Purchased a lamp assembly for my existing ceiling fan. It currently has a 5 position power wall switch for the fan. The light assembly (from Lowe's), has the obligatory two wires (white & black), and is the screw-thru-the-center type. The insides of the existing ceiling fan assembly has two unused wires (white & blue), the blue wire has a 'Lights' label. There is also a block switch inside, with wires running from it to the forward/reverse switch...along with the fan on/off switch The wiring instructions with the light assembly say to connect the black to black (or blue) and the white to white...that doesn't work. All bulbs are new and the lamp switch seems to function. It seems obvious that I'm not getting power to the light assembly, but I don't see where else to tap it. Of course it could be the light assembly, but that seems less likely to me...something seems too easy with connecting two wires and having it work. I really don't want to replace the whole ceiling fan. looking for help/ideas. Thanks in advance.

snpperhd

 

Does the wall switch also have a light switch? If not, it may have been wired for the fan only without any power feed for the light connectors. If you wired the light kit to the fan feed, it would be controlled by the speed switch which would act as a dimmer.

You need to check the switch box for unused leads as a first step.

 

Yes, it does have a light switch next to the dimmer switch. Currently that switch controls a wall outlet where I used to have a halogen floor lamp plugged in. So I need to look at the wiring behind that switch?

snpperhd

 

You did try connecting the blue to the black wire of the light, correct? You need to pull the fan and see if the fans blue wire is connected to anything in the ceiling box. Since they were not installing a light originally they may not have hooked it up. If there is an unused wire going into the ceiling box you will then need to check the switch box for an unused cable.

 

Sorry for the delay, I've been away. Can't work on it until Fri, I'll check on the wire and get back. Thanks for the help.

snpperhd

 

Okay, there's no spare wires in the ceiling fixture box, just the 9 wire plug; there are extra wires in the ceiling plug in relation to the lamp assembly. On the wall switch box, I see an extra red wire tucked away; seems like that wire needs to be connected. As I said before, the switch currently controls the wall outlet, should I swap the extra wire with the red wire in the wall on/off switch? If I do that, I assume the wall outlet would no longer work. I don't imagine I could add the red wire to the switch leaving the existing red wire connected, as the switch would control the light plus still control the wall switch. I'm sure I'm rambling, hopefully there's a clue in there somewhere. Thanks.

snpperhd

 

That makes no sense, Ceiling boxes don't have plugs. Do you mean there is some kind of device with a nine wire plug such as a remote receiver? We need to know about the actual wires that enter the ceiling box. Both the number of cables and wires in each cable.

 

Yeah, that's not a ceiling box, the ceiling fan hangs from a 3 foot pole from which there is a 9 pin connector. Above this is wiring which apparently runs to the switch. It has red, white, black & copper coming down...the black is connected to black, white to white, copper to green & red to blue of wires going down to the ceiling fan motor housing. Coming out of the bottom of that housing are the wires going to the 9 pin connector. Those wires are pink, purple, blue, white, red, gray, black, brown & yellow.

 

Bingo! that's what we were asking. OK. Not hard the red is hooked correctly at the fan so we only need to work on the switch box. You are correct. There are two ways to do this. You can make the receptacle always hot or you can switch out the simplex receptacle switch for a duplex switch. Let us know which way you want to go. You will also need a multimeter or test light to determine which wire to the receptacle switch is hot.

 

I want to make the wall switch (currently controlling the switched outlet), control the ceiling fan light assembly and keep the fan on/off dimmer as is. The wall switch box has the power coming in (two wire romex), along with two seperate 3 wire romex controlling the wall outlet and ceiling fan.

 

You will need to remove the black to the receptacle and black from the power in from the switch. Connect the black of the receptacle, black of power in, and a 6" pigtail together. The red will go to one side of the switch and the pigtail to the other.

Do not disturb the white wires. Follow standard grounding procedures.

 

I've got 3 wire groups in the wall switch box, one is the 2 wire romex carrying power. One 3 wire romex for the switched outlet, one 3 wire romex for the ceiling fan. All 3 whites are nutted together, all coppers are connected, the black from the power input and the black from the switched outlet are nutted together with pigtails going to the input of the wall on/off switch and one going to the fan dimmer switch. The red from the switched outlet is going to the top of the wall on/off switch and the black from the ceiling fan romex is going to the top of the dimmer. The red from the ceiling fan romex is unconnected. How will I provide on/off switch power for the ceiling fan lamp assembly and still allow the ceiling fan to turn on/off via the seperate dimmer? Also converting the switched outlet to a permanent hot outlet. My 1st thought is to replace the red of the ceiling romex with the red on the switch of the switched outlet and pigtail the black from the ceiling fan romex to black power in and connect to the switch, but wouldn't that provide constant power to the ceiling fan? Sorry for the length and confusion.

 

These connections would remain the same. You would remove this wire from the switch and add this to the wire nut containing black power in, receptacle black, and pigtails.. You will connect this where you disconnected the red wire for the receptacle.

There is a second way to do this that involves that involves changes at the receptacle but I believe the way I have given is simplest.

If you have questions or need a diagram post back.

 

Ray2047,

Based upon your help, I completed the job by swapping the red wires and replacing the tab removed wall receptacle. All works perfectly thanks to your patient help. Thanks again for your time.

snpperhd

 

Perfect. That was the other way I mentioned. Thanks for letting us know how it worked out.