LVSteve
Member
I have a couple of combined dimmer/fan controllers downstairs in my house. They are clearly old and were likely fitted 10-15 years before we bought this house in 2016. Well, the little knobs on the ends of the sliders finally gave up. Replacement knobs appear to be unobtanium.
Never mind, I've not been convinced that these old controls work well with dimmable LED bulbs, so I bought replacement units. First issue, they have swapped the color codes for the fan and light connections.
Is that a new code thing? Fixed that soon enough, but as I was putting the escutcheon onto the enclosure, I noticed that a light in the kitchen behind me was flickering. WTH??? This enclosure has four bays, three regular switches and the light/fan controller. I knew the enclosure had two circuits in it, but I was working at the far end, so was safe. I loosened the switch related to the flickering light a little, and wiggled it. Yep, with enough movement the light goes out altogether.
OK, killed the other circuit and removed the switch related to the flickering light. OMG, I am left staring at the bare metal of a black wire.
@#$%, where is that supposed to go? Discovered the switch had push in receptacles as well as screw terminals on the side. Seems that the push-in devices had gone bad,
so I rearranged the wires onto the terminals. Then there was the fun of getting everything back in the enclosure and getting all the parts to line up so the escutcheon would fit. What a faff that was. Power back on, test all the lights and fans, all seems good.
At 0311 this morning, the power goes off in the house, waking me up. It wakes me up because any power interruption sends all the smoke alarms into a frenzy of little beeps. They quickly die down, but then the thought occurs, 'Oh ****, what did I screw up?' Got out of bed, went to the window and opened the blinds. Imagine my relief when I found the entire neighborhood dark. No lights, no A/Cs running. PHEW! It's not my fault!
Emails from the power company show that 457 customers were hit. At 0425, power was restored, waking me from my doze with more bleeps and the computer printer in the next room restarting and going through a cleaning cycle.
Got brave and did the second piece today. Fortunately, the process was much smoother.
Never mind, I've not been convinced that these old controls work well with dimmable LED bulbs, so I bought replacement units. First issue, they have swapped the color codes for the fan and light connections.
Is that a new code thing? Fixed that soon enough, but as I was putting the escutcheon onto the enclosure, I noticed that a light in the kitchen behind me was flickering. WTH??? This enclosure has four bays, three regular switches and the light/fan controller. I knew the enclosure had two circuits in it, but I was working at the far end, so was safe. I loosened the switch related to the flickering light a little, and wiggled it. Yep, with enough movement the light goes out altogether.OK, killed the other circuit and removed the switch related to the flickering light. OMG, I am left staring at the bare metal of a black wire.
@#$%, where is that supposed to go? Discovered the switch had push in receptacles as well as screw terminals on the side. Seems that the push-in devices had gone bad, so I rearranged the wires onto the terminals. Then there was the fun of getting everything back in the enclosure and getting all the parts to line up so the escutcheon would fit. What a faff that was. Power back on, test all the lights and fans, all seems good.At 0311 this morning, the power goes off in the house, waking me up.
It wakes me up because any power interruption sends all the smoke alarms into a frenzy of little beeps. They quickly die down, but then the thought occurs, 'Oh ****, what did I screw up?' Got out of bed, went to the window and opened the blinds. Imagine my relief when I found the entire neighborhood dark. No lights, no A/Cs running. PHEW! It's not my fault! Emails from the power company show that 457 customers were hit. At 0425, power was restored, waking me from my doze with more bleeps and the computer printer in the next room restarting and going through a cleaning cycle.Got brave and did the second piece today. Fortunately, the process was much smoother.
