FanLinc No Nodes In ISY

[smokegrub]

A contractor is hooking up a FanLinc for me at an away location. I linked it successfully but the only nodes I see are Fan (OFF/ON) and Motor (Slider Bar Control wi. No Nodes). He will be wiring in a KPL for control but I am puzzled as to why I am not seeing nodes now.

[stusviews]

You should actually see Light and Motor. Light should have the usual Current State, On Level and Ramp rate sliders and Motor should have a slider with four positions, Off, Low, Medium and High. If you don't see all of that, factory reset the FanLinc and reinstall it.

 

Any success?

[smokegrub]

Stu, that is what I have. We have been trying to install an 8-button KPL to control the light/fan but so far we have been unable to get the device to link. Also, if the KPL is installed we get no power to the FanLinc. There are only 2 wires at the KPL.

[stusviews]

The KPL should be connected to line and neutral. If there are only two wires, then the wiring at the fixture needs to be changed. The red load wire gets capped (unused). The FanLinc also connects to line and neutral. The FanLinc should get unswitched power.

[smokegrub]

Are you saying we need to pull another wire, a neutral, to the box where the KPL will be located? What about the FanLinc given the fact that it is linked and performing as wired? Pardon my ignorance on these matters.

[stusviews]

The good news is that you do not need to add any wiring. There is no bad news

 

The standard wiring for a switch loop with only two wires is the make the white wire line and the black wire load. That's done so that the fixture does not have two white wires connected to it (then fixture is already connected to neutral). That wiring needs to be changed so that the black wire is line and the white wire is neutral. The change occurs at the fixture.

 

Any and all questions are welcome.

[smokegrub]

Stu:

 

I passed your note along to my contractor and got this as his reply:

I had an appointment for a checkup earlier today and in my distracted state of mind misunderstood what the guy was saying. My previous response needs to be amended. Here’s my previous response:

Hi Donnie,

The standard is to break the hot line through the switch, not the ground.

It may be wired through the ground here but that seldom is the case. The switch will break the circuit either way and will work the light/fan but breaking the ground leg leaves power at the outer edge of a light socket rather than the little button at the bottom of the socket and will be hot even with the switch turned off.

We can test it without removing the fan by finding another ground and checking for current at the switch.

Frank

What I said is correct but like most of the questions in the debate Wednesday, I didn’t really answer the question.

He’s correct in saying that the white line in the switch box is the line side and the black is the load.  The white wire of the switch leg is connected to the black wire in the ceiling box so that the hot line is broken in the switch and returns to the box on the black (switch leg)wire which is connected to the fan/light black wires. I’m still a little baffled by a change needing to occur at the fixture. I think that the wiring at the fan is correct but I can check the wiring at the switch to make sure. If a 3^rd wire is necessary (I think that it is) I think that we can run a white neutral wire from anywhere in the electrical system (we don’t have to get it from the ceiling box, it can come from anything attached to the ground bar in the panel box- we can test this by running a wire neutral from any outlet temporarily to the KPL) to the switch box and then use the new white to tie to the white KPL, original white in the box to tie to the black on the KPL and the black to the load side(red wire).This makes a situation that keeps power at the KPL all the time.

Getting a new wire to the box may be tough but doable.

​Do we have a misunderstanding here? How do I straighten it out?

Edited October 21, 2016 by smokegrub

[stusviews]

The contractor apparently has no understanding of the instructions I provided. It seems that the contractor wants to control power to the FanLinc via a switch. That's completely wrong. The FanLinc requires unswitched power.

 

Also regarding a third wire to the existing switch, a third wire is not only not needed, it has no purpose and would not be connected to anything. The Keypad. like the FanLinc, requires unswitched power. The load wire from the Keypad is not only not used, it is totally incorrect to connect it to anything.

 

In summary, both the FanLinc and the Keypad require uninterrupted line and neutral. The load wire from the Keypad is capped and unused. The FanLinc has two load wires, one for the light and the other for the fan.

[smokegrub]

Stu: Your instructions were spot on. The contractor completed the installation. I set up the programming and all is well. No more pulling chains! My sincere thanks.