Boulter Camray 5 Oil Boiler thermostat

freeflow · Post by **freeflow** » Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:07 am

Hi
We got a Camray 5 Oil Boiler with a timer control panel, is it possible to fit a room thermostat instead or have timer and room thermostat? How would it control both turning the boiler on and turn on the heating pump? Can you get wireless models?
Thanks

salfordpaul · Post by **salfordpaul** » Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:44 am

Yes you’d have to disconnect the clock on the boiler

freeflow · Post by **freeflow** » Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:48 am

salfordpaul wrote: ↑Sat Nov 16, 2019 7:44 am Yes you’d have to disconnect the clock on the boiler

I take it you mean the timer? Do I then conect the thermostat to those terminals?

ericmark · Post by **ericmark** » Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:20 pm

: temp.jpg (83.65 KiB) Viewed 2283 times

This it seems is wiring diagram as to if there is a pump run on I don't know, but the thermostat or timer connects 1 and 3 together. I assume the existing timer control panel is not built into boiler something like this

: Danfoss3060programmer.jpg (169.74 KiB) Viewed 2283 times

which is the one I removed from my boiler, it was the only control.

Oil boilers are not in the main modulating, that is some thing normally only found with gas, so the thermostat is a simple on/off switch, however the problem is where to put a wall thermostat so it can control whole house, mine is in the hall and around dead centre of the house, but it is a silly place as heat from the hall radiator or any of the surrounding rooms takes a long time to reach the thermostat, so in spite of being a smart thermostat, I have to set it to rise 0.5°C every hour so it does not over shoot when it turns on in the morning.

The whole idea of a thermostat on the opposite wall to radiator does not work in my house, even in living room there are two radiators at 90 degs to each other, so the single wall thermostat is not very good at controlling temperature, it is more an on/off switch, the room temperatures are controlled by the thermostatic radiator valves (TRV) I have 14 in the house. 4 standard wax type in the granny flat also a thermostat on the wall of granny flat kitchen, what a silly place to put it above the cooker.

So main house the shower/toilet has a standard wax type, the bathroom does not have a TRV it is thermo syphon when ever the boiler runs, in hall, dinning room and living room there are 4 wifi heads which can be linked to the wall thermostat, unfortunately the linking does not work very well, and 5 stand alone programmable heads in the kitchen and bedrooms.

So in main house only the toilets don't have programmable TRV heads. And the TRV heads which are wifi were expensive at around £45 each, but the bluetooth heads eQ-3 were just £15 each and non bluetooth cost around £10 each so the big question is do I really need the expensive Nest wall thermostat? Well in my case the problem was only two wires between the boiler in granny flat and house, and Nest can control both DHW and CH with 2 wires so yes for me Nest was worth it.

But it would not matter what wall thermostat, where it is mounted it's daft, so really it is more a timer than thermostat. Even the TRV in the hall is not very good, the idea is in a room air circulates so return air controls the TRV, but in my hall there is a set of stairs so air does not really circulate.

So big question would fitting programmable TRV heads work for you? They are easy to fit, no wiring involved, and as the water flow reduces the boiler starts to cycle so it controls it's own output, when I fitted a cheap wireless programmable thermostat I found it did not fail safe, so if anything interfered with the signal or batteries went flat it could fail to turn off, the more expensive non programmable thermostat at around £100 did have fail safe, but not much cheaper than Hive, so is it worth it?

Hive has a unusual way of working, their own programmable TRV heads send a signal called "Heat on Demand" which makes the wall thermostat switch on for half hour even if the wall thermostat is not calling for heat, so once the TRV heads are fitted they control the boiler through the wall thermostat. EvoHome works by the wall thermostat being more like a hub, so you set the TRV from the main panel but again it is the TRV's that control the central heating boiler in the end.

Nest is reverse the wall thermostat should tell all the Energenie TRV's what temperature is set, unfortunately, it does not work, so I have manually set same times for temperature change.

So design the system you want in 5 years time, then select which bits to buy first. Any programmable TRV's need to match the wall thermostat if wifi, or simply set same times if not, but clearly don't want to buy them twice, so work out what to get as final goal then slowly add the bits.

freeflow · Post by **freeflow** » Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:33 am

Thanks for that, will any thermostat do, even the wireless one, also how do I control the centralheating pump to come on?

ericmark · Post by **ericmark** » Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:32 pm

As far as I can see there are a few ways to turn on the pump, some are controlled by the boiler, some by a motorised valve, some with the motorised valve, the idea is the programmer and/or thermostat demand heat, but we want the motorised valve to open before the pump starts, and some times we want the boiler to run without the pump, and there is just one micro switch in the pump, so person wiring has to decide if he is going to use the micro switch to work pump or boiler, and if to install relays or not.

Theory is OK we say S plan or Y plan, but in practice some programmers have the contacts linked to clock supply, other they are volt free, so you can have same boiler, pump and programmer in two houses but wired slightly different.

freeflow · Post by **freeflow** » Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:42 pm

ericmark wrote: ↑Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:32 pm As far as I can see there are a few ways to turn on the pump, some are controlled by the boiler, some by a motorised valve, some with the motorised valve, the idea is the programmer and/or thermostat demand heat, but we want the motorised valve to open before the pump starts, and some times we want the boiler to run without the pump, and there is just one micro switch in the pump, so person wiring has to decide if he is going to use the micro switch to work pump or boiler, and if to install relays or not.

Theory is OK we say S plan or Y plan, but in practice some programmers have the contacts linked to clock supply, other they are volt free, so you can have same boiler, pump and programmer in two houses but wired slightly different.

Just got around looking at this, my timer has got mains supply and iam concerned how to ling the wires.

: Thermostat wiring.png (384.41 KiB) Viewed 2124 times

: danfos timer label.png (2.4 MiB) Viewed 2124 times

: wiring conetion danfos.png (2.75 MiB) Viewed 2124 times

Do i connect to live or nuturual, 3 an 4 togeher in one of my terminals and then where do i connect to after that?to live or nutrual?

gas4you · Post by **gas4you** » Fri Jan 10, 2020 7:09 pm

As working with 240v mains can be dangerous and you seem unsure of what you are doing, I would recommend getting a heating engineer in to do the work.

ericmark · Post by **ericmark** » Sat Jan 11, 2020 2:44 am

It is hard to work out where each wire goes, but N, L and 4 are clearly marked on the programmers plate, so you should be able to run a 5 core cable to a thermostat, removing wire from 4 and putting it in a connection block, then running a pair from connection block and number 4 to the contacts on the thermostat com and N/O plus L, N, E to power it should work. However I can't work out if you thermostat is battery or mains powered, if battery then LNE not required.

As said if your not happy, then get some one in, should not need the skill of a heating and ventilating engineer to fit a thermostat, hardly need a degree to do that work, a simple electrician should be able to do that.