[petelorvick]

I have a room that has 2 light switchs to the same light, so it is a 3 wire circuit. I bought a fan with a remote and the wall mounted remote has only 2 wires, how can I connect it?
Thanks,
Pete

[ceilingfanrepair]

What brand is the wall mounted remote?

You can bypass one of the switches, or buy a second wall remote. Either way wiring it can be tricky.

[petelorvick]

It is a hampton bay remote. What I did in the mean time is using a meter I experimented with serveral settings on the existing switches. In the ceiling was a black and a red, in the wall on the side for the remote was a black, red and white. I deceided that it would be OK to not use the other switch so it set that so the black and red in the wall was hot. I then wired the remote to the black and the red in the wall and capped the white. This appears to work fine. Is there a down side to this other than not being able to use the off remote switch?

[ballengerb1]

If you wired it correctly and the switch is in the on position there is not reason your remote off would not work.

[labman]

OOOOOh! Are you sure there wasn't a white in the ceiling? One side of the fan should be connected to it. Post back telling just how many wires are in the ceiling and wall. Are the wires in cables (Romex) or singles in conduit?

[petelorvick]

You are right, I mistyped, there was red and white in the ceiling. The wires are in greenfield conduit. It appears to work fine at the moment, except for not being able to fully utilize the off remote switch. Thanks for the post back.

[labman]

Good, weird things are done. You want the red to the fan and the black to the remote connected to the feed wire at the switches. All the whites connected. All the bares and greens connected plus pigtailed to the boxes. With metallic conduit, you may not have any. With power to the remote and fan at all times, it should work. Now the black at the switches. If it didn't go to the fan too, it may go to something else, maybe an outlet.

[Stratmando]

Another way you could do this is: Go to second switch location(the one less used and not going to have the wall control. Connect a traveller and the common together, and cap other traveller off. Go to control location and determine the 2 that will provide power to a bulb or light, cap the unused traveller off. Connect Wall transmitter to these 2 wires.
Then get the wireless handheld unit that mounts on wall and mount at second location.

[ceilingfanrepair]

You should be able to wire it so that you have full control of the remote.

If you are OK with not being able to use one of the wall switches, leave that switch in the on position.

Go to the other switch. You should have three wires. One will go to a different colored terminal. You will be using that wire, and one of the other two. Cap off the third wire. If it does not work, flip the wall switch you are not using the other way. THEN it should work.

[labman]

Are these switches together in one box or 3 way switches on the far sides of the room? My posts have assumed 2 switches together to control 2 different loads. If they are 3 way, follow ceilingfanrepair's directions.

[ceilingfanrepair]

I was going by "I have a room that has 2 light switchs to the same light, so it is a 3 wire circuit", plus the fact that he only has two wires in the ceiling box.