Insteon Fanlinc

Posted on
Sun May 20, 2012 7:43 am
roussell offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

You'll have to remove the existing remote module and replace it with the FanLinc, not possible to daisy chain them.

Terry

Posted on
Sun May 20, 2012 8:19 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

My guess is yes you'll need to remove the remote - but you'd need to contact Smarthome for confirmation.

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Posted on
Sun May 20, 2012 7:42 pm
bunnyboy offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

I am trying to hook up my FanLinc to an attic fan ( http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R ... ogId=10053 ) but only high speed and off are working. I have the 2413U so no error messages sending commands. There is a mechanical thermostat but that is turned all the way down. Any other ideas or is this just the wrong device/fan combo?

Posted on
Mon May 21, 2012 5:27 am
roussell offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

Have you used a fan speed controller with the attic fan before trying the Fanlinc? My guess is that the motor requires more current than the Fanlinc can provide - especially during startup. The Fanlinc is only rated for a 1 Amp motor load. Assuming you have a 1/4 or 1/2 horsepower motor on your attic fan, that motor would require about 4 or 7 amps respectively - well beyond the range of the Fanlinc. You're probably stuck using a Switchlinc Relay (2476S) and single speed on the attic fan unless you want to spend a lot more money on a commercial/light-industrial motor speed controller.

Terry

Posted on
Tue May 22, 2012 6:12 pm
bunnyboy offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

But if there wasn't enough power, how would it start up fine on the high setting? I can also switch from high to medium (so start up power isn't an issue) and the fan will just shut off instead of running slower.

Posted on
Tue May 22, 2012 10:00 pm
roussell offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

Well, the short answer is motors are wire differently depending on their application and sometime that mean that a motor's speed can't be adjusted.

Here's the long answer:
There are a few of ways to change the speed of an AC induction motor. First off for US 60Hz AC, you can count the number of poles in the stator of the motor and divide that number by 7200. So, if you looked into the attic fan motor and counted four poles, doing the math you'd come up with 1800 RPM which is the no-load speed of the motor - the loaded rpm of the motor in that case would most likely be 1725 rpm which is common for most general purpose AC motors - especially in belt drivin applications. As you can see by the equation for 60Hz: 7200(number of poles)=RPM, you can vary the speed of the motor by changing the number of poles that are active in the stator. Multi-speed box fans, old ceiling fans and other general purpose AC induction motors do this by having more poles and electrically switching them in and out of circuit to change the speed. As an example, if you have a 12 pole motor, you can get three speed levels 1800, 900, and 600 rpm by powering up 4, 8, or 12 poles of the motor.

The second way is to add capacitance to the motors field windings. A capacitor placed inline with the field windings effectively changes the phase angle fo the current in relation to the voltage and in essence acts as if the motor was getting a lower frequency supply. Remember the constant 7200 above being based on US 60Hz current ? Well 50Hz current uses the constant 6000 so in our four pole motor example, the no-load speed at 50Hz would be 1500rpm instead of 1800. The capacitors are the small black cubes that are usually stuffed inside the light housing on the fan.

The third common way it the way devices like the FanLinc and other aftermarket speed controllers work. The work by altering the AC signal before it gets to the fan, again tricking the fan motor into think that the frequency has been altered. Early electronic speed controllers worked similar to electronic dimmers and simply chopped the AC waveform into something resembling a series of shark fins - that works well for lights, but would cause motors to hum (the hum was the actual windings vibrating with sudden collapse of the magnetic field associated with the modified sine wave).

Now, onto the reason it most likely doesn't work with your attic fan: I presume your attic fan motor is a shaded pole, internal rotor induction motor with 4 poles, unless it has a bulge on it's side, in that case the bulge is from a start capacitor and then is a split-phase capacitor start induction motor. If it's a belt driven fan then the motor probably has 4 poles on it's stator, possibly more if it's direct drive. in contrast your ceiling fan will have anywhere from 8 to 14 poles and is probably an shaded pole external rotor. By design, the ceiling fan motor will require less in-rush current during startup than the attic fan, also more importantly, it will require substantially less current to continue running than the attic fan. The ceiling fan's multiple poles also lend themselves more easily to being 'fooled' by the altered sine wave produced by the Fanlinc than does the attic fan. The attic fan works with the fanlinc in High speed because the Fanlinc is delivering an unaltered sine wave to the attic fan motor when it's on high. THe only thing that comes into play then is the current capacity of the fanlinc, which again most assuredly has to be less than what the attic fan requires.

Hope this helps explain things a little bit. If you take some pictures of the attic fan, I might be able to help more, or better yet, if you can get a picture of the motor plate (the little plate/sticker on the moror with all the info on it) I might can offer a better description of what you have electrically.

Terry


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Posted on
Fri May 25, 2012 12:01 pm
ryanbuckner offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

I've successfully installed 2 FanLinc's into existing ceiling fans with remotes and I love the Indigo out-of-the-box control through Touch and the Indigo 5 web interface. Can I control the fan dimmer with a switchlinc (obviously without fan speed support) assuming I'll have to create triggers rather than links from the fanlic to the switchlinc directly?

What are some of the options out there people have used and pro/cons? KPL vs SwitchLinc etc..

Posted on
Fri May 25, 2012 12:42 pm
Swancoat offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

I think you can use the switchlinc to control fan speed, as Indigo supplies methods to increment fan speed up or down one notch. So it will not be directly linked, and contingent on Indigo to work, but that's how I'm planning on setting mine up (high latency in fan controls isn't much of a big deal though, like it is with lights, so I'm sure this will be fine).

The worst case scenario is getting it all set up, and then you have the fan on one day and your computer craters. Your fan is now stuck on... (Almost worth linking them all to a keypadlinc, which is stuck into a tabletop enclosure you can keep in a desk drawer for contingency).

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Posted on
Wed May 30, 2012 9:28 pm
ryanbuckner offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

I decided to go with a 6 button KPL for control of my Fanlinc and connected fan w/Light.

Here's the way I would like to use the KPL
    On turns the light on . Holding press On dims up (regardless of what the fan is doing)
    Off turns the light off. Holding press Off dims down (regardless of what the fan is doing)
    Scene A turns fan to low (regardless of what the light is doing)
    Scene B turns fan to medium (regardless of what the light is doing)
    Scene C turns fan to high (regardless of what the light is doing)
    Scene D turns fan to off (regardless of what the light is doing)

My question is regarding wiring. Since the load controls full operation of fan/light ON/OFF I want to ignore the load. I want the wiring to always supply power to the ceiling fan unit and have the KPL determine it's state.

Should I cap the red (LOAD) wire and connect the black wires together to supply continuous power to the unit? Do others have a similar setup?

UPDATE: I successfully installed the KPL using wiring method above. I didn't consider tho that you can have multiple scenes active at once, so I may be able to achieve my goal and have a few buttons left over.

QUESTION: Is the dimmer possible with the way I have this wired?
Last edited by ryanbuckner on Sun Aug 19, 2012 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Posted on
Wed Jun 20, 2012 2:13 pm
CraigM offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

Can anyone who has already installed their FanLinc/KPL by replacing it from the following remotes verify compatibility?

Wall transmitters that look like this
trans1.jpg
trans1.jpg (40.87 KiB) Viewed 4587 times
or this
trans2.jpg
trans2.jpg (40.28 KiB) Viewed 4587 times


Receiver that looks like this
rec.jpg
rec.jpg (7.21 KiB) Viewed 4587 times


My fans are Minka-Aire, and Modern Fans, but these controllers are industry standards that are used on many brands.

FYI, these use DIP Switches. I think the old model used 4 DIP, and the newer model uses 8 DIP

Posted on
Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:05 am
pgershon offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

Is there a plugin available yet for configuring radio buttons on the keypadlinc? I have two of these for fan control and while the first one configured fine, I have been unable to get the radio buttons to work on the second keypadlinc.

Actually I found the plugin. Only issue I have is that button 3 is turning on button 1 as well. How do I de-link the two?

Posted on
Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:36 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

The easiest way is to factory reset the KPL then rerun the commands to configure the buttons.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:40 pm
pgershon offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

Thanks - one last thing. I noticed the iPhone app only gives me on/off choices for the fan on the fanlinc, as opposed to low/med/high. Am I missing something? (using devices, I could set up an action group I suppose)

Posted on
Tue Aug 21, 2012 2:19 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

We hope to have Fan specific controls in the next major rev of Indigo Touch. It'll be a while before that is ready though...

Image

Posted on
Tue Aug 21, 2012 2:57 pm
CraigM offline
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Re: Insteon Fanlinc

matt (support) wrote:
We hope to have Fan specific controls in the next major rev of Indigo Touch. It'll be a while before that is ready though...

I know you don't pre-announce, but are we talking next year, way next year, way way next year?

Any info would be helpful in letting us know if we should cancel/postpone/reschedule our projects.

Thanks

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