Home phone won't work with Epson Stylus Office BX305FW

margeproops

Hi I have just bought this new All-in-one printer and set it up. Everything is fine except that when the home phone line is put through the EXT port using RJ11 cable from the fax to the phone I cannot get a dial tone on the phone. The fax works but the phone will not work when connected through the fax. Has anyone any ideas? Thanks.

santer_2

Is it connected as per this?

http://www.epson.co.uk/Store/Printers-and-All-in-Ones/Epson-Stylus-Office-BX305FW/Drivers-Support?target=article&extn=.html&articleId=3277

If yes, their live chat is worth using in office hours

http://www.epson.co.uk/Contact-Us

fwor

If connected round the right way as per the diagram above, you may need a special cable rather than a standard RJ11 one, as IIRC BT phones are wired in a non-conventional way.

Last time I tried to connect a BT phone to a device with an RJ11 socket I had to swap wires (outer two wires to inner two and vice versa) for it to work.

margeproops

Hi thanks for your replies. It is definitely connected as per the diagram. I suspect as you say the BT cable isn't compatible with the printer. Do you have any idea which cable I need to buy?

fwor

It's difficult to be sure without knowing exactly how the printer's sockets are wired.

What worked for me was to put back the standard BT lead on the phone and use a BT socket to RJ11 plug adaptor, which you can get off eBay for around £3. Note that this is not the commonly-used adaptor, which has a BT plug and an RJ11 socket, and obviously won't work in this situation.

margeproops

Just to update I've received a message back from the Epson support team after I submitted a query on their online form last night. They are saying that the BX305FW isn't compatible with a digital phone.

I am very surprised at this - it's a recent machine and I would have thought that digital would be standard.

They have told me to plug in an analogue phone to test the EXT slot - haven't had one of those for years! And why do they think I need to test it if the problem is just the phone I have.

fwor

margeproops wrote: »

They have told me to plug in an analogue phone to test the EXT slot - haven't had one of those for years!

Just to be clear here: any phone that plugs into a standard BT phone line will be an analogue phone. Even a DECT "digital" cordless phone will be analogue from its base station back to the exchange.

If you are at all practical and have an RJ11 to RJ11 cable spare you can do what I did initially: cut it in half, bare the ends and twist together the outer two (it should be a flat cable) on one side with the inner two on the other, and vice versa. Colours vary, but typically this means connecting black and yellow on one side to green and red on the other, and vice versa. It doesn't matter which way round (e.g. black can go to green or red).