atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems 1A2 and Comkey Telephones & Systems 400 Cards

I have come across some V400X cards. They have the same footprint and card edge as the usual 400 KTUs, but these are solid state with ICs and an LED. Does anyone know of these cards, and are they a universal replacement?
I looked up the patent and apparently it is a redo of the 400 with better HOLD circuitry. Manufactured by V-Band Systems. I guess I just need to know what KSUs these will work in.
-Pete

V-Band manufactured Trader Turrets - giant key sets used by Wall Street Traders or answering services or anyone who needed to answer a lot of lines on a single key type phone.

They were based on 1A2 but they were not - as I recall - completely compatible with standard 1A2 systems. But it's been a real long time.

They later went on to manufacture digital systems - but still keeping to Turrets as their core group.

Sam

What was better about the hold circuitry? Only thing I can think of would be MOH isolation on each 400 card, and maybe recall ringing after 1 minute or so. John C.

I believe their system offered "I-Hold" where any call that YOU put on hold flashed at a different rate then calls put on hold by someone else.

I'm not sure if that was a function of the card though.

It's been a real long time and I never worked heavily with them (and I'm getting old!)- so forgive me if I can't remember all this stuff that I used to know like the back of my hand.

Sam

I appreciate the insight. Does anyone know if these cards will work on the same systems as the regular 400 KTUs? I imagine, since they have optocouplers and newer components yadayada, that they probably will not work with the oldest systems.

Heck, if you have a bunch available for little or nothing, try 1! It's awfully hard to damage a 1A2 system! You might want to have a few spare fuses BEFORE you try it, though. Sometimes people re-invent the wheel because they think their's will roll better! Curiosity being what it is, can you direct me to a schematic of it? John C.

https://www.google.com/patents?id=S-c8AAAAEBAJ&pg=PA2&dq=4351987&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1_1#PPA1,M1


I don't think this is all of it. First, the actual card appears to be double the schematic, and second, even so, there are some extra parts. But, I gather that the extra parts are part of the old design. This thing only weighs about an ounce.

I'm with Lightninghorse. I don't think they were fully compatible, but if you've got a system and some fuses - why not?

Unplug all other cards first though.

Sam

That is interesting.. If those cards have two pot limiters and they look like small black dials that stick out I want them.

I know a bit about this subject, as I worked for V·Band Systems in the early and mid 80's, when they were a small, but fast growing telecom company. (There was a 'dot' between V and Band, so we often fondly referred to it internally as "V Dot Band" so we wouldn't forget the dot when printing the logos on products and stationery. I can't remember if they relaxed that requirement later, as it was often hard to get a 'dot' in text in those days..!)

I'd love to see pictures of those V Band boards for old time sake. At one time I was familiar with every part on them, esp. during the time I was writing QC software to test them.

If any of you have pics, please post! There's nothing I can find on Google about the cards or phones..

As I recall, before V Band made turret phones, they made 1A2 compatible line cards ("V400"?) that could replace the normal 400D/E/etc series cards. The attraction for the 400 cards was much lower cost due to the employment of newer tech, and using optocouplers to isolate the line sensing circuits to prevent grounding issues, and something about keeping the line symmetrically balanced; the patent has some of that detail. I believe there was an option for I-Hold; IIRC, the "regular" boards had 3 small 'clear top' rectangular relays (Ring, Hold, Line, IIRC), and for the ones with the I-Hold feature, there was a 4th.

Selling these cards was their first product IIRC, and was their initial bread and butter business that I think helped fund the turret phone products they later came out with, specialty multiline phones, which became their core business. And I guess they tried to track the ever evolving complex digital transition from analog that telecom was going through at the time.

The "turret phones" for stock exchanges; the selling point was while everyone was making phones out of cheap plastic, V Band made their phones out of steel; the face plate was something like 1/4" steel for durability; stock brokers were apparently really hard on their phones, and would regularly take their daily aggressions out on their phones which were expensive and constantly being replaced. So V Band made them harder to destroy, decreasing regular maintenance + replacement.

Turret phones were I think basically multiline phones with many dedicated lines; push a button to talk directly to someone. I didn't know much about the phones technically, but I recall the drawings and parts assemblies. I *think* they were 1A2 compatible, but had some variations. They did use the standard 1a2 style 50 pin female connectors which were mounted at the back of the phones. I think they had various models that supported 25, 50, 100 lines, etc. On the backs, these phones had 1, 2, 3, and perhaps more 50 pin female connectors. The phones were meant to be panel mounted, but I think they had optional stands for desks.

Surely most of these buttons were configured as intercom lines that were direct lines to individuals the traders needed to quickly talk to either within the company, or perhaps somehow dedicated lines outside.

I imagine there was some fancy stuff to handle the complex signaling: I think they wanted things so that you had an array of line buttons that were each a direct line; you could hit a button that said "Fred", and it would automatically buzz Fred's phone, and blink your line button so he could tell you were calling him. You could put him on hold and dial someone else, conference them together, etc. Multiply that by 100 people, and I suppose you have a complex cross connect intercom system. I don't know all this for a fact though, or how they handled all this; I wasn't directly involved in those products other than aware of them as products with parts assemblies in the inventory system.

The early phones used plastic buttons with a black thick steel faceplate to handle the wrath the traders would reign on them. The box behind it was also metal, with the 50 pin connectors. The phones were meant to be mounted in consoles.

Later they made (or at very least, researched) solid state buttons; touch screens mounted on plasma flat screen displays for digitally reprogrammable buttons. I don't think those products were for stock traders; too fragile.

I'll see if I can wrangle some old braincells together and follow up with a bit more details of V Band and its products.