I have two LZW36 fan+light combo switches installed, but I’ve been having an issue where at the middle power levels the fan will stop spinning.
I haven’t tested all 100 levels, but the fan will spin at 25% and 33%, but 50% or 66% they won’t. By the time it gets to 75% to ‘on’ then it spins again.
This happens the same if I’m using HomeSeer to set a value, or just using the fan speed up/down buttons on the switch itself; two clicks up from off should be 66% which is what HomeSeer reports it being set to, but the fan will just spin-down and stop.
I’ve set both fans to ‘on’ with the switch and ensured that via the pull-cords they’re in the “max” speed, but am at a loss for what else to check or try.
The ceiling fans are basic Kichler (330110NI) fans and nothing out of the ordinary. Both Fan+Light switches are running the 1.36 firmware.
You are only going to get the three speeds (H/M/L) that your fan is capable of. These are the same as if the fan was directly powered and you pulled the pull chain to cycle through low, medium and high. I don’t know Homeseer, but you may have to experiment with the percentages that produce those three speeds and stick with those.
Yeah, I get that only the set levels will really produce outputs. But I couldn’t recall where it stops working and where it starts again.
And this isn’t a HomeSeer issue based on all of my testing. If I use the switch only and turn it up two levels (so assuming a three-level 33/66/99 setting from the switch, it’d be when it gets to the 66% setting) the fan will stop spinning. Pressing it again to put it at 99/full will start it up again and have it spin at full speed.
Setting the fan to various % experiments:
1% - Turns on breeze mode,
2%-33% spins
34%-66% does not spin, inertia will stop the blades
67%-99% spins
I don’t see any difference in speed from 2-33% nor 67-99%. Trying to set the value to 100% seems to just drop it back to 99%, which appears to be the “full on” level.
So in essence it seems I’m getting two fan speed options. Prior to the LZW36 I had a single-gang fan+light analog combo switch, and that worked fine to give four fan levels, Lo-Med-High-Max. I also have a HomeSeer fan switch on another of this fan model in my living room (without the light module) and that also works at multiple values.
I guess my next step is buying a tachometer (yay for excuses to buy tools!) and verify I’m only seeing two speeds through the LZW36. If I’m seeing the expected “Low” and “High” speeds, then it seems like it’s failing to spin the fan for a “Medium” setting.
As always, I’d appreciate any other thoughts or insights. Amazon lists the non-contact laser digital tach will be here Thursday.
So this is the response we got from our manufacturer.
Sorry if you answered this earlier - but what fan are you using and do you know the amps/wattage on it? I don’t completely understand what he’s saying but I’m going to tag @EricM_Inovelli again as he may have a better answer. It seems most modern ceiling fans use between 0.5 and 1 amp so I’m not sure if this is the actual cause of the failure.
Power factor of 1 (perfect) at 70 watts at 120V would be ~0.58A.
Power factor of 0.90 (lowest allowed) would be ~0.65A
Power factor of .75 (far far worse of a case than the allowed lower value of 0.90) would be 0.78A
So if they’re saying they’ve tested to 1A, this fan shouldn’t be capable of exceeding that; the only way I could see that happen would be a fault in the fan itself which would cause an over-current, but then this loss-of-middle-speed has happened to me on both of my LZW36 units on two different of these installed fans. So I don’t think that’s too likely to have happened.
