Planning an Elite PI installation: network, IT and documentation

CE can configure your displays as soon as the ENET box in the machine room is on your building’s local network and a Windows PC on that same network can see it. Until then the setup cannot proceed.

Readiness checklist:

1. Elevator contractor’s part is done. The screens are installed in the cars, the ENET (or older Moxa) unit is mounted in the elevator machine room, and a twisted pair runs through each car’s traveling cable from the machine-room box to the LAN converter behind the screen.
2. One Ethernet data drop to the ENET box. The building (not the elevator contractor) provides a drop from its own local network to the machine room and plugs it into the ENET’s customer network port (see the next question). The drop is plain Ethernet on your LAN – it is not a phone line and it does not have to reach the internet.
3. A Windows PC on the same network. The Elite PI Transfer and Designer software is a downloadable Windows executable, not a web page. The PC can be anywhere in the building as long as your IT department has it on (or routed to) the same network as the machine-room drop. Sites with locked-down corporate PCs often use a basic dedicated laptop for this. If there is no building fiber to the machine room, a carrier modem/router in the machine room with both the ENET and the PC plugged into it also works.
4. Someone with admin rights on that PC available during the session, so the software can be installed and CE can remote in.
5. Your template designed. Contact CE’s graphics team before the install so the custom background (position indicator, logo, scheduled-message area) is ready; the generic template that ships is a blue background with a white position indicator.
6. Your sales order / job number at hand (see the remote-support question below).

Once those are in place, the CE support engineer remotes into the PC, scans for the ENET, points the Transfer software at it, adds your displays, and then trains you on the Designer software. The session is recorded and the recording is given to you. The whole thing is normally finished the same day.

Plug the building’s drop into the port labeled Customer Network on the ENET (port 1); the ENET is set to DHCP, so it takes an address from your network and you discover it with MikroTik Winbox.

1. Connect the drop to the labeled Customer Network port. If you are replacing an old Moxa unit, simply move the existing drop that fed the Moxa over to the ENET – it is already on the right network and your PC already knows how to reach it. The right cable is the Ethernet cable landing on the board with the transformer marked “OK”; if several cables enter the box, trace the one that currently feeds the Moxa.
2. On a Windows PC on the same network, install Winbox (the MikroTik utility CE uses). Its neighbor scan lists only the CE/MikroTik devices on the network and shows the IP address the ENET received. A general network scan of the subnet also works.
3. If the ENET does not show up, read the MAC address sticker on the ENET itself and have IT look up the lease, or let IT reserve an address for that MAC.
4. In Elite PI Transfer, open Edit Networks, enter (or update) the ENET’s IP address and save. The Transfer software then reaches the individual screens through the ENET’s own routing (the screens have NAT’d addresses behind it), so you do not add the screens’ addresses yourself.
5. Each elevator bank with its own machine room has its own ENET, so a second bank shows up as a second IP address in Winbox and gets its own entry under Edit Networks.

Plugging a laptop directly into the ENET instead of through the building network is possible but requires IT to change the laptop’s adapter settings and CE to change the ENET configuration – use the building network whenever you can.

The ENET and screens do not need internet access; everything is local between the ENET and the host PC, so an isolated VLAN with no gateway is fine as long as the host PC can reach it.

• Time on the screens comes from the host PC: the Transfer software reads the PC clock and sends it to the displays. Keep that PC on and the application open (it runs as a background service).
• News, weather and stock feeds, when used, are tied to a client ID that CE assigns from your job number and configures in the software on the host PC. Verify with CE support.
• Elite EVAC two-way communication and MaxBank lobby-panel equipment are likewise self-contained: they talk only to each other and do not need internet or a route to any other building system (see the IP-count question below). CE can route them across buildings over a routed network when a campus needs it.

You provide one HDMI source per elevator bank in the machine room, plus power and a network drop for your signage player; CE supplies the HDINT encoder, the HDMI cable and a screen design with a video window.

1. HDMI is optional. If you only want scheduled flyers, announcements and floor messages that rotate on their own, you do not need HDMI or a signage player – that is handled by the Designer/Transfer software over the network. HDMI is for live video or a third-party signage platform (BrightSign, Appspace, Captivate and similar).
2. One feed per bank. Each ENET/HDINT pair serves one elevator bank, so a building with two banks needs two signage players (or two outputs), one at each machine-room box. The HDMI output plugs into the HDINT encoder, which feeds the ENET and sends the stream down the twisted pair to the screens. Nothing is run inside the hoistway or car for this.
3. What the building provides near the box: power for the player (a duplex receptacle is sufficient – it is a small-form-factor PC) and one data jack from your network for the player. The boxes ship with covers and have knockouts for bringing cables in.
4. ENET drop. If you feed the screens only from the signage player, a separate network drop for the ENET is not required. If you also want to use CE’s content manager (Designer/Transfer), the ENET needs its own drop as described above.
5. Any HDMI source works – even a streaming stick can be used. When live video is playing through the HDINT encoder, its audio can be played through the car speaker output.
6. Switching later between a scheduled-message area and a video window is a design change CE can push to the screens; both can also coexist on one layout.

CE builds the layout so your 16:9 content sits in a 16:9 window and a banner fills the remaining space; code-required priority messages are built into the design by CE and override your content automatically.

• Screen sizes: 15.6-inch displays are 16:9; 12.1-inch displays (used where return panels are narrow, e.g. glass cars) are 4:3. The Elite PI product line is natively 4:3, which is why a banner at the top or bottom with the position indicator and building name/logo plus a 16:9 window below is the usual design.
• If the car already has a separate code-required position indicator, the screen can be used full-frame for content. If not, the design must include the position indicator with sufficient contrast.
• Your marketing team can design the banner/footer artwork themselves, or CE’s graphics team can mock it up and iterate with you by email until approved.
• Fire service, emergency power, overload, independent/access and similar priority messages are part of the base design CE builds. When the elevator controller signals one of those states, the screen displays the message over whatever content is running. The building does not have to do anything to make this happen.

Scheduled messages are images – JPEG is recommended, TIFF is also accepted – and the only video format accepted is WMV.

• Think of it as a slide show: each message is a slide placed in the scheduled-message area of the template.
• PDFs and PowerPoint files cannot be uploaded. Take a screenshot of the page or slide and upload it as an image.
• The image must match the pixel size of the message area in your template (for example 768 × 768). Check your template’s area size before producing artwork.
• Video must be WMV. An MP4 is rejected even if its codec reads “Windows Media Video 8” – convert the container to WMV first. The Designer “Guide to Updating” on the Designer page of the CE website walks through replacing a video.

Count two addresses per car (phone and camera), one per machine-room phone, three at the security desk, and one more for a MaxBank lobby panel if installed; CE prefers static addresses in a subnet your IT department hands over, but DHCP reservations by MAC address also work.

Example: 6 cars in 2 machine rooms, no MaxBank → 12 + 2 + 3 = 17 addresses. CE’s standard documentation shows a 10.233.0.0/16 default; a /24 per building is plenty and is what most IT departments prefer. Any private range (10.x, 172.x, 192.168.x) is fine as long as every CE device can reach the others.

Addressing options:

1. Static (simplest for CE): IT gives CE a subnet; CE programs every device and returns a report listing device, IP and MAC.
2. DHCP reservation: CE gives IT the MAC address of every device; IT assigns/reserves an address per MAC and tells CE, and CE programs those addresses into the system so it still knows which address belongs to which car. The devices themselves stay on DHCP.
3. If equipment was already built with CE’s default scheme and the building later requires its own subnets, CE must reprogram the devices and then issue an updated hardware report with the new IPs and MACs. Request the subnets as early as possible so this happens before commissioning.

Existing unmanaged switches in machine rooms are fine for the EVAC topology; the building just needs a free port in each machine room and at the fire command/security desk.

Ask CE for a hardware report listing every CE device by role, IP address and MAC address, and add the host PC(s) that run the CE software to the same list before giving it to IT.

1. The CE list should cover the lobby panel, machine-room stations, every car phone and camera, the security-desk phone and screen, the ENET(s) and any HDINT encoders – not only the “primary” devices.
2. Include the computer(s) that run Elite PI Transfer/Designer or monitoring software; IT segmentation that omits the PC breaks the system.
3. If IT wants to whitelist by MAC, give them the MAC list first; they can then hand back the IPs they reserved (see the previous question).
4. Note for IT that CE does not set up any permanent external access into the system (see the next question), so no inbound firewall rules are needed for CE.
5. A one-page overview drawing (lobby panel → building network → machine room → cars) helps non-elevator stakeholders understand which devices talk to each other; ask CE for the network requirements document for your product family (Elite PI, Elite EVAC, MaxBank).

CE supports Elite PI through a remote session on your PC using Splashtop SOS, started from your web browser, and needs your job number to restore a system after a PC replacement.

Remote session:

1. On the PC that is on the same network as the ENET, open a browser and go to the Splashtop SOS site as directed by the CE support engineer; it displays a session code.
2. Read the code to the engineer; the engineer connects and configures the Transfer software (or walks you through the Designer). Nothing else needs to be pre-installed, but the PC must be able to reach the ENET. Have an admin available in case installers prompt for credentials.
3. For Elite EVAC/MaxBank systems CE does not set up external remote access; support is done by phone with the on-site technician, and the main stations have built-in tools for testing between the machine room and the cars.

After a PC replacement:

1. Reinstall Elite PI Transfer and Designer from the CE website and copy back your saved design folder (the zip with your templates).
2. CE needs your job number (an “AJ”/”J” number) to look up your client ID, which drives the weather/news feed and ties the software to your equipment. The job number is sometimes in the design folder or file name; if it is not, CE support can find it from the sales record – you do not purchase anything again.
3. Keep a note of the job number, client ID and the ENET IP address with your design backup so the next replacement is quick.
4. If you do not know your job number when calling CE, have the site address and the elevator contractor’s name ready – CE looks up orders by those.

No. CE displays and position indicators do not play music; the speaker connection on the display is for the status announcements and for audio from a live video stream through the HDINT encoder. For background music the building needs a separate audio system.

CE’s recommended division of labor is: the elevator contractor hangs the speakers above the car ceiling, runs the speaker wiring to the machine room where CE’s audio player/responder is mounted, and continues the wiring from there to each controller; CE connects the player to the speaker wire in the machine room. The building’s IT team should be on site during the machine-room work so connections and audio output can be verified together. Document the agreed division of labor in a follow-up email before the start date. Verify with CE support.

Everything for Elite PI Transfer and Designer is on the Resources section of the CE Electronics website; each program’s page has the download, the written guide and YouTube tutorials at the bottom.

• The HDINT page has its own software and instructions.
• A new installation includes an assisted setup and Designer training session with a CE support engineer. The meeting is recorded and the recording is shared with you as a reference.
• Training covers editing the background templates, scheduled messages, flyers, floor messages and announcements, saving the design and uploading it to the displays. Only one message window shows at a time; when several messages are valid, the highest-priority one is displayed.
• Content made on a previous CE system (for example before a Moxa-to-ENET upgrade) can be reused; the software does not change with the hardware.
• If you want a web-browser version of the software, ask CE about its status – it is in late beta and not yet the standard release.