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Wayne Whitney
 
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Default Wall speed controls for ceiling fans

Hello,

I'm a little confused on how (and how efficiently) speed controls for
ceiling fans work. I understand that there are two types of speed
controls--capacitor based controls (with discrete speed levels) and
triac based controls (which can be continuous). I'm using the Hunter
Vista fan, which has a capacitor-based 3-speed control built in. So,
a few questions:

1) How do capacitor based speed controls work? I was under the
impression that an induction motor's speed was fixed by its design
and the AC frequency.

2) Are the capacitor based speed controls more energy efficient than
the solid state controls? In particular, I understand that triac
based lighting dimmers use a small amount of power themselves.
Does this hold true for triac based fan speed controls, and not
hold true for capacitor based fan speed controls?

3) Will a wall capacitor based speed control work as well as the
built-in capacitor based speed control on the fan itself? I ask
because in the wall there are just hot and neutral, while the fan
motor has 4 wires going to it.

4) Is every "rotary action" discrete fan speed control going to be
capacitor based, or are some actually triac based? In particular
I'm interested in the Hampton Bay 750 450 discrete speed control,
I'll have to call them tomorrow to double check.

Thanks,
Wayne

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willshak
 
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Default

On 1/25/2005 6:17 PM US(ET), Wayne Whitney took fingers to keys, and
typed the following:

Hello,

I'm a little confused on how (and how efficiently) speed controls for
ceiling fans work. I understand that there are two types of speed
controls--capacitor based controls (with discrete speed levels) and
triac based controls (which can be continuous). I'm using the Hunter
Vista fan, which has a capacitor-based 3-speed control built in. So,
a few questions:

1) How do capacitor based speed controls work? I was under the
impression that an induction motor's speed was fixed by its design
and the AC frequency.

2) Are the capacitor based speed controls more energy efficient than
the solid state controls? In particular, I understand that triac
based lighting dimmers use a small amount of power themselves.
Does this hold true for triac based fan speed controls, and not
hold true for capacitor based fan speed controls?

3) Will a wall capacitor based speed control work as well as the
built-in capacitor based speed control on the fan itself? I ask
because in the wall there are just hot and neutral, while the fan
motor has 4 wires going to it.


The two wires are not hot and neutral, despite the colors. They are
considered a single hot wire that has a switch inserted in it to operate
the fan. The one wire is white because it is more convenient to run a
single length of wire cable (blk-wh-neutral) to the switch rather than
two black wires.

4) Is every "rotary action" discrete fan speed control going to be
capacitor based, or are some actually triac based? In particular
I'm interested in the Hampton Bay 750 450 discrete speed control,
I'll have to call them tomorrow to double check.

Thanks,
Wayne





--
Bill
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Wayne Whitney
 
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Default

On 2005-01-25, willshak wrote:

On 1/25/2005 6:17 PM US(ET), Wayne Whitney took fingers to keys, and
typed the following:


3) Will a wall capacitor based speed control work as well as the
built-in capacitor based speed control on the fan itself? I ask
because in the wall there are just hot and neutral, while the fan
motor has 4 wires going to it.


The two wires are not hot and neutral, despite the colors. They are
considered a single hot wire that has a switch inserted in it to operate
the fan.


Yes, this is often true (although the white wire should be marked
black), so I should rephrase my question to "only the hot wire in the
wall versus 4 wires that go to the motor". In my case, there is
neutral in the switch box, if it matters.

Cheers, Wayne

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