Fax problem with MP255oB

[Guest]

I have a newly installed MP 2550. The customer does not have a dedicated fax line. They have voice, answering machine, and now a fax on the same line. Ricoh tells me this combination will not work. Manual recieve is not an option because customer is out of office a lot, and machine is all the way across the room from desk phone. Customer bought a fax switch, and still does not work. Any ideas?

[schooltech]

You said that it now has a fax on it-is that the Ricoh?

Does the phone/fax/coffee maker/office cleaner/thingy work with a 'regular' fax machine?

I have not been a fan of these fax switches, but sometimes people have 'used them for 500 years without any problems' yeah, yeah, I know.

You may have to mess with the bit switch settings, like baud rate and maybe turning ECM off, to see what works.

The Ricoh's usually have a 1000 settings to adjust-sometimes a good thing and other times a bad thing.

[Ruggedawg444]

Customer has a little brother fax machine that works fine. I've spent half a day adj bit switches, and on the phone w ricoh trying to resolve this. Turned off ECM.

[cobiray]

You might want to check the phone line voltages coming out of the "fax switch." (what is that anyway?) If it's a passive device (i.e. not powered) there could be some voltage loss in the circuit preventing it from being recognized as a ring.

[schooltech]

Cobiray, the little devices are powered and everything plugs into them. They determine the call to be either voice or data and route the call. I just wish that customers would get a dedicated fax line and these problems will disappear.

Ok, since the Brother fax works, I don't see why the Ricoh wouldn't work, given the proper settings.

Were you able to match the Brother settings, via its internal printout, to the Ricoh's settings?

Also, does the switch manufacturer have any suggestions for items that don't work? Do they have a website for support?

I'm actually leaning towards something simple, but damned if I know what that would be.

Did you adjust down the baud rate to match the Brother's? Or is the Brother a Super G3 @ 33.6kbps?

[E Winter]

Ok, since the Brother fax works, I don't see why the Ricoh wouldn't work, given the proper settings.

Me too and as for receiving it's ususally pretty uncomplicated to get this to work. What's the exact symptome? As for general communication problems I usually try something like: - quick line/cable check with a simple phone - deactivating V8/V34 protocols - derating tx/rx speeds - play around with the line eq's - deactivating ECM

[rthonpm]

Make sure that the phone switch is the first thing plugged in from the wall line. If there's anything that's taking the wall line from the switch it will throw everything off, especially the fax.
Also make sure fax SP 2-103-007 is set to One. That is the number of rings for the machine to detect whether a call is a fax.
Good luck with this.

[cobiray]

I hate to backtrack over what's already been done, but have you tested the fax plugged directly into the phone line?

[nmfaxman]

The Brother has the distinctive ring ability, the Ricoh doesn't.
Run a phone line from the output of the Brother to the input of the Ricoh.
Set the Ricoh to manual recieve and the Brother to the original settings.
Gives the customer the ability to recieve faxes and still use the lan-fax on the Ricoh.
The only other alternative is a dedicated analog fax line that the Ricoh requires.

[SGT_Snacks-64]

I'd just say get a dedicated line, makes for a lot less headaches.

I had a good fax call a couple of months ago, the customer's fax wasn't working... they'd plugged a RJ-11 into an RJ-45 port. Had to end up buying them an adaptor but apparantly this had been working for 3 years solidly! :O

[E Winter]

thank's to that snap thingy it's usually no problem to plug an RJ11 connector into a RJ45 port

[Mr T]

Ricoh fax issue

Ricoh devices do not contain an internal fax switch, instead they rely on the line having a telco service activated called "distinctive ring" which provides a different ring signal for an incoming fax as opposed to a voice call allowing the fax to recognise and automatically recieve a fax, but also ignore incoming voice calls. Ideally the fax should be connected first in the phone/ fax line and any devices such as phone handsets and message recorders connected via the EXT/phone passthrough connection.