Hey friends,
I have wired up my blue series fan switch using Line, Load, Neutral, Gnd to a multi speed ceiling fan.
Problem: The fan only works at high speed when it should work at all speeds.
I ensured:
It previously worked at all speeds but the catch is this ceiling fan used a Lutron SFS-5E fully variable dimmer. It has a smooth slider where I can set the fan to any speed.
What is the make and model number of the fan?
@Bry thank you for replying. It is this one.
Thanks. The fan model looks ok.
When you press the paddle, does the LED bar change level?
Also, how did you set the Switch Mode parameter?
Yes when I use the paddle the LED bar fills up more or less and in home assistant I can also see the speed changing through off, low, med, high.
Switch type set to single pole.
When you installed the switch, did you test to determine which was the line and which was the load?
I just confirmed again with a multimeter that when the switch is off and measuring between ground and the line terminal I am measuring 110ish volts
Ok, probably better to measure between the Line and the NEUTRAL, not the ground. Please check between Line and Neutral and see if you get approx 110 VAC.
To compare, check the voltage in a receptacle. Measure between the Line and Neutral. i.e the two blades, not the ground hole. See if you get approx 110 VAC. 110 may be standard in your area.
Then, turn the fan switch on and set it to Low. You should only see LEDs in the LED bar lit 1/3 - 1/2 of the way. Confirm in the hub that it’s set to Low. Then measure between the NEUTRAL and the LOAD and post that measurement.
Thanks Bry for the continued help.
I just did a factory reset and reconfigured the switch again being sure to have it set to ceiling fan.
Then I retook the measurements, always now using Neutral for the black probe on the DMM.
Line (inovelli switch): 121 V AC
Load - high speed: 121
Load - med: 11.8
Load - low: 1.2
I’m not sure what these medium and low voltages are typically supposed to be but they sure seem quite low to me.
I agree, they are very low. What is even stranger is that you have 1.2 VAC on the Load when set to low, but your fan is still running at full speed? That makes no sense.
Can you please post pictures of the switch installation. Pull the switch out and take pics of the connections and so I can see into the box and trace the wires there.
No Bry correction.
The fan only physically spins when at the high speed setting and there it is clearly also at full power.
On medium and low it just does not spin at all, no humming either.
Got it. I misunderstood when you said the fan only works at high speed. I was thinking that it worked at all three settings but the speed did not change.
I’d still like to see the pics.
In my mind there are three possibilities:
Note also that the switch does indeed report that it’s in Neutral power mode in home assistant.
No traveler wire is present.
Thanks. Unfortunately, it’s tough to work with the pics you took. The switch and the conductors need to be pulled out as far as possible so all the connections are visible. For example, I’d like to trace all 3 conductors on that 3-wire that’s carrying the load.
I can see the load is connected to the red of a 3-wire coming in from the top of the box, but I can’t see where the other two conductors go.
BTW, you’re only complicating things with a 1 or 2 in pigtail and a Wago. That red conductor is long enough to attach to the switch directly. So that Wago and pigtail serve no purpose, and they’re blocking looking into the box.
Are you sure this is a 2-way? There isn’t another switch for this fan? I’m asking because of the 3-wire. It could very well be a 2-way, even with the 3-wire, but my experience here tells me I better ask.
BTW, when you throw the breaker to the fan, are the remainder of the switches in the box rendered powerless as well?
Thanks Bry I will do better with my next round of pics coming later today.
A few quick answers:
Got it. Let’s hold off on swapping the switch until we explore a little further.
It’s possible that the 3-wire is bringing power to the box, so as I mentioned, it doesn’t always mean it’s a 3-way. I’ll wait for better pictures so we can trace all 3 conductors.
You wanted to know where those wires are going. From left to right the 3 conductors in the bundle you circled:
Left - red wire - load for ceiling fan
Middle - black wire - goes to the load terminal of the middle switch in the junction box. There are 3 switches here: ceiling fan, unidentified switch in the middle, overhead ceiling lights.
Right - white wire - goes to the neutral bundle
Ok, thanks. That makes sense.
Does the middle switch actually switch anything? If it doesn’t, it may have been from a prior fan that had a light. That’s typically fed with a 3-wire, so that would explain the 3-wire even with a fan with no light.
That all looks fine to me. So we’re down to either a defective switch or some weirdness with that fan that is drawing down the voltage.
At this point, I’d swap the switch out and see if you get the same behavior.
Running out of options . . . .
Swapped both the switches.
The previous switch that was known good on my other fan reproduces the problem, only spins the fan of interest on high speed.
Measured voltages again, load vs neutral
High - 123 V AC
Med - 11 V AC
Low - 5 V aC
Again very odd to see these low numbers but this confirms that this fan we are trying to control is doing something odd.
The switch we have been debugging works fine in the known good fan in the other room so this also proves that the switch itself is not faulty.
What’s unique about this variable speed dumb dimmer switch compared to your inovelli blue design? It’s the Lutron Skylark SFS 5E. It has a linear slider rather than preset speeds but still appears to be an AC dimmer.
I’m wondering if it’s the two motors pulling the voltage down. Someone else here is just complaining of the same problem with two fans in parallel. Can you possibly drop the fan and see if you can disconnect one of the motors and see what the behavior is? There may be two separate hot leads and two separate neutral leads which will make it easy to do. You could just disconnect one of the hots.
