sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems Merlin 510

Does anyone know why there's no technical info on this system on the Avaya site? I was given this from a bowling alley to be demolished and may install it as a replacement for an Inter-tel glx system I use at home. Phone system appears to work, but I am curious what the cards connect to and how to program the phones. Is this a pretty reliable system? Seems to have been in use since 1987. How many conductors are used for the phones? It seems like they replaced a 1a2 system with this and used some kind of 4 pair to 25 pair plug.

I'm thinkin maybe the search word used on the Avaya site should be Merlin 410. I don't remember a 510.

There was a Merlin 410 and 820. The 410 had four fixed line ports and eight station ports. The 820 used separate line and station modules. The Merlin Plus was the 820D and used actual cards for lines and stations. Never heard of a 510 though.

Overall, the system was pretty stable. It's a four pair system for the stations using 568B wiring patterns. The plug you saw on the 25 pair cable is the 259A (single jack output) or 258A (six jack outputs).

The system uses standard Merlin Classic 5 or 10 button phones, which are relatively easy to find and inexpensive on the secondary market. Later models, such as the BIS10 or BIS34D may be supported by the 410 if it has a feature module installed that supports them.

The Classic Merlin telephone systems (206, 410 and a few others) were very well built, but came with few features out of the box.

2 optional cartridges added additional features (FP2 added the most features). Those cartridges were installed in the top of the 3 available ports on the unit's front panel.

The middle slot was reserved for an optional Music On Hold cartridge. You could buy a cartridge that was used just for MOH or one that also connected to a paging system.

The bottom of the 3 slots was reserved for a power failure module that allowed you to connect regular telephones to the system to use during power failures.

There are many of these systems still being used today in small offices even though they have been out of production for years.

The power supply seems to be the part that fails the most on these systems. The telephones connect with regular 4-pair cable (CAT 3 will work fine).

Here is the Avaya web page where you can find the link to the Merlin 410 system.

https://support.avaya.com/japple/css/japple?PAGE=Area&temp.bucketID=160259

With the correct feature pack, you can use the BIS sets. Some sets do come with a display and you can set the time and day to show on each extension.

It could be a Merlin 1030/3070 carded as 5X10

It could be merlin plus 4x10 with aux port on line card , to look like 5x10.-------John

The GLX is a lot better.......

4 pairs, straight through. The adapter for the 25 pair was a 259A adapter, I think. Their reliable enough, but pretty easily damaged by surges or lightening, so protect it. They were designed for self install and would come with cords long enough to go from phone to control unit. Saw some pretty messy customer installs.

Edit to correct mistake.

AT&T shipped these systems with 4 pair cables.

https://www.sundance-communications.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?/ubb/get_topic/f/5/t/002532.html

https://www.sundance-communications.com/forum/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/5/t/002377.html

I hate to say this Bill, but most of the messy installs were by AT&T installers! The installation "kit of parts" was a box of overly-long D8W and D2BU cords and little labels to attach to both ends of them.

That was the whole concept, you could pretty much plug and play with it. Sears and AT&T Phone Center Stores sold it, and later Partner for self-installation. That's how I got involved with these systems; all of the local stores got tired of the returns and referred the installations to my company (I had to approach them, something I will never regret).

There was virtually no programming and the company actually encouraged the use of line cords for the connections to the system.

True, it could have been a 1030/3070, but in a bowling alley? I doubt it.

As for the GLX, well.....

Dex, these phones REQUIRE the first three pairs to operate, one for voice tip/ring, one for data and one for power. The only optional pair was pair 4 for handsfree intercom. They don't function on two pairs.

I met one of my longest-lasting current customers this way, over 16 years ago. It pays to help people out of a mess. Sometimes, but rarely, they remember.