Wiring ceiling fan with wireless remote and wall switch?

[92 5 oh]

I hope I am describing this accurately and someone can confirm my thoughts. Yesterday I bought a new ceiling fan with a built in remote. I've installed a bunch of fans, and installed remotes as an addition to a few. The remotes I am familiar with have two AC inputs and three outputs. This will be a completely new install, I currently have no box or wires run. My end goal was to be able to operate the unit with the supplied remote and to wire in a new wall switch to operate the light. Reasons being, this fan is the primary source of light for the room, when I enter I would like to flip the switch by the door instead of looking for a remote, plus they get misplaced sometimes. After some quick research I found a few ways to accomplish this with an add-on remote; basically a hot leg is wired to a switch, then directly to the light. Basically bypassing the remote control unit. This makes sense to me, provided the fan has a separate wire for the light and the wire is accessible after the remote receiver. The fan I bought only has three wires - Neutral, Hot, Ground. And the remote control unit is somewhere buried in the housing, so it's not accessible to "bypass". I do not think it is possible to add a wall switch in this case.
Can someone confirm this? I can get some pictures soon if needed.

thanks for the help!
Steven

 

[martin]

If I understand you correctly. I would wire it in with a wall switch controlling the power to the fan and then attach a magnet to the remote, if you use a metal switch cover the remote will have a place to live. As long as the fan remembers the last setting you should be able to use the switch to turn it on and off when you enter the room. Not an ideal solution but all I can think of.

 

[Mark_88]

My Dad was an electrician...and I was his first shock...

But I know very little about wiring switches...what I do know is: a) the manufacturer usually supplies wiring instructions for it to work properly ii) if you don't have that it can be easily found on the web (usually) as long as you know the make and model and 3) if you want it to work in a manner other than the manufacturers suggested method I'd either hire an electrician (if you are not one already) or wait for a better answer from someone on here.

I know there have been quite a few electrical engineers posting on here but they usually deal with the higher end stuff...

A few years ago I was trying to fix a ceiling light in a place I lived and searched the web...found quite a few diagrams and possible ways to fix do what I had to do...so...if you don't get a good response here...there is always the web search.

 

[cvar]

Did you peek inside, at the internal light kit wiring? It all depends on the design of that particular fan.

Most fans I've done have had a removable light kit, to allow replacing the bulb. And they have a wire between the light kit and the internal fan-control module, which then could be bypassed (as you described). Even the modern fancy fans with remotes. But depends if that wire is accessible w/o removing the motor shroud.

I installed one a couple yrs ago that had a big ugly plastic holder for the remote, so it could act as a wall switch normally, and then occasionally lifted out of its wall-cup-holder to place it on your night-stand. Yeah, it COULD act as a wall switch, but you had to hunt & peck the right button on the bulky remote. Yuck. But that's the fan they wanted.

Personally, I'd find another fan that's more easily bypassed, or operated W/O the PITA remote control. Unless it's unreachable (10+ feet up). We leave most of ours spinning 24/7, and switched the old fashioned way (either wall or chain, per application).

 

[adsm08]

Turn on switch A, lick fingers B+C, and apply to black wire D and white wire E. Watch hair stand up and skeleton illuminate.

That's what I know about house wiring.

 

[RonD]

Look at a 3-way switch wiring diagram, get a 3-way switch for the wall plate, the remote control unit in the fan would be "the other 3-way switch".

Then it doesn't matter whether light is on or off, the wall plate could turn it on if it was off, or turn if off if it was on.

 

[Chris_North]

I think I know where you're getting at, but I have been celebrating St. Pattys...

From what you're saying no, it doesn't seem like you could have both the switch and the remote control the unit. The fan you have seems to be geared toward an installation without a switch.

IMHO I would look for another fan kit better suited to your purpose, or similar to what martin said see if you can get additional remotes and fasten them somehow to the wall where you would normally have a switch. TBH I have not seen what you are hoping for, a fan with the ability to be controlled either via wall switch and remote, but I don't usually look for these things because traditional wiring methods have always been sufficient for me.

 

[tmcalavy]

Don't know except to say that you've got it wired wrong if your tail or brake lights come on when you throw the switch.

 

[Mark_88]

Turn on switch A, lick fingers B+C, and apply to black wire D and white wire E. Watch hair stand up and skeleton illuminate.

That's what I know about house wiring.

LOL...but this is how my uncle used to test for live power lines...except he'd just run his wet fingers over the them very very quickly...and he was a foreman with a hydro company...

Don't know except to say that you've got it wired wrong if your tail or brake lights come on when you throw the switch.

haha...hmmmm...I wonder if that would be an option on a newer electric vehicles...

 

[fyre82]

I have one of those remotes on my fan and I love it.
It is an add on remote and had all the wiring for both
the fan and separate wiring for the light.
It would seem that you can wire it standard for a switch,
the split of power is inside the unit most likely.

I just ensure that the power is on, I have a dual switch . . .
Then the remote will do what I want.
If I want manual I just use the fan switches.

Good luck, be safe!
Rich

 

[92 5 oh]

Turn on switch A, lick fingers B+C, and apply to black wire D and white wire E. Watch hair stand up and skeleton illuminate.

That's what I know about house wiring.

I tried this. I wouldn't recommend it

Thanks for all the suggestions. I ended up contacting the manufacturer, who informed me that the fan was only designed to be used with a remote. Installing it with a switch was not supported.

I then decided to open it up a little and look for the "light" wire, which I did locate. However I also discovered that power ran through some kind of power conditioner which dropped the power from 120V to around 10V because the bulb is some tiny CFL and some wires have 120V while the light is on and others have 120V while the light is off. Trying to reverse engineer it wasn't worth the time or create an unsafe condition.
In the end I decided to put the fan in a different area that would benefit from only having a remote and get a new fan for this location.

thanks!