Wiring Nest to Glo Worm 30CXi boiler

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Has any one wired up a Nest Heat Link to a Glow Worm 30CXi boiler.

I've bought the nest and am very happy doing electrical work (although I know nothing about how a boiler works). Looking at the electrical diagram I thought it would be straight forward but have to say I'm really struggling.

I currently don't have a thermostat fitted.

I read the diagram that I wire the Heat Link into the boiler FCU but videos mention the 'R' wire?
 
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How is your boiler controlled/timed at the moment?
Is the NEST (single channel) just for heating, or is it dual, for hot water too?
Post a picture of the electrical connection diagram for the boiler
Ditto for the NEST
 
Step one read the instructions for boiler which on page 23 shows volt free on/off control, I have looked for the opentherm connection and as far as I can see the boiler does not have the option of an external control page 30 confirms it is a modulating boiler, but like many it seems it can only be modulated by the return water temperature.

I am an electrician not a heating engineer, however it does seem modulating the boiler output is important, and with your boiler the method used is the thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) you can swap the heads on the TRV to electronic type, and Nest is designed to work with MiHome Energenie heads, it uses "If this then that" (IFTTT) to use a follow command so either the heads follow the thermostat or the thermostat follows the heads.

I fitted two heads with the idea of then fitting Nest, however once the heads were fitted I found did not really need Nest, and also found my boiler needs a Wave thermostat it seems it is not designed to work with opentherm.

What I have worked out is a boiler works better by modulating the flame height than by simply switching on/off, however unless you use some thing like EvoHome then the problem is to tell the boiler when to switch on, switching off is the easy bit, as the water temperature rises the flame height reduces, once it can't reduce any more then it uses a mark/space ratio of switching on/off to further reduce output, it would be possible to set the boiler to completely switch off when the space exceeds a set size although this is not done, but there is nothing to tell the boiler when to start again, as once water stops flowing there is nothing to tell boiler if required.

Personally I manually switch it off in the summer, but having a thermostat to automatically switch the heating on when required is an advantage, but you don't want the heating on when likely to be a warm day, so around 18°C would be a nice point to auto switch it on, however 18°C is a bit cool in the winter, so the thermostat has to be located in a room normally kept on the cool side, with no outside doors and no heat producing items in the room, you may have such a room in a mansion, but in the normal house nearest thing is the hall, which has an outside door.

I have got around the problem by using two thermostats, one in kitchen and one in hall, and fitting a TRV in the hall, which all the instructions say don't do, but it works, however it relies on not changing the temperature, as the TRV temperature and wall thermostat temperature are matched, so change one and the other needs adjusting to match.

Since the TRV heads allow geofencing I thought I would try it, set them so when 30 miles from home heating turns on, it was a failure, what I realised is the heads use a gradual turning on and off of the water, so it will keep the room at spot on 21°C as set, but if set to 16°C then back to 21°C it will warm from 16°C to 19°C quickly, but slows down then so as not to over shoot so two hours latter before sitting at 21°C, and that is when I fiddle the thermostat to keep boiler running. Set to 25°C and 21°C is hit quite fast, so not the boiler, it is the control which is the problem.

I quickly realised the only way was using time of day, so switch to 16°C at night, then 24°C at 6 am and back down to 21°C at 8 am and it works spot on, this means the whole idea of controlling with phone rather pointless, if you have to take out your phone to manually change rather defeating the whole idea of automation and you will forget, and geofencing would need you to work 3 hours from home.

However I did try a cheap programmable thermostat, around £80 with wireless connection, when it went wrong it did not fail safe, the house either got far too hot or far too cold, because Nest has two way coms then if coms is lost it fails safe. However in my other house the use of a hard wired programmable thermostat with a non modulating boiler has worked well. In that house the TRV stops bedrooms over heating, but down stairs there is just one thermostat in an open plan house.

So back to your boiler it seems there is both a no volt and a mains voltage option. I would use the volt free option. It would seem 2 and 3 on Nest replaces the link on the boiler. But consider where to fit and if TRV heads will be added latter, clearly if a TRV head is to be added to living room radiator then the Nest thermostat should not be in that room.
 
If the Nest is to be using standard mains switched control (which is the only thing Nest supports if the boiler is not OpenTherm compatible) then the Heatlink acts like a standard 240V switched thermostat. You should follow diagram 12440 on page 28 of the manual.
https://www.glow-worm.co.uk/glow-worm/cxi-range-157150.pdf

It appears for your boiler you need the following:

1. Ensure the boiler circuit it isolated at the Consumer Unit.
2. 2-wire flex from the boiler FCU load terminals (or alternatively the line terminals on the boiler L+N) to the Nest Heat Link terminals L+N. Caution - 240V.
3. An insulated jumper wire from L on the Heatlink terminals to terminal 2 (common) on the Heatlink terminals. Caution - 240V.
4. 2-wire flex (only using 1 wire - or single wire flex if you can find it/have it) from the Nest Heat Link terminal 3 to the boiler "Mains Heating Controls Connection Plug" terminal 2 shown in diagram 12440. Caution - 240V. If using 2-wire flex, best practice would be to connect the spare conductor between Earth on the boiler line terminals to Earth on the Heatlink terminals (sheathed in yellow/green).
5. Optionally, 2 wire flex/T+E from the Heat Link terminals T1 and T2 to carry 12VDC to the Thermostat terminals T1 and T2. OR you can power the thermostat from the 5V USB connection and skip this.

Alternatively - if you can't get two wires into the L terminal on the Heatlink in step 3 (they are small) use the other conductor of the wire in step 4 to connect the L line terminal of the boiler to terminal 2 in the Heatlink.

You can of course substitute the multiple 2-core flexes with multi-core flex. If using the jumper method, you could replace the other two 240V cables with a single 3-core flex and use the insulated earth conductor as the terminal 3 connection - however you MUST clearly mark the cable with brown sleeving at both ends as it will carry 240V. Just make sure you know what is what, personally I always avoid putting 240VAC and 12VDC down the same flex to avoid the possibility of mistakes.

Provided without warranty - check this yourself before powering.
 
Last edited:
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As ericmark notes - the efficiency of the Nest is heavily impacted if it cannot use the OpenTherm protocol hence it cannot control the boiler modulation. In this case it has to rely on the boiler to do this (which it may or may not do well, or at all). You will still get all the cool 'learning' features of the Nest, but not the advanced efficiency features around outside temp compensation and modulation.
 
I read the diagram that I wire the Heat Link into the boiler FCU but videos mention the 'R' wire?

Also beware that many Nest installation videos are created for the US market version of the Nest which uses a COMPLETELY different low voltage switching system and does not have the Heatlink. In the US system the terminals are labelled Y1, W2, G, O, C, E, R. Any videos you see that mention these, you should ignore completely.
 
Thanks for the info everyone. Belated photos attached. The mains in is the white whire and seems to terminate at the on/off switch at the front of the boiler (ie behind the PCB)
31.jpg
32.jpg
33.jpg
34.jpg
35.jpg
 
Based on the diagram you posted which I have copied below.

Capture.JPG


Connect the Nest Heatlink L N & E to the "permanent mains supply" L N & E, so that the Heatlink is powered from the same fused spur as the boiler.

Then the two wires from the "Voltage Free Heating Controls Connection" shown going to "Room Thermostat" connect to the Heatlink terminals 2 and 3. [if there is presently a link between the 2 terminals, that should be removed] It doesn't matter which way around, and that's all you need to do. Do not add any links.

The boiler built in timeswitch should be set to be permanently 'on' 24/7, so that the Nest can take over control.
 
Oh what a horrible way to do wiring - having all those board plugs instead of screw terminals makes it harder.

See my post above. Because of that board you will need to use the FCU load terminals to get the L+N wiring to the Heat Link. Then a jumper from 'L' to '2' (Common) on the Heat Link.

Then you need to find the 'controls interface board' mentioned on page 28 of the manual (it sounds like its a separate board) and follow this instruction from the manual:
"Remove the MAINS VOLTAGE HEATING CONTROLS CONNECTION PLUG from the fittings pack and install on the control interface PCB as follows"

If you don't have the fittings pack, you might be out of luck.

upload_2018-2-1_13-36-13.png


Then I assume, there will be bare ends on the other end of the supplied connection plug wire, which you can put into a terminal block and attach terminal 2 on the connection block (the middle one) to terminal 3 on the Heat Link.

The boiler design has made this more complicated.
 
Based on the diagram you posted which I have copied below.

View attachment 135777

Connect the Nest Heatlink L N & E to the "permanent mains supply" L N & E, so that the Heatlink is powered from the same fused spur as the boiler.

Then the two wires from the "Voltage Free Heating Controls Connection" shown going to "Room Thermostat" connect to the Heatlink terminals 2 and 3. [if there is presently a link between the 2 terminals, that should be removed] It doesn't matter which way around, and that's all you need to do. Do not add any links.

The boiler built in timeswitch should be set to be permanently 'on' 24/7, so that the Nest can take over control.

I am not sure this works - AFAIK the Heat Link switched connections are designed to work on 240V load, not 'voltage free'. This might work, and shouldn't do any damage if you try it. My method will definitely work.

However don't mix the methods, if you connect 240V to the voltage-free terminals it will fry the boiler electronics. As it says here:

upload_2018-2-1_13-46-54.png
 
Don't worry it works. Terminals 2 and 3 of the Heatlink are potential (voltage) free contacts i.e. just a switch. They do not get any voltage from the Heatlink, and perfect for use with the "Voltage Free Heating Controls Connection" as shown below:

link.JPG


Ignoring the optional satisfied terminal (which isn't required, and shouldn't be connected) and you will see that the Heatlink provides exactly the same function as the OP's diagram from the boiler manual. It's just a switch.

Capture.JPG


However you are right when you say:
However don't mix the methods, if you connect 240V to the voltage-free terminals it will fry the boiler electronics.
Which is why I made the stipulation earlier about not adding any links between the Heatlink terminals. That is so that the 230V is kept completely separate from the isolated switching circuit that uses terminals 2 and 3.
 
Don't worry it works. Terminals 2 and 3 of the Heatlink are potential (voltage) free contacts i.e. just a switch. They do not get any voltage from the Heatlink, and perfect for use with the "Voltage Free Heating Controls Connection" at the Heatlink as shown below:

View attachment 135780

Ignoring the optional satisfied terminal (which isn't required, and shouldn't be connected) and you will see that the Heatlink provides exactly the same function as the OP's diagram from the boiler manual. It's just a switch.

View attachment 135781

However you are right when you say:

Which is why I made the stipulation earlier about not adding any links between the Heatlink terminals. That is so that the 230V is kept completely separate from the isolated switching circuit that uses terminals 2 and 3.
Fair enough. Your method looks easier then!
 
So just to avoid any doubt. Either do this:
(voltage-free switch method - NO JUMPER)
upload_2018-2-1_14-7-45.png


OR

This (240v switch method)
upload_2018-2-1_14-8-40.png


But do not mix the two.

All things considered, Stem's voltage-free method will be easiest with this boiler.
 
I'm not suggesting the OP falls into this category, but does the team think that sometimes people buy a Nest or Hive etc first because they think it looks cool, and only later do they consider if it will actually work with their system?
 
Certainly the ones we hear from.

Like those who buy remote devices when they have all the wiring in place.

Just an attractive gadget.
 

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