atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems 1A2 Project

The factory yellow boards came with the distribution rings, like the red, so if you paint your own you will need one set of your white boards. I think you'll find everything will flow better the way your going to do it. The only thing I'd add is if putting the KSU above makes your blue board too low than just put it to the left of the red and dress your cables in. You don't want to be on your knees working on stuff.

Edit: To correct side of red backboard to place KSU

I wish I had that much space when I put mine in! Do you have that many CO lines comming in, or will you be connecting just a few, or using an in-house PBX? When I move I expect to start from scratch and do a better job, but the current setup works just fine.

Bill,

I just measured the distance to the bottom of the blue board with my new layout and it's exactly 24" inches off the ground which appears to be a perfect height if I'm sitting the milk crate that I had planned to stand on in my original plan.

Rotary,

At the moment, I'm only using four of the line cards, connected to the Asterisk box. It just happened to come with 10 400E cards. Maybe one day I'll have some old step-by-step gear to hook up to the other line cards. I'll need a bigger closet though.

I would say that would be too low in a commercial application, but since it's for yourself whatever works best for you.

Looks like Asterisk is giving a whole new life to 1A2, I love it! There may come the time where residential 1A2 is more common than commercial! Also collectors should think of joining CNET where collectors can talk to other collectors via ENUM. You're using fxs ATA boxes to get your lines?

I'm using a Digium TDM400P with one Digium FXS module and three after market FXS modules. I was worried the after market ones (at about 1/3 the price) wouldn't be as good as the original, but I can't hear the difference.

What an incredible effort. I find that even taking the time alone to build 1a2 from scratch today should be admired in The HALL OF Fame....

Wait, That's a good one for a New Post Topic.. Hall Of Fame Vs. The Hall of Shame.

Have fun and learn from 1A2!

1A2 can be fun....

Good luck!

S.S. - thanks! It's hardly any effort at all though, when I can come here and get all my questions answered! :thumb:

Speaking of questions, I got a nice half size backboard from Ed yesterday (thanks Ed) and while it still needs to be painted yellow, I'm wondering about the best configuration of 66 blocks for the intercom. I think I should remove the brackets for the four 66M blocks and put two 66B blocks in in their place and then add six distribution posts below. That seems like the most logical way to do things.

BTW, the backboard the KSU is mounted on is 25-1/2" wide. I had thought that was a pretty strange size to make it, but of course it's 1.5 standard backboards wide which makes perfect sense when things are laid out like Bill and Ed suggested. Somebody really thought all of this out.

Tim:

I just placed a large order for backboards yesterday and included one yellow backboard (184A5) for your intercom block(s). I don't know if the manufacturer has one in stock, but if they do, I'll let you know when it gets here. It's not equipped with any blocks but drilled and tapped for 66B type blocks and I have plenty of those. It does come with six mushrooms installed.

Hold off on painting the backboard that I sent you for now!

Ed - No worries, I haven't even bought paint yet!

This evening I spent about four hours removing old cabling from the ceilings at work to get long enough 25- and 50-pair cables to finish my project. I think I succeeded and yet there's still enough up there to run a cable from work to my house. The remains of 25 years and three telephone systems worth of cabling, I don't think anyone ever removed an old cable. Heck, there's a whole power-pole up in the ceiling complete with outlets, just in case it might ever be needed again.

I'll post pictures in a bit of my KSU's original home.