HS-WD100+ OK For Ceiling Fans?

[waynehead99]

Correction... 4 wires, there needs to be a "red" wire in the bundle. Usually used for traveler in a 3 way setup, or in your case, a fan and a light. Basically two separate load wires going back to the fan to control the fan and the light independently. Long day already, I apologize.

They also make a double relay that fits in a single gang box. I use it to control my Whole House Fan (has two fans independently controlled). Again, you don't get speed control for the fan, or dimmer. But another thought.

Agreed, more info is needed on your setup to get the right details.

I guess I am just babbling now.

[egotten]

Fan/Light Control

Thanks for the replies.

My current setup is a single switch on the wall (that turns power to the fan on and off, everything is really controlled via the fan remote). This is inside a double gang box but the other switch on that box controls a power outlet on the same room so basically the fan switch has only one load line going to the fan and inside the fan canopy the receiver for the remote control that comes with the fan has then 4 wires (white for neutral, black for fan, blue for light and green for ground). I have seen the Insteon Fanlic that could be placed instead of the current fan remote receiver on the canopy but currently I am only using a z-wave network and I am not sure how reliable would be to install the Insteon plugin to my Hometroller zee and run also an Insteon network with only a couple of devices on it ( a have only a couple of rooms with the fan/light combo). It appears that the best and most elegant option to do this with z-wave would be if I could run another load line from the box to the fan fixture and then connect two separate switches (one for the fan and one for the light) and get rid of the second switch I currently have on the gang box (the one used to control the power outlet on that room) which I currently don't use anyway . I will look into the you tube videos but I don't have an attic above this room so don't know how hard would be to pass a new load wire from the box to the fan fixture.

[S-F]

3 conductor romex won't work! The light and the fan each need their own neutral from the switch to the load. I made this mistake and the light would turn off when the fan turned off. Bath fan is on a timer. More than once some one had to finish their business in the dark.

[sirmeili]

3 conductor romex won't work! The light and the fan each need their own neutral from the switch to the load. I made this mistake and the light would turn off when the fan turned off. Bath fan is on a timer. More than once some one had to finish their business in the dark.

The switches should be switching the hot, not the neutral. They should be able to share a neutral without issue. This is how all my ceiling fans are wired (3-wire from ceiling fan to the wall; 2 hots, 1 common).

[randy]

3 conductor romex won't work! The light and the fan each need their own neutral from the switch to the load. I made this mistake and the light would turn off when the fan turned off. Bath fan is on a timer. More than once some one had to finish their business in the dark.

That doesn't make any sense. All of my ceiling fans use 3-conductor romex (14-3 w/ground) from the wall to the ceiling. Even with 2 separate runs of two conductor romex the neutrals would be tied together at the box.

[waynehead99]

I think Colin got his wires mixed up

Anyways, you are kinda short on options then if they only ran 3 conductor wire. You can't put a dimmer there, because of previous posts that a fan can't be on a dimmer. Plus this would affect the light.

Really you have two options (Option 2 is a subset of a couple different choices)
- Run 4 conductor romex (probably not feasible, or at least not easy)
- Put Aeon's smart micro controllers up in the fan housing (lose local control of either the light or the fan, because the original switch can still be used to at least control one)



Now the second one if it were me, I would get two micro switches, one that is an on/off for the fan and just set the pull chain to the speed you normally use. You don't get speed control, but you get on/off at least. I would get another micro switch that is a dimmer and put that one on the light. Tie this one into the switch, so at least you have local control to turn it on/off. But you won't get local dimmer control from these switches, just on/off. You can control the dimmer from HS and events.

Or, just leave it as it is. You won't be able to put any kinda switch in the gang box that will reasonable control both without issues, unless you replace the romex.

[sirmeili]

I think Colin got his wires mixed up

Anyways, you are kinda short on options then if they only ran 3 conductor wire. You can't put a dimmer there, because of previous posts that a fan can't be on a dimmer. Plus this would affect the light.

Really you have two options (Option 2 is a subset of a couple different choices)
- Run 4 conductor romex (probably not feasible, or at least not easy)
- Put Aeon's smart micro controllers up in the fan housing (lose local control of either the light or the fan, because the original switch can still be used to at least control one)



Now the second one if it were me, I would get two micro switches, one that is an on/off for the fan and just set the pull chain to the speed you normally use. You don't get speed control, but you get on/off at least. I would get another micro switch that is a dimmer and put that one on the light. Tie this one into the switch, so at least you have local control to turn it on/off. But you won't get local dimmer control from these switches, just on/off. You can control the dimmer from HS and events.

Or, just leave it as it is. You won't be able to put any kinda switch in the gang box that will reasonable control both without issues, unless you replace the romex.

I guess it depends on how you define 3 conductor wire. 3-wire Romex has 3 conductors and a ground Normally with Romex you only count the insulated wires. With 3 conductor wire, you should have 1 neutral, 2 hots, and 1 ground (12/3 romex is 12GA with 3 conductors and a ground).. You can easily run 1 dimmer and 1 fan control to a ceiling fan using 3 conductor wire (as they share the neutral wire).


So I will understand of Colin is counting the ground. I don't think that Randy and I were counting them

[waynehead99]

I guess it depends on how you define 3 conductor wire. 3-wire Romex has 3 conductors and a ground Normally with Romex you only count the insulated wires. With 3 conductor wire, you should have 1 neutral, 2 hots, and 1 ground (12/3 romex is 12GA with 3 conductors and a ground).. You can easily run 1 dimmer and 1 fan control to a ceiling fan using 3 conductor wire (as they share the neutral wire).


So I will understand of Colin is counting the ground. I don't think that Randy and I were counting them

Correct, 14-2 technically has 3 wires in it, as the ground isn't counted. You would need 14-3 to make this work right.

I guess I should've put the actual numbers in there, but also kinda figured that he was just plain counting the wires in the box.

[S-F]

No. I meant 12/14 3 romex. Red, black, white and bare copper. And the situation I described previously does happen. I have spoken to Jasco about it and they confirmed it. I also saw many mentions of this on the Vera forum. It happens without fail here. I also had problems with a GE toggle switch sharing a neutral witha GE dimmer 3-way that they confirmed for me. I could upload pictures of my wiring and a video of it happening if need be. The bath fan is on a timer. When the time expires the light goes out immediately without dimming down to 0%.

[waynehead99]

That's strange. I could understand neutrals being tied together. My house has all the neutrals tied together in the box and then all off them go back to the main box tied on a rail. Ground obviously is the same way. Hots can be tied together if they are sharing the same breaker (well i guess that is obvious ), but generally speaking loads shouldn't be tied together, except in this case they are.

Generally when you see only a hot and a neutral going to a ceiling gang, it was because it was initially wired for only a light and no fan (which brings up other concerns if the gang can handle the weight, but that's another topic for another day).

Whenever I wire a switch in that requires a neutral, I just untwist the cap on the neutral bundle in the back of the box and tie it in. Don't see any reason this would be any different from having only one neutral going to the ceiling fan and light and they both be tied together in the ceiling gang. At least thats how its done in these neck of the woods.

Maybe I am just confused by what you are saying Colin and we are saying the same thing, but in different ways. Very possible.

[randy]

No. I meant 12/14 3 romex. Red, black, white and bare copper. And the situation I described previously does happen. I have spoken to Jasco about it and they confirmed it. I also saw many mentions of this on the Vera forum. It happens without fail here. I also had problems with a GE toggle switch sharing a neutral witha GE dimmer 3-way that they confirmed for me. I could upload pictures of my wiring and a video of it happening if need be. The bath fan is on a timer. When the time expires the light goes out immediately without dimming down to 0%.

I don't need to see proof, it just doesn't make sense. There should only be a single neutral supplied to any wall box. How the neutral gets to the attached fixtures varies. All of my 2-gang, 3-gang and even one 4-gang share a single neutral. My upstairs and downstairs bathrooms have a switch and a dimmer sharing neutrals. They each have a separate 14-2 romex runs going to the lights and the fan, but all the neutrals are wired together. Both bathrooms had a Jasco switch and dimmer, then a Cooper switch and dimmer and now HomeSeer switch and dimmer. Never had a problem. Our three bedrooms all have ceiling fans with light fixtures built in. They are wired with a single 14-3 romex from the box to the fans. The first iteration was a Jasco dimmer with a manual fan control, then a Cooper dimmer with a Leviton fan control and then finally a GE fan control and a HomeSeer dimmer. All were wired with the neutrals wired together and a single neutral to the fan. Never have had a problem. Every ceiling fan I have seen shares a neutral between the lights and fan motor.

[egotten]

Fan and Light Control

The problem is that currently my wire going from the gang box to the ceiling fan has only one hot, one neutral and ground. I don't have an attic so in order to pass a new wire with 2 hot, one neutral and ground I will need to make several holes on the drywall which I was trying to avoid to keep wife happy. Anyone has experience with Insteon and the Fanlinc device?

Thanks.

[integlikewhoa]

The problem is that currently my wire going from the gang box to the ceiling fan has only one hot, one neutral and ground. I don't have an attic so in order to pass a new wire with 2 hot, one neutral and ground I will need to make several holes on the drywall which I was trying to avoid to keep wife happy. Anyone has experience with Insteon and the Fanlinc device?

Thanks.

So your easy option is to put a in wall on/off switch up in the fan and use that to control fan via zwave only. Use a double tap dimmer switch on the wall to control dimming lights and use thr double tap on or off feature to turn fan on or off. No speed control. If you have no constant power in fan then your going to have more problems and probley need a scene controller with a double in wall relay in the fan.

[egotten]

Fan and Light Control

What about installing two different switches up in the fan canopy (I would just split the hot load wire into 2 to feed each switch). One would be an on/off switch to go to the light and the other a GE fan switch to go to the fan and then on the wall run the hot wire coming from the breaker straight into the load wire going to the fan and install 2 wall mounted z-wave transmitter such as:

https://www.amazon.com/Evolve-Guest-.../dp/B008OF8CJO

http://store.homeseer.com/store/Line...ter-P1623.aspx

That way there is always going to be power to both switches up in the canopy (and there won't be the risk of someone turning off power to them by clicking on the wall switch and disconnecting them from the z wave network) and then I can associate one of of the wall z-wave transmitter switch to the fan switch on the canopy and the other to the light switch on the canopy. I should then be able to use HStouch to control light and fan independently (including fan speeds) and also if someone wants to turn the light or the fan on or off from the wall switch they could do it as well without disconnecting everything from the z wave network. Basically the 2 wall transmitter switches will act as non wired 3 way switches. Do you think this could work?

[DESIi1]

Controlling the GE Fan Switch with Alexa?

Has anyone successfully controlled the GE type Ceiling Fan switches with Alexa?