sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Comdial Telephones & Systems Com Ports on Interchange.

I was wondering if anyone has been having problems with the com ports on Interchange VM's failing. I have had about 5 of them that have went bad and the only way I can correct their problem is to install a new board. As everyone should know they are getting harder to come by. Unfortunately I can't get a straight answer from Comdial, and I'm starting to get a little frustrated. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Darren

Ground the phone system and vmail to a common ground. Ground potential differences will kill on board serial ports.

Roger that! also make sure the system and the voicemail is pluged into the same electrical circuit.

I usually seem them go out after a storm, but not just go bad.

So should we ground the chassis of the pc and as far as plugging the vm and system into the same circuit thats hard to do when the vm is in a differant location.

Run a ground wire to a good ground source and tie both vmail and phone system together. Surely not all of your sites have voicemail located away from the switch gear. Although not plugged into the same AC source it will help having a common ground.

Thanks for the help guys. Never thought to ground the VM.

We bought some Diteck serial protectors and put them on some we were having problems with. Someone on the board recommened them. Seems to help.

Bigdog3 gave the best solution when he mentioned power. The phone switch and the voicemail PC MUST BE on the same phase of power or it will fail again. The only other device that works are optical couplers. Comdial at one time installed E-911 centers. These centers were subject to a lot of lighting hits due to the radio towers. We spent 50K to consult a grounding engineer for those sites. He had us change the power and all problems with serial ports stopped for good.