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I am a novice but know enough to get by. I was given an older Hunter Fan that is only operated via Remote. I have cut the receiver out because I do not have the remote and from what I have read they are problematic and discontinued.

The fan has 2 windings (70 Ohm and 47 Ohm). I can wire (110V AC) the two windings in parallel and the fan will run but at a slow to mid speed. I would like to get the fan to full speed. I feel I need to add a run capacitor in series with one of the windings, but do not know which one and how much capacitance should be used? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

SamGibson
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Douglas Pescatore
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    So have you examined the controller layout to see what winding combinations were possible? – Solar Mike Jul 27 '18 at 12:58
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    No I haven't. The receiver/controller has a circuit board and several capacitors. It did not look like something I could pick through and glean useful information. – Douglas Pescatore Jul 27 '18 at 13:04
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    Sounds like the opposite. It’s probably easier to reverse engineer the control box than the fan itself. – winny Jul 27 '18 at 13:30
  • Ok, this is what I can get from the circuit board. There are 3 capacitors, 2 - 5 uF caps and 1- 6 uF cap. It appears that one 5 uF cap is in series with the 70 Ohm winding all of the time. I have a hard time figuring out the other 2 but I am guessing that they are parallel to each other and the hot to the 47 Ohm winding runs through them but they are controlled by a relay (bypass, one cap, both caps) but that is somewhat of a guess. Does this sound about right? – Douglas Pescatore Jul 31 '18 at 13:23
  • I wired a 5 uF capacitor in series with the 70 Ohm winding and left the 47 Ohm winding in parallel. This got the Fan going at the speed I would expect to be high (or close to). There was a hum to it which I would not expect from a hunter fan but since I am wiring direct I think it is solvable with some re-configuring. My concern now is the power draw, with 70 Ohms and 47 Ohms in parallel I get 28 Ohms and 3.9 amps (calculated). On the top of the fan is states 1.85 Amps and I have to assume half of that is for the light. Could these motors (windings)have been wired in series? – Douglas Pescatore Aug 01 '18 at 13:17
  • Update. I moved the 6 uF cap to the 47 Ohm winding and the hum went away and the fan turned nice. Not as fast as the 70 Ohm winding. I realized that the "other" 5 uF cap was actually a 1.8 uF Cap. So full speed should be the 6 uF and 1.8 uF caps in parallel (7.8 uF). I dug a bit deeper and learned about capacitor reactance. When I get the reactance for the 7.8 uF caps it brings my draw down to 1.85 amps (listed on the Fan). Since I am jury rigging the board caps I have ordered a fan run capacitor at 8 uF and will wire that in series with the 47 Ohm winding. I think that about does it. – Douglas Pescatore Aug 02 '18 at 14:51
  • search efforts could improve https://electronics.stackexchange.com/search?q=Hunter+Fan – Tony Stewart EE75 Sep 11 '18 at 22:07

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Update. I moved the 6 uF cap to the 47 Ohm winding and the hum went away and the fan turned nicely. Not as fast as the 70 Ohm winding. I realized that the "other" 5 uF cap was actually a 1.8 uF Cap. So full speed should be the 6 uF and 1.8 uF caps in parallel (7.8 uF). I dug a bit deeper and learned about capacitor reactance. When I get the reactance for the 7.8 uF caps it brings my draw down to 1.85 amps (listed on the Fan). Since I am jury rigging the board caps I have ordered a fan run capacitor at 8 uF and will wire that in series with the 47 Ohm winding. I think that about does it.

Douglas Pescatore
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I thought I had the answer with the 1.8 uF Cap in parallel with the 6 uF cap on the 47 Ohm winding because it brought the draw down to 1.85 Amps (listed on the fan) but this is a Fan from 2000 so the two 60 Watt lights would draw over an amp. I did some research and found that even a large (54 in.) ceiling fan should draw around 0.25 amps on low, around 0.40 amps on medium, and around 0.6 amps on high. Back to the drawing board (or old remote circuit board). I have 2 - 5uF caps, 1 - 6uF cap, and 1- 1.8uF cap. Originally, upon inspection I was sure that one of the 5uF caps was in series with the 70 Ohm winding. I went back to that assumption and varied the 3 other caps (on an excel spreadsheet) on the 47 Ohm winding to get the following:

70 Ohm + 5uF and 47 Ohm + 1.8uF = 0.26 amps

70 Ohm + 5uF and 47 Ohm + 5uF = 0.37 amps

70 Ohm + 5uF and 47 Ohm + 6uF = 0.41 amps

70 Ohm + 5uF and 47 Ohm + (5uF + 1.8uF in parallel) = 0.43 amps

70 Ohm + 5uF and 47 Ohm + (6uF + 1.8uF in parallel) = 0.46 amps

70 Ohm + 5uF and 47 Ohm + (5uF + 6uF + 1.8uF in parallel) = 0.62 amps

Since I am only looking for the highest speed with the lowest draw the last combination is what I will recreate in the fan. Based on what I have ordered it will be 70 Ohm + 5uF and 47 Ohm + 13uF.

I have learned a lot and had fun figuring this out. Thank you for suggesting I go back to the controller/receiver and trying to figure it out from there.

Douglas Pescatore
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