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Connecting to home wiring

Started by tjk00144, May 02, 2019, 08:56:45 AM

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tjk00144

I have had my Obi202 for about a week and have it connected to a single phone.  I ported my landline number to Tracfone and then to GV.  Everything went fine and is working well.  I would now like to connect my Obi202 to a wall jack to connect it to all the phones in my house.  From what I have read, i need to disconnect the wiring from the phone company at the outside phone box to prevent possible damage to my Obi202 unit.  Attached is a photo of the wiring in my outside phone box. There are 2 red wires and 2 green wires that are connected to something.  All other blue, yellow, and black wires are just hanging loose.  I saw on a video that all I need to do to disconnect from the phone company is to flip back the two clear plastic clips holding the red & green wires, which I have done as shown on the photo.  Before plugging my Obi202 into the wall jack, I would like to confirm that this is all that needs to be done and that I don't need to pull out the red and green wires from where they are attached.  Thanks for any advice.

SteveInWA

Plug an ordinary telephone into one of your home's interior phone jacks.  Pick up the handset and press a touchtone key.  Do you hear anything?  If so, it's still connected to the phone company.  If not, you've disconnected it.  You can now simply plug a modular phone cord from the OBi to one of those phone jacks, and, if the house wiring was done properly, all the jacks should now have a dial tone from the OBi.

NOTE:  if you have an alarm panel (fire/burglar alarm), you must take additional, and more complex steps.

SteveInWA

Quote from: DaveL on May 14, 2019, 05:17:11 PM
I just got an OBi200 and I tried connecting it to a phone jack even though I still have a working landline (I wanted to try it out first before going thru the process of porting the landline to a mobile # and then to GV). It's not connected to a phone, just a wall outlet that a phone normally plugs into. When I tried this it seemed to work the first time. But somehow it didn't hang up properly and now shows line in use when it's plugged into the OBi200 even when I'm not making a call. Is the OBi200 incompatible with a working landline, or is there some way to fix this?

You have to be kidding.  Did you not read any of the posts on this subject?  You must disconnect the telephone company's wires from your premise wiring before connecting the OBi to the premise wiring, or you risk frying the circuitry in the OBi device.

Unplug the OBi device from the phone jack.  Power it off.  Plug in an ordinary telephone, directly to the OBi, with a modular phone cord.  Power it on again and wait.  Does the phone now show "line in use"?

SteveInWA

It doesn't mention your scenario in the tiny instruction sheet, because it is a) not the way most people use the product, and b) people shouldn't be messing with their premises wiring unless they know what they are doing, or hire someone who does.

The typical user scenario is to plug a cordless telephone base station into the OBi, and distribute handsets around as needed, or to plug one or more phones directly into the OBi, via a splitter jack.

Now that said, try the test in my last post and see what happens.

drgeoff

#4
Quote from: DaveL on May 14, 2019, 06:18:37 PM
I followed the instructions that are enclosed with the OBi200, which mention nothing about disconnecting from the telephone company until you get to the fine print under compliance and safety info. That should be the FIRST thing in the instructions, not in the fine print at the end that few people read. Excuse me for believing that the instructions are actually complete and reading them from the beginning.
The instructions do not tell you to connect to a landline or wall jack. The instructions tell you by both words and picture to plug a phone into the PHONE socket of the OBi.

Only the LINE socket on an OBi110, OBi212 or OBiLINE is designed for connection to a telco or PBX line. Connecting OBi PHONE ports to them is an easy way to fry the OBi and void the warranty.