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Just writing up this post because I struggled to find good information on how to wire up the Nest Hello Doorbell with a common UK chime box the DETA C3500. Please note I’m not an electrician, just a normal guy that is pretty decent at some basic DIY. Make sure you seek advice of your own if you don’t know what you are doing.

There were some instructions online that showed how to wire up the Nest with different chimes and some instructions bypassing the chime box completely. I wanted to see if I could try and keep my existing chime box without having to fork out for a new one.

You obviously have your existing door chime box and the Nest Hello but additionally, items I used for my installation:

The transformer you require must be able to supply at a minimum of 12v to be able to power the camera. I got mines from Screwfix, link to it is above.

British General 8-24V 8VA Bell Transformer Module
British General 8-24V 8VA Bell Transformer Module

Here is my chime box opened up.

Chime Box
Removed cover of inbuilt transformer

First obviously turn off electricity to your door chime at your consumer unit. I then unplugged the two blocks of wires with the left block blue and brown being the mains voltage supply, and the right block white and blue thinner wires that go to the door bell itself. I removed the chime box from the wall so it was easier to work with wiring it up.

Mains and door bell wire
Mains and door bell wire

What is needed are the two coming out of the solenoid, i.e. the hammer to the chime, mines were covered in a plastic see through sheath. You need to keep these 2 wires connected to the solenoid so you have to cut them off as close to the circuit board as possible so that you retain maximum length on the wiring. I had troubles with the wiring in that one of them snapped off the solenoid, so I had to dismantle to see how I could salvage but luckily it was just coil wiring so there was plenty. The hardest part was actually trying to pry off the cover to the solenoid, it took almost an hour!

Where to cut the wires highlighted in red and me dismantling the solenoid

Wire cut illustrated

And here is the wiring diagram for my installation, note the yellow wire represents white.

Wiring Diagram

I did a little test with the wiring before I actually installed the Nest doorbell to the outside. I installed the app and started doing the setup to make sure the wiring was ok.

Testing the camera

After I was happy with the wiring, I then wired the Nest doorbell to my existing bell wires outside. It doesn’t matter which way around the two wires go here according to Nest’s video instructions.

Nest doorbell

Wired up but as you can see, the new transformer is a monster so it will not fit into the chime box. I had to order an enclosure to make it tidy.

Nest Hello Chime box wiring with transformer

A week later with the new enclosure the installation is now looking decent.

Chime beside transformer

Tided up wiring

Neat and tidy installation

Hope you find this useful. I have also uploaded a YouTube video in which I describe my installation too.

I couldn’t find much online on getting some tips on replacing headlightsl bulbs on the Mercedes-Benz A-Class so, I’m writing this post as a quick hints and tips guide.

To start, an A-Class that has standard halogen bulbs, the dipped headlights are H7 type. To access the headlight unit holding the dipped headlights, you have to go underneath the wheel arch and search for an access hatch on the wheel arch lining. Once you open the wheel arch lining hatch, you can then turn the circle lid to open up the weather sealed headlight hatch to gain access to the bulb itself. You shoudl see something like this now.

Now, you see those screws? They are deceiving, you don’t need to touch those at all. All you have  to do is twist the bulb conector anticlockwise and the bulb is unlocked from the unit.

Next stagebit to disconnect the wired connector from the bulb itself, just a small pull and your just left with an empty connector. 

Now it’s just a case of putting it all back together after the new bulb is in. 

Hopefully some of these photos help you to picture the process. The only think i found that was quite difficult was to close the hatch on the wheel arch lining. There is not much room to replace the hatch as you have to try and do this from the bonnet side.

The bulbs I installed were Philips X-tremeVision. This is a photo showing OEM bulb on the righy with the Philips on the left.

I had bought the Dual Band Asus DSL-AC68U AC1900 modem/ router to replace the BT Homehub 5 on BT Infinity fibre broadband,  I was getting pretty bad dropouts and signal degradation through some bits of the house.

I had a nightmare of a time trying to get the router connected to the Internet and, in the end I managed to successfully connect it to BT Infinity 1.

You could go through the quick setup option but you’d still have to click the manage settings option to configure further settings. 

Quick setup option I choose was BT Infinity no vlan.

Here are the settings I used to successfully connect to BT Infinity.

Asus ac

Use PPPOE mode and

username: bthomehub@btbroadband.com

Password : bt

The most important setting to get it connecting was VLAN ID = 101 and ensure you enable 802.1q. 

The DSL Settings that I used that gave pretty good performance.

*** UPDATE 26/11/2016 ****

Please Enable G.INP (G.998.4) – BT have implemented that on some cabinets apparently! I managed to get an extra  3Mb on my download data rate.

DSL AC68U DSL Settings
DSL AC68U DSL Settings for BT Infinity

Line Stats
Line Stats

References:

https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity-Speed-Connection/Asus-rt-ac68u-FTTC-MTU-settings-purchased-from-the-BT-Shop/td-p/1121908