Loud buzz on OBi110 line PSTN
SteveInWA:
There is nothing wrong with connecting your OBi as POTS-->LINEonOBI-->PHONEonOBI-->all phones in house, as long as your are damn sure that your POTS is not also connected to the bus on the phone side. That's how I have mine connected, and it's worked fine for years.
Shale:
Quote from: Jon9999 on July 25, 2013, 03:22:29 pm
You know, I've been thinking. Maybe it's wrong to hook the OBi in serial between my PSTN line and my internal phone network. Is it within the unit's design parameters to be used that way?
I see no problem with your current plan.
Jon9999:
Quote from: SteveInWA on July 25, 2013, 03:20:06 pm
You didn't have Verizon come out and inspect/confirm that your NID is properly grounded.
The refused to come. They said they tested the line from the "automated equipment" at the central office, and that since it tested out okay, they would not send someone to my house. I pushed, jumped up and down, asked for a supervisor, etc., but they still said they would not come because they're certain there isn't a problem. Then they told me to have a nice day and thank you for using Verizon.
Quote from: SteveInWA on July 25, 2013, 03:20:06 pm
That said, make sure you don't have a wiring error on your "bus", such that your jacks are still carrying your L1 signal from the NID. ... The only way to be sure of this is to plug in a known-working, single line phone, into a jack on your bus and make sure it is dead, or use a tester.
Done. Dead. The bus, incidentally, is a professional panel meant for this purpose (with the Security System bypass feature switched off), not a homemade breadboard.
Quote from: SteveInWA on July 25, 2013, 03:20:06 pm
Keep in mind that there are two types of RJ-11 splitters, that can look identical to the casual observer.
I know. These are definitely the line 1/line 2 variety (actually, L1/L2/L1+L2, with the 3rd spot unoccupied) and not the 4-connector to 4-connector-times-2 variety. I've triple-checked.
Quote from: SteveInWA on July 25, 2013, 03:20:06 pm
If you don't already have them, I'd strongly suggest buying two items of test equipment:
Actually, I have an electric surge protector with the ground/circuit test lights built in, and all my sockets check out. I also have an RJ45/RJ11 tester (similar to this, and I've run all my internal wiring through it to make sure all the pins line up everywhere between the jacks and the patch board in the media closet. Check.
This is why this is so maddening. Everything seems to check out fine all around.
Jon9999:
Quote from: SteveInWA on July 25, 2013, 03:30:11 pm
There is nothing wrong with connecting your OBi as POTS-->LINEonOBI-->PHONEonOBI-->all phones in house, as long as your are damn sure that your POTS is not also connected to the bus on the phone side. That's how I have mine connected, and it's worked fine for years.
Sigh. Well, it was a thought!
I'm damn sure indeed that Line 1 (the one that OBi uses) wasn't connected to the bus or anything beyond as well. I'm damn sure that only Line 2 (non-OBi) went directly to the bus. Could there have been "leakage" from Line 2 on the "bus" side back into Line 1? Well, maybe. I've tested that by probing Line 1 at the bus while making Line 2 ring with Line 1 disconnected at the NID, and I detected only a minuscule change in voltage, if any.
BUT... one slightly strange thing I have noticed this afternoon is that with Line 1 currently disconnected from the bus (it's going straight into the OBi at the NID, remember) and with only Line 2 coming through to the rest of the house, when I got an incoming call on Line 2, the "Line 1" light on BOTH of my 2-line phones also blinked. It didn't register a "ring," but the line selector light lit up momentarily. I don't know -- maybe that's expected because there's no voltage "holding" Line 1 in the on-hook state. When Line 1 was connected normally into this 2-line phone, Line 1 would never flash when Line 2 was called. One of these particular phone (AT&T Model TL86109) has a feature that causes a call-waiting-like signal to come into the handset in you're on a call on one line when the other line rings. Maybe the light flashing has something to do with that? Come to think of it, could the whole problem have something to do with that???
Edit: Indicated that the Line 1 blinking thing was on BOTH of my 2-line phones (AT&T and an older Panasonic), not just the AT&T. On the Panasonic, I can tell that it's not the same kind of lamp-blinking as a ring. The ring-blink on Line 2 is a very fast oscillation blink, while what I'm seeing on the Line 1 lamp is a slow, steady, on-off-on-off-on-off flash, maybe twice a second.
SteveInWA:
No way to be sure, but I doubt the AT&T phone is the culprit, unless it it (or any of your phones, for that matter), are defective, and have a short internally. It sounds like they don't, based on your metering. I'd leave all but one physical telephone disconnected and go for it. If the OBi survives, and I bet it will, then you can add one more phone in at a time and retest, until you are happily finished, or in tears because it died again. That's the only way I know to proceed at this point.
*highly unlikely, but for the sake of OCD completeness: look at each phone's manufacturer label or documentation. Note the REN number. Make sure they all add up to less than 5.0, per:
http://www.obihai.com/docs/OBi110DS.pdf
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