Subject: From: Date:

RE: [ECS] Controlling a fan with X10 Dan Butterfield Wed, 29 Nov 2000 17:54:44 -0600

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One alternative to modifying your fan is to use a "no hum" circuit like that
developed by Edward Cheung:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~echeung/automa/nohum.htm .  This allows a
regular X-10 dimmer switch to switch a fan thru a series of capacitors (the
same way a manual fan speed switch works) rather than directly via a triac,
which causes the hum.  Of course, you have to be comfortable with building a
circuit to operate at line level voltages, plus I'm not sure exactly where
you put the circuit once it's built (one way might be in the attic, if you
have attic access above the fan).

- Dan Butterfield  (dan@butterfields.net)

-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Swanson [mailto:cswanson@tivoli.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 12:42 PM
To: ecs-list@netbloc.com; Dan Carrington
Subject: Re: [ECS] Controlling a fan with X10


Excellent response, thank you for getting back to me.
A few things if you don't mind.

My wife and I like to change the fan speed above our bed OFTEN,
like 3-4 times a night. So it's really the speed I wish to change,
the fan is almost NEVER off in the summer. I'd rather do without the hum, so
that I think is an issue.

> The third option is more cumbersome but will not cause any extra hum.  You
can
> pop open the fan, and break out feeds for each switched speed to extra
wires and
> then use standard x-10 boxes and do the stock 3 speeds without induced
hum.

Could you clarify this a bit more? I've never really looked in
the fan before. Would each speed then be a different X10 code, one to each
box?
That might not be bad. What kind of hardware and basic steps
would I need on this?

Is it possible to do this with the DIMMER capabilities
of the X10 control, like with a light and then the dimmer controls?
That would be the most useful. But if not, this way would work.

Thanks a lot Dan, I really appreciate the help.

Carl
cswanson@tivoli.com

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