[asterisk-users] net5501 + TDM400P?

[Darrick Hartman (lists)]

Brandon Black wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>   I'm relatively new to Asterisk, and I'm looking to build a tiny
> system for home use.

Welcome.

>   What I'd like to do is set up an Asterisk box with 1x FXS (to the
> cordless phone base station) and 1x FXO (to the Vonage
> pseudo-PSTN-line), and also have it act as a SIP client to the office
> Asterisk system, and let the Grandstream be a client to my Asterisk,
> and configure it up so that both the Grandstream and the cordless
> system can be used to answer and dial from both my office and home
> lines.

I'd drop Vonage, port your number to someone like Teliax and eliminate 
the voip to FXS to FXO conversion.

>   What I'm considering hardware-wise is a Soekris net5501 paired with
> a Digium TDM400P equipped with 1xFXO and 1xFXS (might add a second FXS
> later down the road).  I'm a pretty well-versed linux hacker, so I'm
> not too worried about being able to get the software side up and
> running.  What I'm really looking for is advice and info from people
> that have tried this (or similar) hardware setups on the following:

The net5501 would sufficiently support that load and then some.

> 1) Does the Soekris case fit a TDM400P card inside of it?  I don't
> mind if I have to get out the dremel to get the ports exposed, but
> does it fit inside at all?

Yes it will work fine.  The case that comes with the net5501 will fit a 
half-length pci card.  This is an improvement over the net4801 which 
would only support half-height/half-length cards.

> 2) With a net5501+TDM400P+1xFXS, if I use the Soekris 2.5A power
> supply, will I need the extra external 12V supply (the digium one) to
> supply power for the FXS module?  Some things I read seem to indicate
> that you always need it, some don't...?  Does anything change on this
> if/when I put in a second FXS port?

With one fxs, you might be able to get away with it.  You might look at 
the Soekris mailing list archives to see where you can pull some 
additional power if you need it.

> 3) How much storage space do I really need to get one of the common
> embedded Asterisk distros on there, and also leave room for a good
> amount of voicemail, and room to hack with cool things in the
> dialplan, etc?  Would you recommend a 2.5-in HDD, or can we fit this
> all in compactflash?  I don't really have any ideas on estimating
> voicemail space consumption, or commonly fun things people do with
> modules and dialplans that might suck extra space down the road.

Have a look at Astlinux.   http://www.astlinux.org  The standard install 
is less than 64MB so you could easily get by with a 256-512MB compact 
flash card.  Works well.  We'd be happy to answer questions specific to 
Astlinux on our mailing list (hosted off the sourceforge project page). 
  Note that the net5501 platform was added recently in trunk.  None of 
the images have been released yet, but several of us have been running 
releases from SVN for several months.

Darrick
-- 
Darrick Hartman
DJH Solutions, LLC
http://www.djhsolutions.com