Ceiling fan current limiter, weird symptom...

[Tim R]

The ceiling fan in the bathroom had three sockets, one of which stopped working, though sometimes you could wiggle the bulb and get it back on; then a second stopped. It seemed reasonable to replace the old sockets and it turned out to be cheap and easy to do. No, there isn\'t a brand name or model number on the fan anywhere.

But I saw a lot of youtube videos on ceiling fan current limiter failure and hoped there wasn\'t one in my fan. It appears there is. At least, there\'s a small component with wires, crammed in with about 20 other wires of various colors in the space of half a coffee cup, hard to see what goes where, and the lights still don\'t work.

So here\'s the symptom. I have an LED, a CFL, and an incandescent in the three sockets. They come on bright, then the CFL stops working, the LED goes into a weird strobe mode, and the incandescent burns at half power.

I\'ve found lots of articles that say just cut it out (not so easy with the access I have) but none that explain how it works. Or why different lamps have different responses.

 

[KenW]

On Fri, 1 Apr 2022 09:15:37 -0700 (PDT), Tim R
<timothy42bach@gmail.com> wrote:

The ceiling fan in the bathroom had three sockets, one of which stopped working, though sometimes you could wiggle the bulb and get it back on; then a second stopped. It seemed reasonable to replace the old sockets and it turned out to be cheap and easy to do. No, there isn\'t a brand name or model number on the fan anywhere.

But I saw a lot of youtube videos on ceiling fan current limiter failure and hoped there wasn\'t one in my fan. It appears there is. At least, there\'s a small component with wires, crammed in with about 20 other wires of various colors in the space of half a coffee cup, hard to see what goes where, and the lights still don\'t work.

So here\'s the symptom. I have an LED, a CFL, and an incandescent in the three sockets. They come on bright, then the CFL stops working, the LED goes into a weird strobe mode, and the incandescent burns at half power.

I\'ve found lots of articles that say just cut it out (not so easy with the access I have) but none that explain how it works. Or why different lamps have different responses.

Buy a new one before it burns down your house


KenW

 

[Tim R]

On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 12:39:48 PM UTC-4, KenW wrote:

On Fri, 1 Apr 2022 09:15:37 -0700 (PDT), Tim R
timoth...@gmail.com> wrote:

The ceiling fan in the bathroom had three sockets, one of which stopped working, though sometimes you could wiggle the bulb and get it back on; then a second stopped. It seemed reasonable to replace the old sockets and it turned out to be cheap and easy to do. No, there isn\'t a brand name or model number on the fan anywhere.

But I saw a lot of youtube videos on ceiling fan current limiter failure and hoped there wasn\'t one in my fan. It appears there is. At least, there\'s a small component with wires, crammed in with about 20 other wires of various colors in the space of half a coffee cup, hard to see what goes where, and the lights still don\'t work.

So here\'s the symptom. I have an LED, a CFL, and an incandescent in the three sockets. They come on bright, then the CFL stops working, the LED goes into a weird strobe mode, and the incandescent burns at half power.

I\'ve found lots of articles that say just cut it out (not so easy with the access I have) but none that explain how it works. Or why different lamps have different responses.
Buy a new one before it burns down your house


KenW

Then I\'m out the $10 I spent on new sockets (by the way, they\'re rated 660 W 250 V).

I\'ve played around putting combinations of bulb in different sockets. The LED goes out whether alone or with other bulbs; the CFL and the incandescent seem to keep working. I have not been able to repeat the strobe effect with the LED, it just quits.

 

[legg]

On Fri, 1 Apr 2022 15:58:06 -0700 (PDT), Tim R
<timothy42bach@gmail.com> wrote:

On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 12:39:48 PM UTC-4, KenW wrote:
On Fri, 1 Apr 2022 09:15:37 -0700 (PDT), Tim R
timoth...@gmail.com> wrote:

The ceiling fan in the bathroom had three sockets, one of which stopped working, though sometimes you could wiggle the bulb and get it back on; then a second stopped. It seemed reasonable to replace the old sockets and it turned out to be cheap and easy to do. No, there isn\'t a brand name or model number on the fan anywhere.

But I saw a lot of youtube videos on ceiling fan current limiter failure and hoped there wasn\'t one in my fan. It appears there is. At least, there\'s a small component with wires, crammed in with about 20 other wires of various colors in the space of half a coffee cup, hard to see what goes where, and the lights still don\'t work.

So here\'s the symptom. I have an LED, a CFL, and an incandescent in the three sockets. They come on bright, then the CFL stops working, the LED goes into a weird strobe mode, and the incandescent burns at half power.

I\'ve found lots of articles that say just cut it out (not so easy with the access I have) but none that explain how it works. Or why different lamps have different responses.
Buy a new one before it burns down your house


KenW

Then I\'m out the $10 I spent on new sockets (by the way, they\'re rated 660 W 250 V).

I\'ve played around putting combinations of bulb in different sockets. The LED goes out whether alone or with other bulbs; the CFL and the incandescent seem to keep working. I have not been able to repeat the strobe effect with the LED, it just quits.

Did you miss the part about burning down the house?

Sounds like you\'re not using the ceiling fan enough to reduce
humidity, the usual aim of bathroom ceiling fans, so contacts
may have gone High-Z with corrosion.

RL

 

[Peter W.]

a) You mis-wired it.
b) Given that two of the three lamps are non-incandescents, and given that the fan was designed against incandescents, and that any light at all, the current-limiter is not the issue.
c) Mixing LED and CFL lamps in the same device will lead to strange symptoms, especially with the cheap LEDs.
d) That the incandescent is half-power is the proof of a).

What you have done is put (at least) two of the sockets in series.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[ohg...@gmail.com]

On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 6:58:09 PM UTC-4, timoth...@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, April 1, 2022 at 12:39:48 PM UTC-4, KenW wrote:
On Fri, 1 Apr 2022 09:15:37 -0700 (PDT), Tim R
timoth...@gmail.com> wrote:

The ceiling fan in the bathroom had three sockets, one of which stopped working, though sometimes you could wiggle the bulb and get it back on; then a second stopped. It seemed reasonable to replace the old sockets and it turned out to be cheap and easy to do. No, there isn\'t a brand name or model number on the fan anywhere.

But I saw a lot of youtube videos on ceiling fan current limiter failure and hoped there wasn\'t one in my fan. It appears there is. At least, there\'s a small component with wires, crammed in with about 20 other wires of various colors in the space of half a coffee cup, hard to see what goes where, and the lights still don\'t work.

So here\'s the symptom. I have an LED, a CFL, and an incandescent in the three sockets. They come on bright, then the CFL stops working, the LED goes into a weird strobe mode, and the incandescent burns at half power.

I\'ve found lots of articles that say just cut it out (not so easy with the access I have) but none that explain how it works. Or why different lamps have different responses.
Buy a new one before it burns down your house

Then I\'m out the $10 I spent on new sockets (by the way, they\'re rated 660 W 250 V).

So you\'re out $10. Sometimes the best money spent is money you don\'t try to recover. $10 is a fairly small percentage of the the cost of a new fixture, and statistically zero compared to the damage and even loss of life a fire will cost.

 

[Tim R]

On Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 7:45:47 AM UTC-4, Peter W. wrote:

a) You mis-wired it.
b) Given that two of the three lamps are non-incandescents, and given that the fan was designed against incandescents, and that any light at all, the current-limiter is not the issue.
c) Mixing LED and CFL lamps in the same device will lead to strange symptoms, especially with the cheap LEDs.
d) That the incandescent is half-power is the proof of a).

What you have done is put (at least) two of the sockets in series.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

I do not think that is likely. The sockets all had one white and one black wire each. All three white wires went to the white wire dangling from the fan. All three black wires went to the shorter wire from the pull chain switch, and the longer black wire from the switch went to the blue wire dangling from the fan. (I say blue - I\'m mildly colorblind and outside the very bold colors am prone to not catch the fine shades.)

So, probably not, but i do make mistakes, and this one is easy enough to check. I\'ll open it back up and look.

It seems to me after switching bulbs around, mixing and matching, that the LED just does not play nice with this fan, even if it\'s the only bulb in a socket. I have tried it in other lamps without problems.

 

[Tim R]

On Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 7:23:41 AM UTC-4, legg wrote:

Sounds like you\'re not using the ceiling fan enough to reduce
humidity, the usual aim of bathroom ceiling fans, so contacts
may have gone High-Z with corrosion.

RL

Reducing humidity is the purpose of the exhaust fan, which we do use. It is true the fan part of that fixture is rarely turned on. My assumption was that contacts inside the lamp sockets would have been the place to go High-Z with corrosion, which is why I replaced them. The symptoms were bulbs that didn\'t want to light or stay lit but could work by wiggling and tapping them, which sounded like a contact problem in the socket. It may not have been that at all.

 

[Tim R]

On Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 7:45:47 AM UTC-4, Peter W. wrote:

b) Given that two of the three lamps are non-incandescents, and given that the fan was designed against incandescents, and that any light at all, the current-limiter is not the issue.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

Whoops, I missed this part.
Yes, i agree, if there is a current-limiter and it is working properly, it could not be the problem. The current draw is a fraction of what three incandescents would produce.
However apparently current-limiters are notorious for going bad and producing flickering or strobe like results.

 

[ScottWW]

\"Tim R\" wrote in message
news:281b9169-1d64-4d36-b61a-c69fa9da940an@googlegroups.com...

On Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 7:45:47 AM UTC-4, Peter W. wrote:

b) Given that two of the three lamps are non-incandescents, and given
that the fan was designed against incandescents, and that any light at
all, the current-limiter is not the issue.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

Whoops, I missed this part.
Yes, i agree, if there is a current-limiter and it is working properly, it
could not be the problem. The current draw is a fraction of what three
incandescents would produce.
However apparently current-limiters are notorious for going bad and
producing flickering or strobe like results.

The wattage limiter in ceiling fan light kits is required by the DOE to
prevent the fixture from using bulbs adding up to more than 190W.
These devices are installed in fixtures with medium base sockets. This was
to satisfy the EPACT 2004 legislation, not for anyone\'s safety.
The are routinely bypassed or removed by tying the red and black together
and capping the white.

The behavior of the bulbs indicates very low voltage. Incandescents will
burn whatever voltage they\'re fed. CFLs require a base-line voltage to stay
lit. LED drivers collect and discharge repeatedly.

It could be a series wiring fault causing the sockets to share the voltage,
but bypassing the wattage limiter to troubleshoot is not a bad idea.
Sockets are the most prone to high resistance joints. A high resistance
joint in the circuit may have overstressed the wattage limiter into failure.
I think you were on the right track.

 

[Tim R]

On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 1:48:24 PM UTC-4, ScottWW wrote:

The wattage limiter in ceiling fan light kits is required by the DOE to
prevent the fixture from using bulbs adding up to more than 190W.
These devices are installed in fixtures with medium base sockets. This was
to satisfy the EPACT 2004 legislation, not for anyone\'s safety.
The are routinely bypassed or removed by tying the red and black together
and capping the white.

Any idea how these things work, or are supposed to work? I\'ve googled extensively and not come up with anything but advice to take them out (some of which is quite contradictory with respect to wire colors).

 

[ScottWW]

\"Tim R\" wrote in message
news:408f2083-08d9-4fdb-bd4c-62f4a1197d8an@googlegroups.com...

On Monday, April 4, 2022 at 1:48:24 PM UTC-4, ScottWW wrote:
The wattage limiter in ceiling fan light kits is required by the DOE to
prevent the fixture from using bulbs adding up to more than 190W.
These devices are installed in fixtures with medium base sockets. This
was
to satisfy the EPACT 2004 legislation, not for anyone\'s safety.
The are routinely bypassed or removed by tying the red and black together
and capping the white.

Any idea how these things work, or are supposed to work? I\'ve googled
extensively and not come up with anything but advice to take them out (some
of which is quite contradictory >with respect to wire colors).

The circuit is powered by, and measures the wattage drawn thru, White and
Black, as long as it is less than 190Watts, the Red wire remains connected
to Black. If draw exceeds 190W at any time, the circuit opens between Red
and Black, and latches open as long as voltage is present on Black and
White. The response time is typically a few seconds before turning off.