I'm in the middle of installing a brand new ceiling fan. From the ceiling there are 3 cables: yellow, black, and white. From the ceiling there are two red ones. I connected red to white and red to black. Is that right? What do I do with yellow?

From the wall switch there are yellow and black. From the switch itself there are black and black with white. How do I connect the switch? The switch has to positions, one to operate the light, and 2nd one to operate the fan.

Need some help here

 

Welcome to the forums! Re-read your post and see if you confuse yourself as much as you did me. From the "ceiling" there are 3 cables (Are they cables or wires?) And from the "ceiling" there are two red ones. So if I read it correctly, from the "ceiling" you have 5 wires....2 reds, one white, one black and one yellow.
From the "wall switch" you have a yellow and black. From the "switch" there are black and black with white (is this wire a black wire with a white tracer?). Does the switch have two positions or are there actually two switches?

 

ok let me clarify

From ceiling: yellow, black, white
from fan: white, blue, black which are connected to white, blue and black in the wall unit control that is installed between the fan and the ceiling.

from the wall unit control: white, blue, and black connected to 3 the same colors from the fan and 2 red ones to be connected to the ceiling.

from wall: yellow, black, white (which was not used before and it's in the back of the wall opening)

from switch that came with the fan: black and black with white strips

 

At the ceiling, connect white to white, ceiling yellow to fan blue, and ceiling black to fan black.

I still cannot parse the following:
Also, what's the difference between the "wall unit control" and "the switch that came with the fan"?

 

there is a controll unit for the switch that needs to be installed between the fan unit and the ceiling. There are 5 cables coming out from the control unit: 3 go to the fan unit and 2 (red ones supposed to connect to the ceiling)

From the wall there are 3 cables: yellow, black, and white.

 

Oh. The "control unit" is the remote receiver. Apparently you have no neutral at the wall and thus need the wall control that has a remote receiver.

This doesn't sound quite right. Are you sure about this information. Most of these units have two "input" wires (connect to the ceiling), which are white and black, and three "output" wires (connect to the fan) which are black, blue and white. Please double-check.

Note: you live in Chicago. You don't have any "cables". You only have "wires".

When you reported the wires from the wall and from the ceiling, did you give a complete inventory, including perhaps wires tucked far into the back of the box?

You said:Can you tell us more about the "before"?

 

the input wires to connect to the ceiling are red. One says AC in L and the other one says AC in N. After 7 hrs of struggle to connect the fan I opened the remote receiver that goes in between the fan and the ceiling. The receiver is burned and I will need to have it replaced. Hence no luck with getting the fan to work at all.

If I connect two reds to black and white, does this mean that yellow doesn't have to be connected?

However I'm still confused about the wiring the switch in the wall. From the wall there are these wires: yellow, white (was not used with the previous fan) and black. From the switch there are black and black with white stripes.

 

I'm not sure you need that remote receiver anyway. It is designed for situations where you have only one hot wire between the wall and the ceiling. But you have two (black and yellow). Please make sure, however, that the yellow wire is really yellow, and not just a discolored white.

Let me make sure I understand your situation.

In the wall box, you have the following wires: one yellow, one black, and one white. No more--just one of each color in the whole box?

In the ceiling box, you have the same three wires: one yellow, one black, and one white. No more--just one of each color in the whole box?

I think you must realize that this doesn't make any sense. If these are just wires that run directly from the wall to the ceiling, then there is no place for the power to come from. There must be some other box involved where the power comes in. This would be highly unusual.

Can you help resolve this nonsensical situation?

 

Yellow wire is true yellow.

I thought I need the remote receiver in order to be able to install the wall switch which came with the fan.

yes one of each color.

one yellow - yes; one white - yes, black - there are 3 of them.

 

Do I understand correctly--you have three black wires in the ceiling box? If so, this tremendously important detail was previously omitted.

Can you tell me the make and model of the fan, and the make and model of the wall control unit?

And I repeat an earlier question that was not addressed. Can you tell us what was there before and how it was connected?

 

The 3 black wires are coming out from the wall

The make and model of the fan: Casa Vieja SLVII (31552)
The model of the wall switch: RW111-1-4C

Before there was an old fan with light. It had 3 wires connecting to the ceiling.

 

And what was the "before" story with the wall box?

 

in the wall yellow and all 3 black ones were connected to the switch. White one was not used and it was tucked in the back.

 

So just one switch on the wall? And it controlled the old fan's light? And the old fan motor was controlled by the pull chains?

 

yes that's correct. With the new fan there is no pull chains, fan and light are to be controlled by the switch.

 

Google could not find either the fan or the switch you cited. So I'm just going to make generic comments. If you can provide a web site link to the fan or the switch, I can perhaps be more specific.

The three black wires at your wall are: (1) the incoming hot wire, (2) a downstream hot wire to somewhere else (doesn't matter where), and (3) a hot wire up to the fan. For the hot wire up to the fan, it was previously wired to be unswitched. You have the option of wiring it as switched or unswitched.

The yellow wire is a second switched hot wire up to the ceiling. It is designed to control the fan's light. If you use the switch and its remote receiver counterpart, you don't really need both the yellow and black wires up to the ceiling since the control unit is designed to provide both functions with a single wire.

Since your remote receiver is fried, you may elect not to replace it if you don't want to. You have enough wires to control the fan and its light without it. You can buy wall control units that don't need a remote receiver when you have three wires from the wall to the ceiling. The control unit you have now is made for situations with only two wires to the ceiling. Alternatively, you could just wire two switches on the wall, one for the fan and one for the light. The one that controls the fan's light can be a simple switch, or a simple lighting dimmer. The one that controls the fan's motor can either be a simple switch (requiring you to control the fan speed with the pull chain), or you can buy a fan speed control that is compatible with your fan. Or, you can probably find a single unit that can control the fan speed and the lighting brightness from the wall without a remote receiver up at the ceiling.