Re: X100P mod or USB relay box, RE: [Asterisk-Users] Line OverrideDevice

[Steven Critchfield]

On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 12:10, Reed Wade wrote:
> At 11:34 AM 7/14/2003 -0500, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> 
> 
> >One wouldn't use a X100P in a "serious" system.
> 
> 
> How so? I assume you're talking about scale and not
> reliability. We get a relatively small number of calls
> but any one of them could be worth a large stack of
> cash for our business. A stinky phone system can make
> us look bad.
> 
> The main reason I'm looking at Asterisk is to improve
> the reliability and control over our phone system.
> All the other great things it provides really are
> secondary for the folks who pay my salary.

I agree that reliability is THE most important item on a phone system,
and if you read the list you will see that most the problems are analog
related. So my point is that analog signaling is too problematic for a
phone system most of the time. 

> >Only if you aren't pulling power from the USB bus. There isn't much
> >there.
> 
> There may be just enough depending on how many relays are needed,
> but it would be too close. I agree, better off not trying to get
> power from there.
> 
> I do like the idea of some kind of watchdog functionality. Simply
> having power isn't sufficient to trust that a call is getting
> routed.

This makes me think that you could take this a step further too and
incorporate an external power supply and a relay that could interupt
mains power so that you could power cycle the PC if the watchdog had
power to operate and the PC wasn't responding or generating pings. Then
a properly configured machine would start the services up on it's own
and move on. This power cycle type of device would have saved me a few
minutes of downtime the other day when I froze the kernel on our main
phone system. As it was, I just called our colo facility and told them
what machine to power cycle.
-- 
Steven Critchfield  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

___
Asterisk-Users mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users

Re: X100P mod or USB relay box, RE: [Asterisk-Users] Line OverrideDevice

[Steven Critchfield]

On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 10:42, Reed Wade wrote:
> The best solution would be an enhancement to the X100P card.
> 
> If the 2nd RJ jack was a pass through for the line except
> when the card had power and was initialized. Some kind of
> watchdog functionality would also be nice so that if, for
> example, Asterisk dies then pass through functionality would
> take effect after n seconds.
> 
> This would probably mean adding a relay to the board which
> would raise to cast a little. But, as the original poster
> indicated this is critical for a serious system.

One wouldn't use a X100P in a "serious" system. Maybe a appliance
expected in the home, but then again in such a system you would probably
wire up a adapter that could bridge all the lines together and connect
them to a single outside extension on power failure. This way on
failure, you revert to a single line analog setup. Possibly with a
transformer on the loop to help out with ren limits.

> An alternative would be an extra relay box, maybe powered by
> USB. One mode could be to switch based on presence of power,
> another mode could require periodic watchdog pings via the
> USB. I always wanted to build something using a USB flavored
> PIC...

Only if you aren't pulling power from the USB bus. There isn't much
there.

> I can see this for small offices (like ours). We have 4 incoming
> lines in a hunt group. If Asterisk is not running I want one of
> those lines to ring the receptionist (maybe using a simple dedicated
> phone since they'd otherwise have an IP phone) and the others looped
> for busy.
> 
> I can see a box with USB and 12 RJ jacks (4 x (1 in, 2 outs)) to make
> that work.
> 
> Would anyone buy a product like that?
> 
> -reed
> 
> 
> 
> At 07:12 AM 7/14/2003 -0500, jltaylor wrote:
> >This power failure thing does not have to be complicated.
> >A few solutions come to mind:
> >
> >1) A 3,5,12 (whatever is needed) power supply (wall wart)used with a relay 
> >(DPDT).  When the wall wart has power, the computer takes the call.  When 
> >power fails, the POTS line "falls" in to place.
> >Now, this does not "delay" while the computer is booting up.
> >
> >2) A "basic stamp" computer - about $25-30.  It has 8 programmable i/o 
> >pins that will drive relays. One pin monitors either a wall wart or 5v 
> >from one of the plugs on your computer's power supply.  When pin 1 goes 
> >low (no power) relay kicks in to bypass computer and connect POTS line 
> >direct.  When power returns program jumps to a "sleep" or delay statement 
> >for xMINS until computer boots. And then releases relay for "normal" 
> >operation.  www.parallaxinc.com and resellers.
> >
> >James Taylor
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >903-793-1953
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ___
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
-- 
Steven Critchfield  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

___
Asterisk-Users mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users