Annoying ceiling fan hum / "wum"

[madcodger]

As warm weather approaches we have been using a bedroom ceiling fan (Hunter, from a big box store - no idea as to model) connected to a fanlinc and controlled by a KPL. I notice that on low - and especially on medium - the fan produces a "hum" sound that cycles about every half second or so. The effect is a low frequency sound that I can only describe as "wum-wum-wum", continuously and, to me, annoyingly.

 

Is anyone else experiencing this? Any ideas on how to resolve? This is our only fanlinc, and I'm ready to replace anything necessary to get rid of that annoying low frequency sound. Thanks in advance for input.

[Teken]

Most fans that I have used and seen make some kind of noise in the various modes. All of the fan lincs I have in place don't add to the noise of the fan at all.

 

Am I to understand your saying the fan with out the Insteon devices normally makes no noise at all in any of the speed modes?

[Brian H]

Was the fan set to its high speed setting for use with the Fanlinc?

If it has electronic speed controls. Did you have to bypass it to use the Fanlinc?

[Algorithm]

As Brian said, make sure the fan's manual control is set to High.  As per Teken, most fans have some amount of noise.  To test, set the FanLinc to High, then use the fan's manual control to cycle through high, medium, and low, to see if there is any noise.

 

Al

 

[madcodger]

Thanks for the thoughts, all.

 

So, I have installed many ceiling fans, but only this one on a fanlinc. The noise is definitely much worse than any I've ever owned or installed.

 

It is possible that I have somehow allowed the manual control to be placed on medium, but it does not seem to behave as such in terms of its speed settings. That's a good thing to check, though.

 

There are no electronic controls on the fan - just the three speed + off pull chain.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[stusviews]

Because the FanLinc is in the canopy, it's relatively easy to bypass it. One wire changes. What's the result?

[BamBamF16]

My fanlincs have bad hum. I assumed it was how they control speed on fans that aren't designed for external control.

[madcodger]

Stu - Have been traveling so can't check until weekend. Not easy on this fan though, due to the canopy design. Essentially have to disassemble much of it.

 

Bambam16 - This is my basic working hypothesis. In fact, I am wondering if the fanlinc simply cuts power to the fan for a fraction of a second, varying that rate based on desired speed.

 

I installed the fanlinc to be able to turn off the fan when no one was in the room (we tend to forget about them), and other than turning it on from my bedside iPad rather than get out of bed and walk a few feet, get no other benefit from it. If I cannot resolve this, I will likely just remove this fan and put it in another room (probably without the fanlinc), and install a better fan guaranteed to be quiet, with a different control. Fan noise in a bedroom is one of my pet peeves, so I have no problem spending more for a better unit. I just wish a better unit was more easily obtained! The "box" stores just don't cut it, but I find that increasingly true for most of their products.

[larryllix]

Are FanLincs three switched contacts and capacitor voltage droppers, or are they just a dimmer circuit triac using three presets?

[Brian H]

No schematics that I have seen so this is from what I see in the FCC Database internal photos.

 

What looks like four triacs on the PCB/ Heat Sink. Photos not quite clear enough to read the part number.

I would say one is for the light dimmer control and three for the fan motor speed.

 

Also I see two large Mylar capacitors and I suspect they are switched into and out of the fan output. Depending on what speed is chosen.

Could also be that High connects the line to the fan output and medium and low switch one of the capacitors into the fan motor output.

[stusviews]

I installed the fanlinc to be able to turn off the fan when no one was in the room (we tend to forget about them), and other than turning it on from my bedside iPad rather than get out of bed and walk a few feet, get no other benefit from it. If I cannot resolve this, I will likely just remove this fan and put it in another room (probably without the fanlinc), and install a better fan guaranteed to be quiet, with a different control. Fan noise in a bedroom is one of my pet peeves, so I have no problem spending more for a better unit. I just wish a better unit was more easily obtained! The "box" stores just don't cut it, but I find that increasingly true for most of their products.

 

Our bedroom fan is virtually always set to two speeds, on or off. It's controlled using an On/Off SwitchLinc plus a remote near the bed. A second fan (another bedroom) did not have a separate switch, so I installed a Micro On/Off Module. No need to walk for control

[larryllix]

No schematics that I have seen so this is from what I see in the FCC Database internal photos.

 

What looks like four triacs on the PCB/ Heat Sink. Photos not quite clear enough to read the part number.

I would say one is for the light dimmer control and three for the fan motor speed.

 

Also I see two large Mylar capacitors and I suspect they are switched into and out of the fan output. Depending on what speed is chosen.

Could also be that High connects the line to the fan output and medium and low switch one of the capacitors into the fan motor output.

Sounds like a contactless combination. Use the triacs as just switches and caps to drop voltage without heat.

 

This would be substantiated by the  hearing of a slight hum, unlike a simple wave-chopping dimmer that you would hear a lot of hum on a fan motor.

 

As always, thanks Brian!