The house we bought has a Seagull ceiling fan that is controlled only by remote control. After about 4 years now, the fan doesn't act properly. When turning on the light, there is a delay and then the light flicks for a variety of time, on-off, on-off, on-off, until finally it comes on completely and then it works fine. It gotten progressively worse where it sometimes never comes on, other times it could take 1 hour for the flickering to start then eventually it comes on. You'd think it was the ballast, but I couldn't find a replacement so I bought a Hampton Bay fan as a replacement. It also runs ONLY by remote control (vaulted ceiling). There is a single wall switch to "enable" the fan or turn power off.
Now, the wiring out of the downrod has 5 wires - Black, White, Purple, Gray and Blue.
All were used on the Seagull fan, however the new Hampton Bay fan only has a white and black connection to it.
I taped up all the wires except the white and black (confirmed 120v) and hooked it up to the fan. There must be some kind of load problem, as may have been the situation with the Seagull fan, because the lights don't work at all unless the fan is on. If the fan is on high, the light work properly. If the fan is on medium, the light flickers and if the fan is on low, you can hear the control box switching on-off, on-off and the light doesn't come on at all.
Thinking there may be a bad wall switch loading it down, I by-passed the wall switch and the symptom changed slightly. Now the fan on high, lights work fine, fan on medium, lights dim but no switching on-off. Fan on low, still the click on,off but the light stays on.

Now the kicker... if I hotwire the fan DIRECTLY to a 120v wall outlet, everything works fine.

What else can I check AND how should I connect the only the white and black wires to my new Hampton Bay fan and leave the other 3 wires unconnected?

I've been fighting this problem for weeks now. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dale Blount
[email protected]

Sounds like maybe the original fan wasn't the problem, it was the control.

The remote control, is it wall mounted or wireless?

Thanks for the reply. Interestingly enough, I decided to combine two wires that were both hot and that fixed the problem. I guess the old fan had a wire for the current to the light and another wire for the fan. When I used only one wire with the new fan, that only had two wires, there wasn't enough current to power both the fan and the light. When I combined the two hot wires together, it worked fine.

Thanks for the response...

That makes no sense unless there is something else in the circuit you are bypassing. But, as long as it works.. .