Does anyone know of automation products capable of controling the speed of ceiling fans? I have not settled on an automation technology yet, and this is one of my variables.
Having moved from the north to the south, I am now the owner of a home with 10 ceiling fans. Since a fan helps cool the person (water evaporation), but not the room, it saves some energy to turn fans on and off as needed and set back the A/C. While a light is used at night, a ceiling fan is used in both the day and the night, so that means a lot more switching. Minimally we can automate that switching... no problem there. The issue is the speed control, and divorcing the light from the fan's proprietary control so that it can be automated and dimmed too.
As an engineer I know the various ways that a person could control the speed of ceiling fans, but as a consumer I have no clue what products are available, and of the ones that I have found I do not find any specs that could tell what and how well the product does it. I would like to avoid anything that introduces hum into the fan motor, or involves series resistors. A number of the fans switch in different capacitors, which I view as a decent method. Several relay outputs and some surgery on the fan to acquire the capacitors could allow us to automate the speed control... albeit not cost effectively.
Our fans are Hunter, MonteCarlo, and one Emerson with a DC motor. All of the fans have lights too. Some fans are cheap with a pull cord to change the speeds. Others have their custom wall switch and custom remote controls. On most with wireless speed control the electronics go up in the fan, with one power circuit to the unit and a wireless remote to control the light and fan individually. As far as I can see, none of the companies are so far along as to have an interface to any standardized home automation. We would like to dim the light using the automation instead of the fan's method, and then automate control of the fan speed so that we can jettison the fan's method all together. We imagine programming the fan speeds based on the temperature of the home, the temperature outside, and only use the fans on the hotter days when the thermal set back is energy wise.
The Emerson DC motor is probably going to need to retain it's proprietary circuitry and just be relay switched for the automation. If I fall into an automation technology that does not have fan speed control, then my fall back plan is to relay switch the fans and bypass the lights for their automated dim control.
Having moved from the north to the south, I am now the owner of a home with 10 ceiling fans. Since a fan helps cool the person (water evaporation), but not the room, it saves some energy to turn fans on and off as needed and set back the A/C. While a light is used at night, a ceiling fan is used in both the day and the night, so that means a lot more switching. Minimally we can automate that switching... no problem there. The issue is the speed control, and divorcing the light from the fan's proprietary control so that it can be automated and dimmed too.
As an engineer I know the various ways that a person could control the speed of ceiling fans, but as a consumer I have no clue what products are available, and of the ones that I have found I do not find any specs that could tell what and how well the product does it. I would like to avoid anything that introduces hum into the fan motor, or involves series resistors. A number of the fans switch in different capacitors, which I view as a decent method. Several relay outputs and some surgery on the fan to acquire the capacitors could allow us to automate the speed control... albeit not cost effectively.
Our fans are Hunter, MonteCarlo, and one Emerson with a DC motor. All of the fans have lights too. Some fans are cheap with a pull cord to change the speeds. Others have their custom wall switch and custom remote controls. On most with wireless speed control the electronics go up in the fan, with one power circuit to the unit and a wireless remote to control the light and fan individually. As far as I can see, none of the companies are so far along as to have an interface to any standardized home automation. We would like to dim the light using the automation instead of the fan's method, and then automate control of the fan speed so that we can jettison the fan's method all together. We imagine programming the fan speeds based on the temperature of the home, the temperature outside, and only use the fans on the hotter days when the thermal set back is energy wise.
The Emerson DC motor is probably going to need to retain it's proprietary circuitry and just be relay switched for the automation. If I fall into an automation technology that does not have fan speed control, then my fall back plan is to relay switch the fans and bypass the lights for their automated dim control.
