Converting remote control ceiling fan to a wall controller


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Old 01-20-17, 11:05 AM
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Converting remote control ceiling fan to a wall controller

I need a little help in my project of converting a remote control ceiling fan over to a 3 speed wall switch. The fan is a Home Decorators Altura 68" fan from Home Depot if that helps. The reviews on this fan are pretty clear that the remote control receiver is junk and I didn't want a remote control anyway and I already had the 3 speed wall switch from the Altura 60" fan I moved into another room (the 60" fan comes with a wall controller for whatever reason). So I figured I'd save some money and buy the fan on eBay that was "missing" the receiver. I figured since I had the 60" fan as a reference that I could make it work with the wall switch. When I got the 68" fan, I compared the two and all the wires are the same colors and the connectors are the same. I thought I was set! So I plugged the reverse switch and capacitor harness from the 60" fan into the 68" fan to make sure the motor worked and it did but it hummed. I assumed because the capacitor was the wrong size (it was a 4.25uF capacitor and the only capacitor). I went to HD and they let me open the box of another fan to try and see the capacitors inside the receiver. It had one big 5.5uF capacitor and 2 thinner 6uF capacitors. I assumed the larger one was for high speed so I ordered a 5.5uF CBB61 capacitor and I bought the wiring harness for the 60" fan from King of Fans (manufacturer) so I could just solder in resistor in and make it all look "factory." So I did that and the fan still hums (not sure if its louder than with the smaller capacitor). I attached the 4.25uF capacitor in parallel with the 5.5uF capacitor to see if I needed a larger capacitor in case the two 6uF capacitors were used for high speed in the receiver and that made the fan hum much louder. So unless I have this backwards that the larger capacitor makes the fan run faster and I need to get a 3uF capacitor (since I know two 6uF capacitors in series would be equal to a 3uF) to get high speed, I'm not exactly sure what to do. I was wondering if maybe changing the switch was the problem so I bought a different kind of switch at HD today and was going to try it, maybe I need to find the same switch that the 60" fan came with but that fan works fine with no humming on the switch I already have. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to cover everything I've done.
 
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Old 01-20-17, 11:40 AM
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I suggest that you re-write your post using proper paragraphs. No one is going to read what you have posted in its entirety.
 
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Old 01-21-17, 12:55 PM
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Welcome to the forums.

Did you remove the wireless remote receiver that had all the capacitors inside of it ?
How are you getting multiple wires down to your in wall multi speed fan switch ?

In this case pictures will be required so that we can see the wiring at the fan and the wall switch you are using. http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html
 
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Old 01-22-17, 05:27 AM
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It won't let me edit my post now but I can see it changed a lot of punctuation into different characters for some reason. But if anyone here will be able to help me with this, they're going to need to read everything I've posted in its entirety anyway.
 
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Old 01-22-17, 05:32 AM
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That's part of my problem, I never had the remote receiver for this fan. The seller actually told me the fan would work without it but once I got the fan I found out otherwise (obviously) and then I started doing my research and found out how ceiling fans actually work. I wish I had the receiver, even if it was broken, because then I could take it apart and see if I could tell how it works. Or maybe there's another capacitor inside it that I can't see through the opening and that's really the one I need. All the videos I watched on Youtube showed people taking the broken receiver apart and using the capacitor out of it. Hindsight is 20/20. If I had known all of this, I would have either bought the fan from a different seller that had the receiver with it or just bought another 60" fan that doesn't use the remote in the first place like I want.

It's an AC motor with the two windings, it has 4 wires that go into the motor. The wall controller is nothing special, just one from Home Depot. I suspect it has its own internal capacitors to control the speed.
 
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Old 01-23-17, 06:12 PM
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I don't know if this helps or not but I got my hands on the actual receiver for this fan to try and see if there was another capacitor in there that I missed and there wasn't but I did misread one of them. It actually has the physically largest 5.5uF 350vac capacitor, then a physically medium sized 9uF 160vac capacitor, and a physically smallest 6uF capacitor. I know each of these should be for the 3 speeds its capable of from the research I've done and it appears the larger the capacitance the faster the fan should go? Meaning the 9uF capacitor should be for full speed even though it isn't physically the largest? I'm not sure if I should risk another $10 on a 9uF capacitor in hopes of running this fan how I want to with the wall controller or if I should just give up now and spend the $50 on a new remote receiver.

It just bothers me that the 9uF capacitor is only capable of handling 160vac. And also that I combined the 4.25uF capacitor and the 5.5uF capacitor to equal 9.75uF and the fan motor still hummed but much louder than with just either the 4.25uF or 5.5uF capacitors. Is it normal for the motor to hum if the capacitance is too high or too low? It was my understanding that the motor would hum it was too low but I could be wrong in that (or all of this...).
 
 

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