sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems NEC Telephones & Systems Questions on setting up a NEC Electra Elite IPK

Greetings all long time reader of this forum great info on here, I have a old NEC Electra Elite IPK I am dusting off and setting up for a silly Rube Goldberg setup of old phones and old phone technology including a T1 PRI from a Asterisk server.
It has 10 card slots, A CPU, 'AP' and slots 1-8.
The slots have the following cards
CPU CPUII(100)-U10
AP MIFM()-U10 ETU
S1 SLIB(4)-U10 ETU
S2 SLIB(4)-U10 ETU
S3 ESIB(8)-U10 ETU
S4 PRT(1)-U20 ETU
S5 COIB(8)-U30 ETU
S6 - empty
S7 -empty
S8 PVA(X)-U10 ETU


Slots 1 & 2 provide Foreign Exchange Subscriber (FXS) to a collection of plain old phones, (500 sets 2500 sets etc) and is ahead of a old 1A2 system and a Merlin system.
Slot 3 has a card for a NEC office phone there is one DTH-320-1.

Slot 4 has what I understand to be T1 card "Primary Rate Interface Unit provides for the termination of an ISDN PRI line for voice service only." It has the echo cancel option. it is my understanding that this can connect to a Digium T1 card in a Linux server running Asterisk where the Asterisk server is mimicking the central office. ?

Slot 5 has a Foreign Exchange Office (FXO) card and there would be 4 incoming lines on this card.

Slot 8 PVA card Which I think was for exporting system extensions over SIP? and possibly is a FPGA that can do many functions. So this could export some extensions back to the Asterisk server over its Ethernet port?

My questions are can the Electra support both the COIB and PRT cards ? I'd like to reserve 4 analog incoming lines off the COIB and use the T1 for rest of the Trunks the unit supports which I think is 16 total (16 - 4 = 12 Trunks from the T1 )

Does the MIFM card do anything with the CPU 2 card? I read in the manual its not used with the CPU 2 card (I have a spare CPU 1 card with this unit)

I powered it up and temped on some 2500 sets to test the unit and it works in its default settings, but i'll need to program it for the COIB and PRI card, what is the best way to program it seems to be many ways:
* There is a web interface off the CPU 2 card Ethernet port, however it seems no all the programming can be done on it.
* The NEC office phone
* or one of the three serial ports on the front of the unit, but I read they require specialized software.
* There is also a DE-9 connector on the PRI card and both SLIB I am unsure what they are for possibly programming just those cards?

Also suggestions are welcome.
Thanks for your feedback

I can't speak to the NEC equipment, but if the system does indeed have a PRI card then yes - you should be able to link it to the Asterisk/Digium T1 with a crossover cable and the correct PRI as CO settings in the Digium config.

Thanks for the reply good to know.

IPK used software called SAT to program using PC's or laptops.
Never had to connect to any circuit card except the CPU.
You can program using a multi button phone on the first 2 ports, (it can be done on any other port via additional code, no longer remember what that is).
Each circuit card will need to be assign to the slot you put it in except the CPU. I believe the MIF card goes next to the CPU, and you program which MIF, it's been a long time since I touched one of these.
Hardware manual will explain the pin out of the 25 pair tails, corresponding with which card is in what slot. I do not have this manual.

IIRC the MIFM card is the one that gives you connectivity to the system, I still have one of these in my garage I think! Problem is, any software I have is Asia Pacific version (assuming I can find it)!

Just had a quick look and I have both an IPK 1 and an IPK 2 processor. Software would take a lot more searching!