Fan to Smart Fan

A lot of ceiling fans and lights come with remotes or pulls. There are no instructions for kids to break the pulls or lose the remote, but give it a week. 100% of the remotes are lost in the first week. About 10% will turn up some time later, but will immediately get lost again. 

The goal is to beat the kids to it by replacing the remote or pull with two smart switches. One switch controls the light, and the other controls the fan. 

This is one of the more difficult projects and comes with significant risk of electrical shock.

Wiring Diagram

Each ceiling light and fan has unique wiring. So, the first thing to do is create a wiring diagram. 

To do create a wiring diagram, take apart the ceiling fan.

Step 1. Get a wire coat hanger, wire stripper, wire nuts, flathead & Philips screwdrivers, step ladder

Step 2. Turn off power to ceiling light and fan

Step 3. If you didn't do Step 2, then do it now.

Step 4. Take off light bowl. There are usually a set of nuts and covers. I keep everything in a project box (medium plastic box)

Step 5. Take off the fans blades.

Step 6. Take off the light bottom cap exposing a bunch of wires.

Step 7. Loosen the ceiling cap (hides stuff from ceiling to rod). This has a couple of crew and rotates to loosen.

Step 8. On top of thee fan drive, there is usually a cover hifing the rod's entry into the fan. Loosen this.

Step 9. The fan drive is heavy. I use a wire coat hanger hook through the two bottom holes of the fan's rod. I wrap the rest of the coat hanger around the fan drive ensuring it will not fall or move.

Step 10. Remove the fan rod from the drive. Remove a couple of screws and a pin with a hook. Slowly let the fan drive down and ensure the coat hanger is holding it

All the wiress should be exposed.

What's what?

I am color blind. So, I need to be very careful about the colors. So, I cheat. I made a simple light socket thingy I can connect to a circuit and see if I have power and ground correct. 

Using the light socket thingy, I was able to determine which power wire was connected to each Smart Switch (fan or llight). I then labelled the wires.

Now what?

Normally, I have to cut wires, or re-route wires. On this light/fan combo, all I needed to do was connect the grey load wire to the fan smart switch and it all worked.