Good to see I am not the only one in the UK having troubles with an existing mechanical chime (same type, by the way).
My customer asked Ring support if he could use his existing mechanical chime and the answer was positive.
So I went and inspected the diagrams - they are utter nonsense. I tried different configurations for a couple of hours; the best result I could achieve is with putting the transformer, the Ring Pro, the Bypass kit and the chime (the solenoid) in series. When the button is pressed on the Ring Pro, there’s enough current in the circuit to drive the solenoid - so I get the “ding”. However, the high current lasts several seconds, so the “dong” arrives late and between the “ding” and the “dong”, of course, the chime solenoid buzzes.
I called the Tech Support, who first sent me a wiring diagram *without* the chime (no comment), then the usual diagram where the chime is completely bypassed using the bypass kit (hence the name…).
I haven’t received anything else, so far, from Tech Support - very disappointing. They clearly have no knowledge of the products, they just follow some scripts with standard answers.
My take is that, in the UK, you can’t reuse the existing chime, unless you play with some electronics - which I am doing at the moment.
It would be great to hear from Ring their official position on this.