RE: Not HA but more Home Comforts...

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> To get these a bit more HA friendly, does any one know of a
> fan that can be controlled from a bog standard dimmer switch,
> something that can be easily replaced with an x10 unit or CBUS?

I'd wondered whether there was such a thing and found that the answer is
"Not"...

...however someone then suggested to me that they had controlled a standard
ceiling fan using an LD11 but using the direct dim commands to give several
discrete settings (Off, Low, Med, Full) rather than the small increments.
Now, I always assumed that trying to use an LD11 would just end up with a
noisy motor and fire+brimstone raining from the Gods but I did try it out
and it does seem to work with the unit that I have here in the computer
room
... IIRC I settled on direct dim settings of 25 and 40 as my
"low" and
"medium" speeds with low being enough to feel air movement but
not make much
noise and medium being enough not to start billowing out the curtains (it's
a small room).

I think that where you come into problems is if you try to adjust the speed
down very low and the motor stalls - then you would probably get a winding
being constantly partially energised and it would possibly then kill the
winding?

Phil