Ceiling Sweep Fans and Low Power Supply

Can I use an energy controller 5610 series products for a mixed load such as fluoro lights (magnetic ballasts) and ceiling sweep fans? will the reduced voltage affect the operation of the ceiling sweep fan, are there any types of ceiling fans I should avoid using?

 

one of your biggest fans

The Energy controller operates on the basis that droping 10 - 15 % of the line voltage only results in a 5% or so drop in 'perceived' light level, but in the case of a ceiling sweep fan the drop in output (ie speed of fan) is likely to be directly proportional to the drop in supply voltage so I would expect the fans to turn 10 - 15% slower, in fact the effect would be similar to using one of the commonly available inductive 3 or 5 position fan speed controllers (er except it would only have one speed of course). All of the ceiling sweep fans I have come across use a split winding (with one winding having a series capacitance) motor so there is unlikely to be a difference in the way various makes and models re-act.

Having said all that I have never actually tried connecting a ceiling sweep fan to an Energy controller - BUT - we made a test/training board up to show the operation of the Energy Controller, and the load consisted of a couple of Fluro tubes with inductive ballast and PFC etc and a 10kW fan heater (to save carring 16 light fittings around). When the economy mode chipped in the fan speed would noticably slow down so I suspect I am right.

 

Is there a Cbus fan controler module

Is there a fan cortroler module that can be intergrated into the Cbus network so tha you can control the fan using a DLT switch for example.

I have tried using a 1A dimmer to do the work and then set the min max to get a slower speed that works but the fan makes a lot of niose.So what i did is i wired a standard clipsal fan controler in line with a Cbus relay so that the client can set the most often used speed at the control panel then switch the fan off and on at that set speed. the problem is when they want to change the speed they have to go to the panel to change the speed
any better plans

 

The audible noise you are hearing from the ceiling fan is because the dimmers are using phase control, i.e. they chop the mains waveform to dim the load. This chopped AC waveform is what makes the fan noisy.

You could set up a few different speeds by using one of those capacitor-block style 3-speed controllers and wiring it into a couple of channels of a DIN Relay unit and using the interlocking feature to ensure that only one speed is selected at any given time.

The best way to do fan speed control would be to use a Sinewave dimmer, but they coust thousands!

 

interlock not required

I find that a good solution is to use the capacitor block off of the normal capacitive fan controller, 2 relay channels and 2 corresponding buttons to control each fan.

The capacitor block can be mounted near the relay module so only one wire needs to be run to the fan, or alternatively can be hidden under the cowl of the fan, and two wire runs taken back to the relay. Mounting under the cowl of the fan results in higher wiring inductance to reduce the current spike resulting from changing speeds.

As the capacitor blocks are designed with two different values of capacitance, one relay / button will give you a big increase in speed when on, and the other will give you a small increase in speed. When they are on together, you get a speed than will be faster than either on its own. The fastest speed might actually end up being faster than the normal fan speed (thanks to resonance with the fan inductance), but it might also be lower, but I have found in practice, it is always adequate.

On a DLT plate, you could label something like "fan+1" and "fan+2", so that logically you could put on both together for maximum effect.

By the way, C-Touch graphics work well in this instance; I created two fan icons with "whoosh lines" in different spots and of different thickness, so that when they are placed on a screen on top of each other, you get three different images representing exactly what you are getting.