sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems Merlin Legend and Merlin Mail few Q's - Long Read

KSU from left to right

PSU module, Processor Module w/ 2mb PCMCIA Card followed by 4 x 408 GS/LS cards Followed By a 012 with Ring Gen.

Merlin Mail processor has 2 x 2 line cards.

i'm looking for the feature and upgrade ability high lights for this system.

i have 4 phone book size manuals that i am slowly digesting my way through.

manuals say merlin mail system 3

and i believe legend release 4

looking at the main ksu it appears i can stack another back plane onto the main one to add more modules?

i'm getting a nose bleed trying to read too much at one time, so i'm just interested right now in the systems capabilities. it appears very advanced.

also will the GS/LS modules handle MXL phones? it presently has BIS phones. I do have the BIS 34D the rest are BIS 10's

also interested in whether the SLT card will handle Engenius cordless phone sytem or do i need ATT recommended SLT Telephones?

also each one of the 408 modules (i'm assuming 4 CO lines 8 8 ext. per) are each of the 4 CO lines tied across the backplane?

another words does the first card do CO lines and the rest of the cards CO lines are slaved to the first card with the subsequent cards just adding extensions?

or do the cards add 4 more CO lines + 8 more extensions per card?

so i'm asking do i have 4 or 16 CO lines?

yes i know i'm long winded

just trying to understand this system a little. It had a date with a dumpster when i got it.

a company offered it under the free section on craigslist. it had just been removed from service by the tech 5 minutes before i arrived and everything was stacked neatly for me with manuals and all. so in short it's a clean fully functional system.

no i don't want to sell it yet it's still a new toy and i'm not board with it yet.

I'll get the ball rolling:

Some revisions of the Merlin Legend could be expanded. I don't know what the limits are of the R4 processor, but yes, expansion carriers could be connected to the main carrier.

If the system had BIS phones, then I'm going to assume that the 408 modules are 408 GS/LS ATLs. You won't be able to connect MLX phones to them. There is a 408 GS/LS MLX module which is used to connect MLX phones.

Each 408 card supports 4 individual telephone lines and 8 individual extensions. So, you can connect a total of 16 telephone lines and 32 BIS extensions.

If the processor is revision 4, it is quite obsolete. The final release was revision 7 which is the most versatile of them all.

The learning curve for the Merlin Legend is a bit steep and programming it can be a challenge if you are not familiar with calling groups and how the programming menus are structured.

I will continue. Yes, 0 x 12 will handle Engenius SL telephones. System can be upgrade to Legend Magix Rel. 4.0 with ability to use all your cards even your Merlin Mail which is the latest Rel. 3.0 capable of 3 Auto Attendants. System can grow up to 3 cabinets total with 6 slot each expansion one. Can handle up to 3 T1s.

If you upgrade to a Magix, you lose the ability to use the ATL cards you have now. With that many sets, you might want to stick with Legend if you upgrade the processor.

One of the documents to download is the Legend R7 Pocket Reference, which will outline what fearures were added with each release, and decide if you even need to upgrade your processor.

Can the R4 be upgraded to an R7 with a firmware download or does it require physical hardware upgrade?

When possible, upgrades are done by using a PCMCIA card. Legend processors are not overly expensive, so if you want to bump up to the R7 level, you can go online and easily purchase an R7 processor.

You will want a CKE4, or CKE 5 in a clam shell to take advantage of 016MLX cards that the R7 upgrade will allow you to use. The R4 will be a CKE3 processor that "can" be upgraded to a 7 but will give you limitation on the usage 016 MLX card

been carrying the manuals with me everywhere and reading them as time permits. this is an amazing piece of hardware. i can't figure out if the system does caller id as it is configured now.

do i need the cards with ID in the part number to get caller id?

or will it do CID as it is configured now?

also is there anyone local who is into ham radio and or computers that may want to do some swapping for the parts to upgrade my system?

I'd like to upgrade all of the cards to do MLX phones and the rest 016 T/R cards and maybe add two more backplanes and make backplane one all MLX and subsequent backplanes 016 T/R modules with 2 slots having system cordless phones.

already scoping out a spot in the basement to mount the system near my breaker box and run a dedicated outlet for the system.

looking to have a cordless in the house one in the garage one MLX28D the Rest of the house phones T/R.

this seems to be my ultimate goal the more i read up on it and the more thought i put into it.

also like to setup a battery b/u system.

what kind of requirements am i looking at for backup power?

The BIS telephones do not support Caller ID. In order to utilize that feature you will need to purchase MLX telephones and plug any telephone lines with Caller ID into newly purchased 408 GS/LS-ID MLX or 800 GS/LS-ID modules.

Swapping out modules will require, in many cases, a board renumber so the processor knows that a different type of board has been inserted. Also, if you change the ports that the voicemail has been assigned to, it will result in some messy reprogramming.

I don't remember if the R4 processor can handle Caller ID. I know that the R7 does.

I would advise against trying to do any component level modifications to any of the boards. The price of Legend hardware being what it is you should just purchase what you need online.

kind of what i figured