I don’t know much about these things, but I just discovered the dimmer switch controlling the ceiling fan/light combo in the dining room doesn’t just dim the lights. It dims the ceiling fan. Now, the ceiling fan already has three speeds controlled by a pull chain. But now I find out the actual speed of the ceiling fan depends on the dimmer switch.
So, is that how it’s supposed to work, or did the dumbasses “fixing up” this house do yet another dumbass thing?
Sounds like they screwed it up. Fans are usually either controlled by a speed switch (your pull chain) or by a rheostat, but normally not both. I should mention that it’s quite possible the dimmer is not rated for the motor amperage, so you may have a potential overheating problem there.
Not exactly intuitive thinking, but not necessarily wrong. Now you can adjust the speed of the fan to your desires. I could appreciate being able to set it to a rather slow rotation if I was having a meal underneath it.
True I guess, but I’m happy with the usual three speeds, and don’t like the speed tied to the brightness of the lights. Plus, Chefguy I suspect is bringing up a good point about motor-amperage-overheating, etc. Is a ceiling fan motor designed to be modulated this way?
They bought the wrong switch, and/or wired it wrong. My parents have a switch that allows them to control the speed of the fan and dim the lights with the switch on the wall. A word of caution: If you ever go to my house, don’t pull the strings on the actual fan. My dad will not be happy.
ETA: Concerning the fan motor, it should be alright. I’d be more worried about the switch popping than the fan.
Fans are commonly run on rheostats, to answer your question. I don’t know what Santo means by the switch “popping”. My concern would be the dimmer switch overheating, since it may not be designed for the additional load of the fan motor. You can check that by turning off the power, removing the dimmer control from the box it’s mounted in, and checking the amperage rating stamped on it. Compare that to the information on the data plate mounted on the fan motor (you may need a mirror to look on top of the fan).
Ceiling fans use some sort of capacitance trick to vary their speeds, putting a ceiling fan on a dimmer could, IIRC, damage the motor.
They make specific fan/light wall switches but it requires four wires between it and the fan/light combo, not common unless it was planned for.
The usual wall dimmer is not simply an amperage limiter, it clips the sinusoidal wave of the AC current rather than simply reducing its amplitude. It’s much more efficient than burning excess watts up in some sort of heat sink and incandescent lights don’t care at all. Fluorescent lights and fan motors do care, though.
Lamp dimmers and motor speed controls are two different devices for two distinct purposes. Mixing them can cause damage, and is also a code violation, in that you are using a device in a manner not consistent with its listing and labeling.