I look forward to the follow-up.

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There is no separate chime at the doorbell. I push the button and it chimes from the doorbell itself. I have read the instructions multiple times. It is set for mechanical chime and “do not disturb” is off.

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Thank you for confirming that.

:information_source: Before I continue: I am not an electrician. Many of the articles in the Help Center suggest consulting an electrician if you have problems, and I’m not one of those, so I want to be clear about that. Short of calling in a professional, I think it’s reasonable to try some more wiring combinations on your own, especially if you’ve already replaced your own transformer and have the doorbell working otherwise.

I just went to review my own wiring (where my doorbell is currently working :crossed_fingers: with the alternate wiring method after months of working with the standard method…and then stopping, and I still don’t understand why), and I see two red wires and two white wires coming into my chime box: The red wires are connected to TRANS and FRONT, and the white wires are taped together (instead of using a wire nut) and tucked away. (I’m speculating here that where you wired the doorbell camera unit you have one white and one black wire coming out of the wall, but please correct me if I’m wrong about that.) I wonder what would happen if you did something like this:

  1. Turn off the breaker that supplies power to the doorbell transformer.
  2. Remove the wire nut that’s connecting your Chime Controller’s black wire to one of the black and one of the white wires from your home (in your second picture it looks like 3 wires going into this nut). Separate these wires.
  3. Remove the white wire from the TRANS terminal.
  4. Connect the two white wires from your home together and cover the exposed conductors with a wire nut or electrical tape.
  5. Connect the two free black wires (one coming from your home into the chime box and the other one from the Chime Controller) with the wire nut.
  6. Connect the red wire from the Chime Controller to the TRANS terminal (so it and one black wire from your home will be connected to that terminal).
  7. Connect the white wire from the Chime Controller to the FRONT terminal.
  8. Restore power to the doorbell transformer and test. Note that Wyze recommends giving the doorbell power for 20-30 minutes prior to expecting it to ring. I imagine this is to give the capacitor inside the doorbell camera unit time to charge. If you had the doorbell powered up before flipping the breaker off and futzing with the wires, then it’s probably adequately charged already, but I’d give it 5-10 minutes to sit before trying again.

If that doesn’t work, then I’d try this:

  1. Turn off the doorbell power.
  2. Disconnect the white Chime Controller wire from FRONT and let 'im dangle[1].
  3. Disconnect the red Chime Controller wire from TRANS and connect it to FRONT (or REAR), per the alternate wiring instructions.
  4. Restore power and test again after a few minutes.

Have you tried that combination before?

Again, I’m speculating about your wiring and trying to imagine what the original setup was (with the previous doorbell button) without a visual reference, so I’m just comparing what I think is happening with my own setup.

:pencil2: Edit: I had another thought you might try if the first set of steps (1-8) doesn’t work and before going to the second set (1-4):

  1. Turn off the doorbell power.
  2. Undo the wire nut and separate the two black wires (one from the Chime Controller and one from the house).
  3. Disconnect the house black wire from the TRANS terminal and wire it together with the Chime Controller black wire with the wire nut.
  4. Connect the remaining house black wire to the TRANS terminal (along with the Chime Controller red wire).
  5. Restore power and test.

I’m making this suggestion before moving on to the alternate wiring instructions (noted above) because one pair of black and white wires going into your chime box should be from the transformer, and the other pair should be from the doorbell switch location. You should be able to determine which is which if you have a working multimeter and the power on at the breaker (you would want the line/“live” black wire attached to TRANS), but if you don’t then I wouldn’t expect swapping them to cause any problems, and, in fact, that’s what another Forum user seemed to suggest in a different topic.

If you’re certain that the black wire that’s currently (in the photo you uploaded) attached to TRANS was working with the old dumb doorbell button before you started the new doorbell installation, then maybe this isn’t necessary. It just struck me as something else you might consider trying.

Again I want to thank you for the photos, because looking at them I now have a clear mental concept of exactly why your Video Doorbell v2 has power and is functioning and the chime is not ringing with a doorbell press, because the wiring in the chime box photo you included indicates that you’re bypassing the chime entirely if you just think through the current flow of the circuit. Hopefully one of these sets of steps will get everything working as intended. I’m eager to learn if that’s the case.

  1. I’m including this for @peepeep. :frog: ↩︎

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Noted. :slight_smile:

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FYI the chime is still not ringing after trying your previous suggestions. Your last comments have left me confused because the last paragraph seems to contradict the first paragraph. I accept that I am bypassing the chime. That is indeed the issue. The queestion is how not to bypass the chime. I don’t have a picture of the original wiring for the dumb doorbell, but I have determined that the camera will not get power unless those 2 wires in the picture are tied together with the black wire from the chime controller. Then I am scratching my head :grin: about what to do with the other 2 wires. In the picture they are connected to the “trans” terminal. I am definitely not an electrician, but I was a science teacher (ha!). I am also attaching a 2nd picture of the current attachments. The camera is on with these connections. It is just like the 1st picture, but the wires that were attached to the trans terminal before are tied off. I feel strongly that is not the answer! I actually am ready to call an electrician. This is the 2nd week of this madness. It must end. Wiring picture #2

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I really do appreciate the time that was expended on my behalf. Thank you so much for trying to help.

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Comparing your picture and the install instructions, looks like there are some differences.

Screenshot_20240930-175730
Screenshot_20240930-1757301008Ă—867 27.7 KB

Screenshot_20240930-175818~2
Screenshot_20240930-175818~21008Ă—1547 115 KB

If the red wire coming up from the bottom of the picture is from the controller, looks like that is connected to the wrong terminal on the chime. Also, looks like you’re missing The white wire from the controller, where is that connected to?

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Based on your response, I’m not sure what you’ve actually tried, because I would’ve expected something in there to work for you according to my understanding of the wiring situation you have.

Let’s get the latest photo out of the way first: Of course you’re getting power to the camera, because what you’re showing here essentially is reversing the wiring connections (transformer black to doorbell white and transformer white to doorbell black) to supply power directly to the doorbell without going through the chime. The red wire you have connected to the FRONT terminal on the chime is irrelevant, because the chime itself isn’t receiving any power at all with this configuration. If you disconnect the Chime Controller entirely in this scenario, then I would expect that you’d still get power to the doorbell (but that defeats one of the purposes of the Chime Controller, anyway, which isn’t doing you any good at all the way you have it wired currently).

I don’t see the contradiction, but I’ll try to be clear in this post with a single set of instructions that I’d like for you to try. Here is what I think I’m seeing based on the available information so far:

  • You have two different 2-conductor wires (1 black and 1 white in each wire pair) coming into the chime box:
    • 1 pair is from the transformer.
    • 1 pair is from the doorbell. (You didn’t correct me when I stated this in a previous post, so I’m assuming at this point that it’s true.)
  • The black conductor in the pair from the transformer is connected at the transformer end to the “hot” (R) terminal of your transformer, and the white conductor in the pair from the transformer is connected to the “common” (C) terminal of your transformer. (I’m assuming here that your transformer was installed/wired correctly.)
  • We don’t know which pair of wires coming into the chime box come from the transformer and which come from the doorbell, but you could test this if you had a working multimeter.
  • The chime worked before the Video Doorbell v2 installation began and presumably still works.

Since you don’t have a working multimeter, we can do some trial and error. What I believe you need to do is connect the two common (white) wires together to complete that side of the circuit loop (from the doorbell back to the transformer, bypassing the chime box completely) and never touch them again, because I think that’s adding to your confusion here, and then reconnect the line/load (black) wires to the chime—along with the Chime Controller—so that the Video Doorbell v2 will get power and the chime will function with a doorbell button press.

Please try this and let me know what happens:

Plan A: Standard Wiring

  1. Turn off the doorbell power.
  2. Disconnect all of your wires in the chime box.
  3. Twist the ends of the two white wires together with a wire nut and move these out of the way forever.
  4. Twist one of the black house wires and the black wire from the Chime Controller together with a wire nut.
  5. Attach the other black house wire and the red wire from the Chime Controller to the TRANS terminal.
  6. Attach the white wire from the Chime Controller to the FRONT terminal.
  7. Restore power and test.
If Plan A doesn't work, then try this:

Plan B: Swapping the Black House Wires[1]

  1. Turn off the doorbell power.
  2. Remove the wire nut from the black wires (one house wire and the black Chime Controller wire).
  3. Remove the house black wire from the TRANS terminal and connect this to the black Chime Controller wire with a wire nut.
  4. Attach the remaining black house wire to the TRANS terminal (where the red Chime Controller wire should still be attached).
  5. Restore power and test.
If Plan B doesn't work, then try this:

Plan C: Wyze’s Alternate Wiring Method

  1. Turn off the doorbell power.
  2. Remove the white Chime Controller wire from the FRONT terminal and don’t connect it to anything.
  3. Remove the red Chime Controller wire from the TRANS terminal and connect it to the FRONT (or REAR) terminal.[2]
  4. Restore power and test.
If Plan C doesn't work, then try this:

Plan D: Wyze’s Alternate Wiring Method Plus Swapping the Black House Wires Back Again

  1. Turn off the doorbell power.
  2. Remove the wire nut from the black wires (one house wire and the black Chime Controller wire).
  3. Remove the house black wire from the TRANS terminal and connect this to the black Chime Controller wire with a wire nut.
  4. Attach the remaining black house wire to the TRANS terminal.
  5. Restore power and test.

If you want to consult an electrician after that, then I’m on board with that. If you’d rather not deal with it at all and just say “:face_with_symbols_over_mouth: it!” at this point and make the call, then I understand. I’m stubborn enough that I’d like to solve a problem myself, and I think one of the plans above is likely to work for you.

Good luck! I really believe you can do this!

:pencil2: Edit: Once again, I had additional thoughts. :thinking:

First of all, I’m a visual person, and I think this might help you understand what I’m trying to get you to do with my Plan A and Plan B instructions above:

Doorbell Wiring Diagram
Doorbell Wiring Diagram807Ă—409 83.3 KB

I modified one of the images from the Chime Controller Installation Guide to create the diagram above. I tend to be a visual person, so hopefully you (and perhaps others who might read this at some point) will find this helpful.

I’m still not seeing the contradiction (and I’m not sure which you’re calling the “last paragraph” and “first paragraph”). Since you describe yourself as a former teacher, I hope you can appreciate why I’d like for you to explicitly illustrate whatever contradiction you believe exists, because I’d genuinely like to learn if I’ve made a mistake in some way. I think we grow by learning from our mistakes, and that helps us to improve in the future. I’d like to get better if I can.

How did you determine this? I don’t believe this is true. Based on the information you’ve provided (including the helpful photos), I believe that you could remove the Chime Controller completely from your installation, twist the two white house wires together, twist the two black house wires together, and have power for your doorbell camera. In that case, you would just be supplying power directly from the transformer to the doorbell, completely bypassing the chime and Chime Controller.

I strongly feel that you’re correct about that! :grin::+1:

If you do that, would you mind providing an update here? I’d like to learn what an electrician might do, especially if I’m wrong in my thinking here, because I’d like to be able to provide better assistance to others going forward.

You’re welcome! I should thank you, too, because thinking about this problem has made me develop a better concept about my own doorbell’s wiring and given me an idea for something I intend to test this week. :bowing_man:

  1. because we don’t know which is from the transformer ↩︎

  2. I believe Wyze’s instructions give this option just for flexibility. A lot of chime boxes that have the three terminals (FRONT, TRANS, and REAR) are actually designed to support two doorbells (front and back door) with distinctive chime tones. The front doorbell might give a nice ding-dong! while the back might give only a ding! or vice versa. ↩︎

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Once again I thank you so much the time invested in trying to help me, but Plan A,B,C,andD failed to worhak for me. In plan A I had temporary power to the doorbell, but after a few minutes it lost power. I am not an electrician, but I was thinking capacitor draining (?). I don’t know. At any rate all the other combinations, including switching around the white and red wire from the chime controller, did not supply power to the doorbell. It is so weird because I am positive that the transformer is wired correctly and functioning. I have only ever been able to get power to the doorbell by including the common wire from the transformer and the black wire from the transformer. If I had hair I would be pulling it out anyway! Would a new chime make a difference?

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You’re welcome. I like trying to solve problems, and I really thought we were going to solve this one. Now I’m genuinely confused about why this isn’t working, and I wonder what an electrician would do at this point.

That could be. I watched a Video Doorbell v2 tear-down video on YouTube once (I can find the link if you’re interested), and that showed a big capacitor inside the doorbell camera unit. I suspect that’s why in the Help Center troubleshooting article about a non-working chime Wyze recommends supplying power for 20-30 minutes prior to testing for a doorbell ring.

I really would’ve expected bypassing the chime entirely and going white-to-white and black-to-black to continue to provide adequate power to your doorbell, because this is alternating current and the doorbell doesn’t care which terminal gets the “line” wire. :man_shrugging:

I believe you because the doorbell has been able to get power in some of the wiring schemes you’ve tried so far, and this really makes me curious about what testing along different points in your circuit with a multimeter would reveal, too. Note that I was explicit in going along with the assumption that the transformer is wired correctly. As I’ve said, I’ve also been operating here with the belief that there’s a single run of 2-conductor wire from the transformer to the chime box and another single run of 2-conductor wire from the doorbell to the chime box, but with your reports that the installation still isn’t working as expected I seriously wonder what else could be in the mix. (I guess we know what they say happens when people “assume”.)

Yeah, you have to do this in order to complete the circuit, and I really thought that going white-to-white and black-to-black in the chime box would essentially do the same thing you’ve already been doing (though it still doesn’t solve the main problem with the chime; it’s just to confirm my thinking). I don’t understand why that’s not the case here.

I don’t have much of that to spare, so I can’t really help you there! :grimacing:

I wouldn’t think so if it was working before, but in your situation I would be tempted to reset everything to “dumb” and test the current chime.[1] This is why one of the first things I asked about was the initial “before” photo. In my recollection, the setup process that the Wyze app walks you through for installing Video Doorbell v2 early on has a step where you’re advised to take a picture of the wiring in your chime box before you disconnect anything to install the Chime Controller. If it were me, I’d pull out that picture (I still have mine on my phone), make the wiring in my chime box match that, and then hook up the old “dumb” doorbell button and test the chime. If the chime fails at that point, then I’d swap the black wires (here I’m again going to assume—because I don’t have your original photo—that the white common wires might have been twisted together and that one black wire was on the TRANS terminal and the other was on the FRONT or REAR terminal) and try again. If the chime still failed, then at that point—absent being able to test things more thoroughly with a multimeter—I might consider a new chime.

Seriously, thank you for taking the time to provide feedback and post updates. I feel really invested in your problem, and I’d like to see it solved!

  1. This is probably out of my own stubbornness at this point. ↩︎

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I still think something is wonky because nothing is connected to the center terminal post.

Unfortunately, we’re all in the same boat here. :man_bald:

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That’s because the chime box is being bypassed with this wiring scheme:

I don’t believe the Chime Controller is doing anything at all in the photo:

I acknowledge that there’s a potential for power to go to the chime via the red Chime Controller wire as shown in the photo, because it looks like a partial alternate wiring method with the red wire connected to FRONT, but since none of the house wires (I believe it should be one of the black wires) is connected to TRANS, then there’s no apparent pathway for electricity through the chime and back to the transformer.

:man_shrugging:

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:+1: The legacy chime needs to be “in the loop”. With either the front or trans not being connected then there is no loop and their just powering the doorbell.

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That’s what @fabron72 and I are saying.

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Okay, so I did it: I tested what I was thinking about, and, as a result of the testing, I rewired my own doorbell chime.

TL;DR:

I discovered that the red house wire attached to my doorbell chime’s TRANS terminal was actually coming from the doorbell, and the red house wire I’ve had connected to the Chime Controller’s black wire (this red wire which was originally connected to the doorbell chime’s FRONT terminal) was actually coming from the transformer. These had apparently been reversed at the time of the old “dumb” doorbell’s original installation, so I swapped them to their proper locations today.

More Detail:

I installed my own Video Doorbell v2 roughly 11 months ago using the standard wiring installation for the Chime Controller, and everything worked as expected from that time until a couple of months ago, when the chime stopped ringing with a button press. I tried a number of the typical troubleshooting steps and eventually got the chime ringing again somewhat reliably by using the alternate wiring instructions, but the ding-dong! is often accompanied by an unpleasant rattle/hum sound. Wyze Support says that “the buzzing/clicking sound on the chime is normal when an alternative wiring method is used”, but this seems odd to me, and trying to think my way through @fabron72’s wiring situation got me to explore and reevaluate my own doorbell wiring situation, so now I have a better understanding of what’s going on.

This is what I did:

  1. Tested the voltage at my 10VA/16V transformer and read 18.5 V AC.
  2. Turned off power to my doorbell.
  3. Disconnected the house wires in my chime box and labeled the red wire (what I believe would equate to one of @fabron72’s black wires) that was attached to the TRANS terminal. (I wrote “Transformer” on a piece of tape to differentiate it from the other red wire.)
  4. Untwisted the white wires in the chime box that have been twisted together and capped with electrical tape.
  5. Clipped a test lead to the red and white wires at my transformer, effectively shorting across them (probably unnecessary).
  6. Attached my multimeter to the red “Transformer” wire and its paired white wire (as they come into the box through the same insulation sheath), put it in resistance measurement mode, and turned it on, where it settled on “1”, even after double-checking all my connections. Oops. :negative_squared_cross_mark:
  7. Attached the multimeter to the other red wire (the one that was initially on the FRONT terminal and has instead been twisted together with the black wire from the Chime Controller) and its paired white wire and tested resistance to get a realistic reading of conductor resistance (which I didn’t record). This is the actual wire pair coming from the transformer! :white_check_mark:
  8. Removed the Video Doorbell v2 from the wall and disconnected the wires so that I could test resistance again with that air gap and with a test lead clipped across the wires in order to confirm that the red wire which has been connected to TRANS this whole time is actually coming from the doorbell-side wire pair. :white_check_mark:
  9. Reattached the multimeter to the actual transformer wire pair (now that I know which it is), put it in AC voltage measurement mode, restored power to the doorbell, and turned on the multimeter, which read 18.9 V, confirming that this is actually the transformer wire pair. :white_check_mark:
  10. Turned off doorbell power again.
  11. Reattached and remounted Video Doorbell v2 outside.
  12. Rewired my chime box:
    1. Twisted the two white wires back together, taped the exposed conductors to insulate them, and tucked them out of the way.
    2. Attached my known transformer red wire to the TRANS terminal along with the red wire from the Chime Controller.
    3. Attached the white Chime Controller wire to the FRONT terminal.
    4. Twisted the black Chime Controller wire together with the remaining red wire (the false “Transformer” wire that I now know is actually coming from the doorbell) after removing my temporary tape label.
  13. Restored power to the doorbell, waited for it to boot up and load a video stream to the Wyze app, and then tested by pressing the button to get a nice ding-dong! from the house’s built-in chime now that the wiring is correct and the Chime Controller is wired back with its true standard wiring installation. :white_check_mark::white_check_mark:

So far I’ve tested the button only twice since doing this, but it’s worked both times, and I’m optimistic. Now I can report my results to another topic where a user described changing wires at the chime. I didn’t get an answer when I requested follow-up there, but it feels good knowing that I’ve been able to go through this process and figure it out myself, learning some things along the way. If this isn’t a lasting solution for me, then I’ll update this with new information later.

I still feel like I owe @fabron72 thanks for bringing this problem here, because I probably wouldn’t have thought my way through the wiring situation otherwise.

I guess in a way you still are, though maybe not in the manner you expected! :upside_down_face:

Having noodled my way through this, I still think I’m right about your wiring and believe that you could resolve your issue without engaging an electrician, especially if you had a working multimeter. I also suspect that you could’ve gotten everything working as expected with your original transformer, but that is maybe less relevant at this point.

I’m interested to learn how things work out on your end.

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I have not gotten to call an electrician yet, but I am close to it. My new multimeter arrives tomorrow. So I can check voltages after it arrives. I also ordered a new 24V chime. The old one is very old and I just want to be sure that is not the problem. I am going to give it one more shot.

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