Ceiling Fans...

Hi everyone,

I'm in the middle of planning a home remodel, I'm currently using X10, may or may not switch up to UPB or one of the others, but that's not my question.

My question is, does anyone have a success story about ceiling fans that work particularly well inside an HA framework? What I want is to be able to control the fan speed remotely. I know all about dimming and how that doesn't work with inductive loads. What I need to know is if any of the manufacturers of these fans have come up with a better way to handle this problem.

I live in an area where having central air isn't really worth it. What I really want to keep all my house fans on timers in the summer.

Thanks, as always.

Reply to
Richard Smith
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Reply to
BruceR

X10 controllable with absolutely NO hum or buzz. It uses caps to vary the fan speed, just like the 3 speed pull chain control in the fan.

Reply to
D&SW

Wow, I didn't know Lightolier "Compose PLC" was a brand of X10 hardware.

This is very helpful because I was close to getting rid of X10 in favor of UPB, just because decent (that is, nice looking) wall switches are getting harder to find since Smarthome moved to Insteon.

Does anyone else have experience with these components? I mean, do they work and play well with the rest of the X10 stuff?

Thanks!

D&SW wrote:

Reply to
Richard Smith

If you decide to keep your X-10 investment, I suggest you consider Jeff Volp's XTB line of X-10 transmission boosters:

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Far superior to any of the other couplers or repeaters on the market, without a doubt. It raises the X-10 signal from its usual 1 volt level at the panel to way over 20 volts. Has a polite mode, too, to avoid collisions. When you eliminate collisions and boost the signal strength so much, virtually all of the common X-10 issues just disappear.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

here is a remote thermostat for your fan works off temp or timer.

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Reply to
Main

Yep, added one of those kits to ours four years ago and it works great. I think it's only needed a battery replacement once.

The downside to this it the remote add-on (at least the one we have) also has a light switch on it. This so you can turn the light on/off from the wireless remote. If you use a remote wall switch you'd lose this feature. I suppose it might be possible to use a remote switch that cut just the fan power. But it'd have to be a switch that used it's own hot and neutral leads as the fan's remote cuts power for speed control. The downside here is you start getting into rigging up wiring that's undoubtedly not going to meet electrical codes. I wouldn't want something automated that way as things like that tend to get 'forgotten' over time and later wiring introduces big problems. But I'm not here to argue that it is or isn't possible or safe, just that I wouldn't recommend going that route.

That and, IIRC, the wireless remote has an "off" setting.

Reply to
Bill Kearney

Yes, I think there is still a number of companies making devices still using the X10 protocol, besides Ligholier, ACT, and PCS come to mind. I don't have the Lightolier unit but believe it is a version of the old Ed Chung design (yes, he knows about it). I know if you want X10 humless fan speed control, this is the only game in town unless you build your own from scratch using Ed's plans and parts list.

Reply to
D&SW

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