CPrince Posted March 5, 2022 Posted March 5, 2022 Not sure if this is the right place to post this. A FanLink module doesn't obey commands so I guess I am good. I have a FanLink that slowly started acting weirder and weirder. The only speed it would work on is high. Couldn't turn the fan off and low would humm and buzz pretty loud. I did manage to find one at Smarthome. It is one of the few things they had. The new module is working fine. I have 2 questions. 1) Is it possible to have the FanLink running 2 speeds at the same time? No I don't want this but if you had too many sources acting like controllers, could the FanLnk get confused? There were a massive number of links in this thing. 2) Anybody repair one of these? I found the TRIAC's on eBay and thought about replacing them. I could do caps too. At $100 dollars I hate to toss it without trying. Nothing obvious burned out on the board.
CPrince Posted March 8, 2022 Author Posted March 8, 2022 Update. I ordered all parts and heat sink compound (too lazy to look for it here) from eBay. About $35.00. I could not get the triacs without paying $8 shipping. Should have all the parts in a week. Will have plenty of extra parts. 1
Geddy Posted March 8, 2022 Posted March 8, 2022 @CPrince Thanks for the update. Interested in if you can get one working again. I've got 3 in the house and have had one go bad early on (replaced by Smarthome at the time). Fingers crossed they'll keep running as long as I need them to. But will be good to know if they can be revived if they go bad. Glad they had one for you to get up and running at the time. (looks like they still have some in stock!) As for having the fanlink running at 2 speeds...that would be crazy. I would think that the signals wouldn't get there fast enough to "confuse" it, but anything could happen if it was failing.
CPrince Posted April 2, 2022 Author Posted April 2, 2022 @GeddyI am still working on it. I am waiting for 1 part. Some guy on eBay in California is just horrible. He is the only place in the US I can find the part. I am looking for a Triac BTA16-600C. The part seems to be discontinued.
stillwater Posted April 2, 2022 Posted April 2, 2022 (edited) @CPrince There is nothing special about that triac, though they do seem to be out of stock. Digikey has 174 of the 800 volt version of that triac in stock for $1.97 each Quantity 1 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/littelfuse-inc/BTA16-800CW3G/1961059 Just gives you an extra safety margin compared to the 600 volt version Edited April 2, 2022 by stillwater missing decimal point in triac price
Brian H Posted April 3, 2022 Posted April 3, 2022 The 800V one would give you a higher safety margin and would be fine. The Fanlink uses capacitors to control the speed. So in theory a bad capacitors could also be a problem. Or a failing power supply part.
CPrince Posted April 3, 2022 Author Posted April 3, 2022 @stillwater, @Brian H Thanks for the Triac tip. I appreciate the input. @Brian H I have heard that the caps control the speed. The two big Mylar ones. Unfortunately it will be game over as there are no markings on these. After that about 98% of the components are surface mount. I have trolled the FCC web site for a schematic. That is the one thing that is not published.
Brian H Posted April 4, 2022 Posted April 4, 2022 I don't believe Smarthome ever published the schematics for most of the modules. The discontinued Insteon Developers Group. Did have the older 2412 PLM and 2414 PLC schematics in the Developers Manuals.
CPrince Posted April 8, 2022 Author Posted April 8, 2022 Okay so here we are. Somebody sent me some vary interesting information. It really seems to be vary accurate. I am using it to make sure my solder connection are correct. Thank you. I also noted that the values of the Mylar caps jumped out when hit with a LED flash light. So their values are confirmed. All triacs were replaced plus a few electrolytic capacitors. No more crazy hum. I can turn the fan off. I could not do that before. I did not need to replace the 4th triac as it is used to run the fan light. However It is not fixed. Low is way low. Medium is low and high is well off. So now I am trying to understand the circuit. When I started out on this I figured 1 setting was was Med, and 1 setting was low. No setting was high. But I am hearing that capacitance, the more the higher the fan speed. So it seems to me we have to add vales to get desired speeds, Therefor low would be no capacitance, med would be cap x and high would be cap x cap +cap y.. So the triacs would be running as groups and not individually to get the desired speeds.
CPrince Posted April 8, 2022 Author Posted April 8, 2022 @Brian H I did a Google search on Fanlink and capacitors. It sent me to well , here. Seems you were working on this sorta issue 5 years ago. Someone was working on fan speeds.
Brian H Posted April 8, 2022 Posted April 8, 2022 I never dug into the module that deep. I don't use one and from what I have seen. IMHO It was one of Smarthome poorer designs. Being very picky to the fans design. I thought it could be the smaller capacitor on low, bigger capacitor in medium and both in high.
PinchRoller Posted April 8, 2022 Posted April 8, 2022 19 hours ago, CPrince said: So it seems to me we have to add vales to get desired speeds, Therefor low would be no capacitance, med would be cap x and high would be cap x cap +cap y.. So the triacs would be running as groups and not individually to get the desired speeds. CP, the fan speeds are individually controlled and one at a time by the microcontroller. There are no mixing of the lines to select different speeds. The control line without a large capacitor in line is the high speed. For your issue where low and medium speeds are noticeable slower, have you made sure that the fan's control switch is in the high position? Bests, Pinch 1
Brian H Posted April 9, 2022 Posted April 9, 2022 Thank you for the information on speed selection. It will come in handy.
CPrince Posted June 1, 2022 Author Posted June 1, 2022 Okay I am going to wrap this up. If it wasn't for a poor soldering connection I made, I would have completed this 2 months ago. Yes, replacing the triacs and the capacitors fixed it. Granted it was a shotgun approach. I replaced Q6, Q8, Q9, Q10. Q6 is for the light that I did not need to replace it. I also replaced the electrolytic capacitors C2 and C7. Neither showed any signs of stress. All parts were exact replacements. A couple things to note. This board is very difficult to work on. Obviously, you have high and low voltages in a small area. It was very hard and time consuming removing the components and I have a professional soldiering station. The heatsink was pop riveted on and I needed to drill out the rivets. I am not sure why they have a heat sink for the triacs as they never got even warm during testing. Plus 2 of the triacs are not mounted to a heat sink. The poor soldier connection I made was a result of me messing up a pad during component removal. Oh, I don't know which of the triacs control which speed and capacitor. The Q8 circuit does not use a mylar capacitor, Q9 circuit uses a 8.2uf@250v and Q10 circuit uses a 4.7uf@250v. 3
Geddy Posted June 1, 2022 Posted June 1, 2022 Glad you've been able to repair one. Hopefully it will last you a long time. I know I have 3 fanlincs running. I have a spare for each as I have no electrical skills to attempt a repair like you did, but nice to know it's serviceable and repairable. Thanks for the follow up! 1
kurelgyer Posted July 20, 2022 Posted July 20, 2022 I have several FanLincs. They all work correctly, as far as I know. But... I have one where there is a big difference between Medium and High. I wonder if there is anything I could do, like add or change a capacitor, that would increase the medium speed?
CPrince Posted July 21, 2022 Author Posted July 21, 2022 @kurelgyerI am not a subject matter expert on the fanlink. Before I would go through all that work, I think I would swap the "failing" one out to see if the fan is not the problem. I have read the the fanlink does not play well with some fan types. I I know for a fact that the lack of a capacitor in the circuit is the high speed. Therefore I would assume the smallest capacitor (C1 4.7 Mylar) would be the medium speed. The large capacitor (C5 8.2 Mylar) would be low. So as someone told me, hook up a light bulb to the fan wire. Then you can measure the voltage going to the light bulb. We know that high is 120vac. I think low was 88vac? Medium is obviously some place in the middle. I have a fanlink from eBay coming in, I can measure the voltages and post when it comes in. 1
CPrince Posted July 27, 2022 Author Posted July 27, 2022 @kurelgyersorry for the delay. I had jewelry duty. I think the prisoners have more rights than the jurors. They actually emptied the contents of my wallet for inspection to get through security. TSA doesn't even do that. Okay Low is 83 (rounded up) vac, med is 102 vac and high is 120 vac. 3
kurelgyer Posted August 18, 2022 Posted August 18, 2022 And a delayed "Thank you" back! The last three weeks were a blink...
Recommended Posts