EVAC two-way communication: phones, video and texting

This is a network problem between the machine-room enclosure and the building network, not a phone fault. The phones are peer-to-peer, so you can prove that quickly.

1. Look at the LEDs on the three-port main board (CE40106A) in the machine-room enclosure. The red LED next to each Ethernet port comes on when that port has a network link. Each car uses two ports: one for the phone, one for the camera. If one port has no red light and no blinking green, that device is not getting onto the network.
2. Get a short RJ45 patch cable (male to male). Unplug the network drop from the machine-room phone and unplug the cable from channel 1 on the main board, then connect the machine-room phone directly to that channel and try to call the car. If the call does not go through, put channel 1 back and try channel 2 (this also tells you which channel is the phone and which is the camera).
3. If the direct call works, the CE equipment is fine and the building network is blocking traffic. Ask IT to confirm that the MAC addresses of the machine-room phone, the car phone and the car camera are allowed (whitelisted) on the switch ports and that the ports are enabled. A switch with port security can shut a port off as soon as it sees a MAC address it does not recognize – this is what a missing red link light usually means.
4. Replacing the CE40106A twisted-pair board does not change the phone or camera MAC addresses, so the addresses already on file with IT stay valid. Only a replaced phone or camera board would need its new MAC address sent to IT.
5. Phones are programmed and tested together at CE before shipping. Replacing the twisted-pair board does not lose that programming. If a firmware update is ever needed, CE sends a file that is loaded through the USB port on the phone board (there is one on the car phone board and one on the machine-room phone board).

A flashing UPDATE LED on the machine-room board or on the COP board means the same thing: the unit is not getting a network connection. Check the path between the machine-room enclosure and the building switch, then confirm with IT that nothing is blocking it.

Verify with CE support.

Texting rides on the live-data cable between the small car interface board and the Elite PI display, and on the security station being on the same network as the cars. Work through these checks in order.

1. Establish a call first. The text window does not appear on the Elite PI until a call is connected, normally started from the car. The security desk can also start the call and then send a message, but sending a message without an active call will not show anything on the display.
2. Plug into J3 (LIVE DATA), not the OEM data jack. The Elite PI has two identical jacks side by side at the bottom of the board and the screen print sits between them. The live-data cable from the small car board (the board with the yes/no button inputs and the OLED; the cable leaves it at the port labeled for the Elite display output) must go to J3, the left-hand jack.
3. Check the green link LED on the small car board. Blue is power; the green LED lights when the board sees the Elite PI over that cable. No green means the display is not being seen. Check continuity through the plugs (not just at the wire entry), reseat the connectors with the orange tabs – they seat “a little weird” and a cable that rings out at the top can still have no contact on the pin – and swap in a known-good cable before swapping the board.
4. Check the cable pinout. The live-data cable is wired point for point (blue-white, blue, green, green-white, orange in the same order on both plugs). TX/RX are crossed on the boards, not in the cable.
5. Check the screen design. The Elite PI design must contain the two-way communication window configured for CE two-way (EVAC). Designs set up for a third-party device such as Rath or Ring are configured differently and will not display CE texting. If the design is wrong, CE exports a corrected USBinstaller.zip and you load it on each display from a USB stick formatted FAT32 (many new sticks come as exFAT; reformat them). A wrong design is the leading suspect when the green link LED only flashes for a few seconds at power-up and then goes out – the board appears to check the screen for the two-way design and drop the link if it is missing.
6. Make sure the security station is on the network. See the next question.

Verify with CE support.

Voice and video are peer-to-peer between the phones, but texting also has to reach the EVAC security station, and that station needs its IP addressing to be in place.

1. The security station and the car phones are programmed with static IP addresses at CE (at the customer’s request the security station can instead use a DHCP reservation). They can only exchange text when they are on the same network.
2. The “customer network” port on the router inside the machine-room enclosure expects a real network with IP addressing behind it. Plugging the security station straight into that port, with no switch and no addressing, will not make texting work.
3. Once the building network is up, every machine-room enclosure (including the group box) and the primary and secondary security stations need a connection to that network. IT already has the IP plan that CE coordinated; you do not need to label each component – just tell IT which ports the devices are on.
4. On a job that is specified as standalone (not on a customer network), CE ships it with static IPs so everything talks on its own isolated network and texting works out of the box.

So on a customer-network job, texting cannot be bench-tested until IT provides the network connection; voice and video can.

It means the display is not seeing the two-way board on the display’s J3 header. Check the 6-wire cable (RX, TX and common) that runs from the two-way board – the one with the yes/no inputs – to J3 on the back of the display CPU board (the board with the fan). There are two identical headers side by side; the cable belongs on J3.

This message can also appear on a car fitted with a third-party two-way device. Verify with CE support.

The two-way screen only appears when something triggers it, so with nothing on J3 the first suspects are the display’s design file and the controller data wiring.

1. Confirm nothing is plugged into J3 and that every switch in DIP bank S3 is off (that is the correct setting per the print).
2. Measure DC from common to data on the three-wire controller input. It should read about 1.5-1.9 V, fluctuating. Reading 24 V means you are on the supply pin, not data – check the controller’s PI driver board terminals and the wire labels. If the voltage measures correctly once the right pins are used and the two-way screen still comes up every time the car returns to automatic operation (showing the floor number for about half a second first), the wiring is not the cause.
3. With wiring and voltage correct, ask CE support to have the graphics department check the design file for an incorrect two-way flag setup; CE sends a replacement file to load by USB (16 or 32 GB stick).

Verify with CE support.

No – the Elite PI only shows that screen when the two-way device connected to J3 triggers it, so the trigger is coming from the third-party board. A Rath SmartView board is a typical example.

1. Power the display down with the J3 cable disconnected and bring it back up. If the message stays away, and comes back as soon as the SmartView board is reconnected and the car is put on independent, the SmartView board is sending a false “active” signal.
2. Messages such as “EXT not connected”, “INT not connected” followed by a 192.x.x.x address are generated by the SmartView board, not by CE – the Elite PI has no such message.
3. Each car has its own board and its own line, so a single car misbehaving points at that car’s board. The two-way device must stay connected; it is part of the 2019 code requirement for entrapment communication.

The display’s main processor (the chip with the heat sink) is not the cause – a failing processor shows as a fuzzy or black display, not a two-way message.

When the box should stay up for the whole call but only flashes, isolate the display from the two-way device by swapping screens between cars. If the fault follows the screen, the display is returned to CE under RMA.

1. Flip S1 DIP switch 1 on to bring up the diagnostic screen. The software version is shown at the top (for example 1.8.0.24). A few lines from the bottom you will see “two-way Rath” with P and B counters next to it – rising numbers mean the display is receiving packets from the two-way board.
2. The serial connection to the SmartView device is three wires: TX+, TX- and common; these are cross-wired to the display’s RX. The extra two wires of a five-wire hookup make no difference.
3. Power-cycle both the display and the two-way board.
4. Swap the display with one from a neighboring car. Displays in a group run the same programming and only differ by the controller link, so this is safe. If the problem follows the screen, contact CE for an RMA; if it stays in the car, the two-way device is the cause.

No. The EVAC system is on-premise only; everything lives on the local network and it does not place outgoing calls over the Internet or a phone line. It is built to the code requirement of confirming whether someone is physically trapped. Another phone can be added on the same network to receive calls, but a remote call-out is not currently an option. Ask CE sales about current developments.

The system only needs to talk to itself – an isolated VLAN with no gateway and no Internet access is fine, and CE programs the devices to whatever subnet IT provides.

1. IP count. Two addresses per car (phone and camera), one per machine-room phone, and three at the security desk (phone, screen, and a second address for the screen). Six cars in two machine rooms is 17 addresses, so a /24 is plenty even with growth; the /16 in older CE documents is not required.
2. Addressing. Any private range works (10.x, 172.x, 192.168.x). CE’s default VLAN is a 10.233.2.0/24 network; CE has also used 172.26.x. All devices get static IPs programmed at CE, so IT just has to allow the traffic. A customer DHCP switch will not interfere.
3. Machine room. CE puts an unmanaged switch inside the machine-room phone enclosure; all car connections land there, so the building only needs one drop per machine room. Any open port on the switch is fine.
4. Security station. The security-station enclosure also has a small unmanaged switch that splits one drop between the EVAC server/station and the phone beside it. If you do not want that switch, bring two drops to the enclosure. The machine-room phone can be supplied with a keypad and extension directory or with pre-configured buttons (for example, button 1 dials the security desk).
5. Distance. Machine rooms and the security desk can be joined through the building’s own switches; fiber with media converters at each end is fine, and the phone rides the same link. Routing between separate networks is the customer’s responsibility.
6. Separate from the Elite PI network. The EVAC system and the ENETB (used to push graphics and video to the Elite PI screens) are separate systems. The ENETB normally goes on the customer network so the building’s PC can upload content; the phone system lives in its own world. They can share a network if a PC with access to it is available for updates, but they do not talk to each other.
7. Moving the security station. If texting worked with the station in the machine room and stops after IT relocates it (for example over fiber converters), ask IT to open the path between the new location and the machine rooms – the switch port used does not matter.

The output only monitors phones that have been seen online at least once, so cars you have not connected yet will not trip it.

1. A car phone that has never connected shows as “maintenance” on the box. Once it connects, the box logs it and starts monitoring it; unplugging a phone that has been online will trip the output.
2. DIP switch 6 on makes the alarm immediate. Switches 7 and 8 together with 6 select a 30, 60 or 90 minute delay – handy on a live building because short network blips otherwise trigger the alarm. With all switches off there is a delay (either 30 seconds or 30 minutes); check the paperwork shipped with the box.
3. Hold the test button on the board for about 10 seconds to clear the memory of learned phones. Do this when a car will be out of service with its phone unplugged for a long time; the box starts over and re-learns phones as they connect.
4. The test button also closes the dry contact for testing the alarm wiring.

Verify with CE support.