[*] asterisk ds3

LES.NET (1996) INC. voip at les.net
Fri May 11 17:40:45 CDT 2007


I had quite an exciting day...
I finally provisioned my new DS3 to work with asterisk.

Not having worked with DS3 before, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

I managed to built a prototype rack to test it out..

You can see the monster at:
http://les.net/lesnetds3.jpg

Basically, DS3 comes in fiber, gets converted to coax, goes into the M13
MUX (which is powered by -48VDC), then comes out two 32 pair cables into a
bix block, cross connected to a patch panel, then uses a normal patch
cable to go to the digum quad card.

The only thing running on it at the moment is an MTS PRI that I bought to
test things out.

Quite a few learning curves with this...

I've never worked with -48VDC equipment before, and figured out which was
+, - was a bit confusing, since it is -48..    (So, is + - .. or is - +
???)  All my guesses were correct, and I ended up NOT frying any
equipment.

I blew the fuse on the DC fuse panel though, and cannot find any
replacement fuses.  So I had to tear apart the metal sliding door cover
from a 3.5" floppy, and mangle it into the shape of fuse.. (abe lincon
style).   .. it only shot sparks out twice upon power up before it arc'd
nicely to the rest of the fuse receptical.

Never worked with a DS3 M13 mux before either..  had to macguyver a
craft-cable (basically, RS232->RJ45)  to login to the thing and configure
it.    And being as cheap as I am, I didn't want to blow $2500 on a
brand-new DS3 Mux.  So I stalked a few used units on ebay for a month
prior to this.   My logic was to buy three at about 500 each and hope
chance was on my side for having a complete working unit  (Which is the
way it actually turned out).  Plus, once everything is up and running,
I'll have lots of spare parts for emergencies.

The Mux has two amphenol 64 connectors on the back (and no documentation
as to what pins do what).   So an evening with a toner/multimeter
discovered the cable makeup.  .. I ordered the cable from Priority.. but I
guess I didn't specify the internal wiring coloring.. so I literally have 
 two orange/whites, two blue/whites, etc. etc. for the entire color
scheme.  (Hence the multimeter exploration)

Finally (today), I wired what I *thought* would be the three possible sets
of wires for the corresponding DS3 timeslot to the bix block.  The bix
block allowed me to rapidly punch down/pull off the wires incase I made
some mistakes.

I broken down into the "Hulk Pose" and growled when I saw the lights on
the digium PRI card go from red-alarm, to yellow-alarm, to green :)

Either way, total labour from receipt of equipment to working provisioned
system was about 13 hours (over a few days)

Fun stuff.
-- 
For Canada/USA DID's, Call +1.888.VOIP.DID
Leslie Bester
LES.NET (1996) INC.
TollFree: +1.866.944.0009
Winnipeg: +1.204.944.0009





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