I would also double check your connections on the CA3000 to make sure everything is hooked up correctly.
- Garrett
Make sure there wasn’t also a red wire in the box. It could have wired so that the black and red were tied together on your regular switch. Black maybe being light and red being used for fan power. If that IS the case then tie them together again and attach it to the blue wire.
Can you please post the details on what the issues are? Thanks!
Can you please post the details on what the issues are? Thanks![/quote]
below is my post last May 9th. i had a regular on/off switch for the ceiling fan/light which has a pull chain for the fan and and another puul chain for the fan. i replaced this regular switch with CA3000. only the light turns on/off and nothing happen with fan. anyway thanks for all your help. fanlink, leviton, GE are all expensive. i think i will just buy a receiver (for inside the fan canopy) and wall transmitter from home depot - they are not zwave but only $32.95. i will just settle for non zwave for now since i use only the fan during the summer time. thanks guys.
Quote from: waltzer11 on May 09, 2012, 02:31:22 pm
can you guys clue me in regarding electrical wiring of the CA3000. my existing standard on/off switch has 2 wires connected to it; one coming from the circuit breaker (line) and another going to the light (load i guess). they are both black. there are several white wires tied together and black wires also tied together - the outdoor food lights share with this same circuit breaker. CA3000 has 5 wires: white, black, blue, green and yellow. can i just tie the white to the wire going to the light and the black coming from the circuit breaker. do i need the green, yellow and blue? thanks.
Is this a single switch to control the light?
Assuming the whites are neutral (big assumption lately!) then, you would do
CA3000 white to box white
CA3000 black to box black (from circuit breaker)
CA3000 blue to box black (load)
CA3000 green to ground
CA3000 yellow is unused
"My existing standard on/off switch has 2 wires connected to it; one coming from the circuit breaker (line) and another going to the light (load i guess)."
Okay… So here’s a question for you. The standard switch on the wall… When it was turned on/off did it only control the lights portion? In other words with the switch on the wall in the off position, pulling the chain on the lights didn’t change the lights right?
Now what about the fan? With the old switch installed when the old switch was off did the fan still function when the chain was pulled. OR…
Did it work like this… If the lights and fan were running flipping the old switch off turned off the light AND the fan?
What I’m trying to determine is if power was ‘always on’ for the fan section.
"They are both black. there are several white wires tied together and black wires also tied together - the outdoor food lights share with this same circuit breaker."
When you have two or more green/bare (ground wires) tied together it’s normal.
When you have two or more white (neutral wires) tied together it’s normal.
When you have two or more black (live/load wires) tied together it ( usually ) means one of those black wires is hot ( from the load center ) and power travels unhampered / unswitched to the rest of the blacks in the bundle … Unless one of those wires actually came from a switch in the bov. If that’s the case then the hot coming from the load center is going into the switch and the ‘switched’ end of the switch connects with the bundle and when the switch is off all the blacks in the bundle turn off.
What I’d do first is ensure ALL the whites in the box ( that are tied together ) are indeed nice and tightly connected under the wire nut… Then I’d do the same for the black bundle… Perhaps even if you hadn’t touched either wire nut a wire may have been dislodged and no longer making good contact… This alone might be the problem… As always… Make sure you do the inspection and ‘retightening’ of the cable bundles with the breaker off … and do them one at a time so not to mix things up.
@waltzer11,
I think you should be able to get it to behave with the CA3000 the same way it did before with the old switch. As @DaveGee mentioned, the switch on the wall may switch the feed to both the fan and the lights. The pull chains determine fan on/off, lights on/off. That doesn’t change.
The issue isn’t the switch working or not… I think the issue he’s having is this:
Prior to putting in the new switch the light and the fan both worked.
Now after the new switch install only the lighs are working.
So given the lights are working and can be turned on and off from BOTH the new switch AND the pull chain (please confirm) then we know the new switch is indeed controlling the flow of electricity to the ceiling.
IF my statement above is correct the fan NOT working can only be one of a few problems.
1 the fan motor died … Aka just bad luck / timing.
2 the pull chain that acts as a 2nd control to the fan operation died… Again just bad timing…
3 the fan and the light were both being fed UNIQUE power feeds from the wall switch and one getting power to the fan isn’t connected to the blue wire on the new switch instead only the wire feeding power to the lights is connected.
I think it’s most important to see that switch in the wall is actually doing anything at all so my advice would be to use the pull chain to light the fan and then turn the wall switch off.
If the light goes out it’ll go a long way in sleuthing out the problem. If the light doesn’t … Well that too will help us get a better read as to how that fan is wired.
Remember as much as I wish it weren’t true, the power from the load center doesn’t have to go to the switch box first… The power could just as easily wired into the ceiling first and then sent down to the wall switch.
To get even nuttier if the power does go to the fixture first then its also possible to wire the lights to be unaffected by the wall switch / aka always on aka only controllable via the local pull chain and them just the fans power would be switched by the wall switch.
Now if that last statement were the case / true then all bets are off and either the new wall switch is bad and/or miswired.
With so very many ways a fixture could be wired it’s really important to consider all the possibilities until we can better identify how your specific fan is wired.
[quote=“DaveGee, post:107, topic:171262”]The issue isn’t the switch working or not… I think the issue he’s having is this:
Prior to putting in the new switch the light and the fan both worked.
Now after the new switch install only the lighs are working.
So given the lights are working and can be turned on and off from BOTH the new switch AND the pull chain (please confirm) then we know the new switch is indeed controlling the flow of electricity to the ceiling.
IF my statement above is correct the fan NOT working can only be one of a few problems.
1 the fan motor died … Aka just bad luck / timing.
2 the pull chain that acts as a 2nd control to the fan operation died… Again just bad timing…
3 the fan and the light were both being fed UNIQUE power feeds from the wall switch and one getting power to the fan isn’t connected to the blue wire on the new switch instead only the wire feeding power to the lights is connected.
I think it’s most important to see that switch in the wall is actually doing anything at all so my advice would be to use the pull chain to light the fan and then turn the wall switch off.
If the light goes out it’ll go a long way in sleuthing out the problem. If the light doesn’t … Well that too will help us get a better read as to how that fan is wired.
Remember as much as I wish it weren’t true, the power from the load center doesn’t have to go to the switch box first… The power could just as easily wired into the ceiling first and then sent down to the wall switch.
To get even nuttier if the power does go to the fixture first then its also possible to wire the lights to be unaffected by the wall switch / aka always on aka only controllable via the local pull chain and them just the fans power would be switched by the wall switch.
Now if that last statement were the case / true then all bets are off and either the new wall switch is bad and/or miswired.
With so very many ways a fixture could be wired it’s really important to consider all the possibilities until we can better identify how your specific fan is wired.[/quote]
thanks DaveGee and oTi for the detailed explanation. i will do your suggestions and let you know. i think the power goes to the switch box first and not to the fixture because when both pull chains for the light and fan are still on (lights and on and fan running), the wife will just turn the wall switch off (she can’t reach the fan chain). the next day when i turn the wall switch back on, both the light and the fan turn on. what you said in (1) and (2) could be true; that the motor and/or the pull chain died - to verify this, i will restore back the old regular switch.
because the wife cannot reach the pull chain for the fan (she can reach the light chain only), i am leaning towards buying the switch from home depot for $$32.95 which has 3 fan speed (low, medium, high and off of course) and also light dimming features. ok will post later. thanks again for your input.
Ah okay… So the switch did/would kill all power to the fan & lights … Then it’s a better bet that the power begins at the switch/box. It’s still possible power started from the ceiling tho… However if that was the case the switch would have wires coming from only one bundle of wire…
In short, if you have a black coming from one set of wires going to the black wire on the switch and the other black wire coming from a different set of cables connecting to the blue wire on the switch then yes i’d be fairly certain the power is from the box.
And yes, if the switch kills the lights we know power is being cut at the box then as strange as it seems either the fan motor is dead or the pull chain went…
Or…
If the fan motor draws more power then the new switch will tolerate then perhaps that’s the problem… Tho I have a pretty beefy Hunter Douglas fan & light combo and just yesterday replaced its ordinary switch with a CA3000 switch… and so far so good however 24 hours isn’t much of a yardstick… lol
That would be my guess, based on your earlier comments about bundles and having 2 black wires. (Not that colors are a guarantee.)
[...] to verify this, i will restore back the old regular switch.That sounds like a good test.
That would be my guess, based on your earlier comments about bundles and having 2 black wires. (Not that colors are a guarantee.)
[...] to verify this, i will restore back the old regular switch.That sounds like a good test.[/quote]
hi DaveGee and oTi, stupid me. reinstalled the old switch and fan sitll did not work. i took the step ladder and ready to bring down and replace the fan. lo and behold, i noticed the small black button in up position (reverse button i guess); i flipped it down and the fan start moving. i renstalled the CA3000. thanks for your input anyway.
Since the thread has been highjacked by a few ‘electricians’ discussing wires connection issues ;D (very useful by the way) I would like to bump it with the following questions that seem to be unanswered:
How to force CA3000/CA600 to report status instantly?
How to force indicator light to turn on when the switch is in off position?
While I’m no expert I do remember reading several different threads about zwave devices and their inability to report instant status changes… You’d think the zwave spec would have had that covered and patent protected… However from what I’m remembering leviton actually owns a patent that directly prevents all other manufactures from putting that feature in.
I also hazily remember hearing about some manufacturer who did have it as a standard feature and was forced to stop producing and or firmware updating the device so it stopped doing just that. 
DaveGee is right…it’s a patent issue, but owned by Lutron. Leviton (and others) pay a license fee to Lutron to allow them to report them instantly.
If you CA600/CA3000 can speak directly to Vera (and not via an intermediate device) then Vera should get the notification. But there is no guarantee. The switch essentially says “hey everyone, I just turned on” but there are no acknowledgements back and forth, and Vera might not see the message every time.
[quote=“PurdueGuy, post:114, topic:171262”]DaveGee is right…it’s a patent issue, but owned by Lutron. Leviton (and others) pay a license fee to Lutron to allow them to report them instantly.
If you CA600/CA3000 can speak directly to Vera (and not via an intermediate device) then Vera should get the notification. But there is no guarantee. The switch essentially says “hey everyone, I just turned on” but there are no acknowledgements back and forth, and Vera might not see the message every time.[/quote]
Except that Vera doesn’t actually do anything with the received data. My Vera receives the data from the switch as soon as it’s turned on or off (i.e. without polling), but still doesn’t update the Vera device status. I filed a bug report here:
I detest Lutron, and will never buy any of their products again, for asking for a patent for an obvious idea as sending out a message that “I’ve changed states” and the patent office should be hung by the toes for granting it. Then the other manufactures should have protested the patent as being obvious in the first place. Our patent system is so damn broken that it needs a total overhaul.
It’s the same with Phillips and their patent for Pulse Width Modulation of RGB LEDs to make colors. Mixing colored lights to create colors is nothing new and PWM for controlling the intensity of LEDs was prior art back in the 70’s. You should not be able to get a patent for combining them. Again the patent office screwed up in granting it and the other manufactures should protest the patent and get it rejected even now.
[quote=“PurdueGuy, post:114, topic:171262”]DaveGee is right…it’s a patent issue, but owned by Lutron. Leviton (and others) pay a license fee to Lutron to allow them to report them instantly.
If you CA600/CA3000 can speak directly to Vera (and not via an intermediate device) then Vera should get the notification. But there is no guarantee. The switch essentially says “hey everyone, I just turned on” but there are no acknowledgements back and forth, and Vera might not see the message every time.[/quote]
I haven’t followed the whole thread but was asked to respond to May 07, 2012, 06:15:07 am post by hugheaves that Vera was ‘ignoring’ the command from the light switch. The reason is that the light switch was sending a basic_set (0x20 0x1). That is a command where the light switch is telling Vera to turn on or off; it’s a request to Vera, not a report of its own status. If the switch wanted to tell Vera its status it should send a basic_report (0x20 0x3) which is how a device notifies another what its status is.
I don’t think the issue is what the switch wants to tell Vera. The question is what information can Vera interpret from the (perhaps inappropriate) messaging that the switch DOES send. We currently can’t get at the message it sends in luup to create our desired behavior. Can that be addressed?
I would think think could be interpreted by Vera the same way it does scene controllers.
For things like Leviton scene controllers, Vera pretends to be a dimmable light, with 1% being for scene 1. I would think Vera could be re-written to pretend to be an off/on light in the same fashion when dealing with a CA600/3000.
Thanks for the reply. I didn’t know the details of the protocol (that you have now provided), but was under the general impression that Vera would listen for basic_set commands from devices in it’s association group, and use those to as a trigger to status for devices that didn’t support “instance status” reporting.
As my assumption appears incorrect, would it be possible to actually implement this? I know MCV has a big “to do” list, but at the very least, could this just be used to trigger a poll of the originating device? This would provide a reasonably “real time” update of device statuses for these sorts of devices.
If not, can we get some sort of luup function that operates like luup.watch_variable(), but allows us to register a callback function to listen for raw zwave messages for a specific device, or all devices? That was we (I) could implement it myself.
Maybe something like this:
[tt]function: register_zwave_listener
parameters: function_name (string), direction (string), device (number or nil)
returns: nothing
Registers a callback function that receives notification of zwave messages that are either outgoing (vera to device), incoming (device to vera), or both. (specified by direction parameter of “in”, “out”, or “both”). If the device parameter is nil, the callback function will be called for all devices, instead of the specified device number.
[/tt]
The signature of the callback method would be similar to incoming, where the function receives a copy of the raw data, and the device from which it was received.
Thanks,
Hugh