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I replaced an old ceiling fan in my sons room that had a light fixture and dimmer switch. The new ceiling fan only operates with a remote that it came with. No pull strings for the light or fan. I also want to add a couple of recessed lights so he gets more light as the fan light fixture does not give off much light.

Currently I have a armored electrical cable in the ceiling with Red/Black/White. The new ceiling fan remote receiver has red/white cable on one side and on the other, blue, black, white. I ran romex cable to the recessed cans and attached them together matching the white/black/and bare. I have the cable for the recessed lights in the same ceiling hole for the the fan ready. How do I make the connection so that the recessed lights work with a dimmer switch and the fan and fan light work with the remote it came with? We will used the recessed lighting and fan 99% of the time, and rarely use the fan light.

In the switch box, I see the armored red joined with the black from the electrical panel run. The armored black is by itself currently as I took off the old dimmer switch. And the armored white is joined with the other white from the electrical panel run.

This is a picture of my switch box. The black/red/white on the right side are the armored cable to ceiling fan.

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3 Answers 3

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At the Light

  • Connect the white wire that leads to the recessed lights, and the white wire from the fan/light to the white wire in the ceiling box.
  • Connect the the black from the recessed lights, to the black ungrounded (hot) wire that's controlled by the dimmer.
  • Connect the red wire from the fan/light, to the red ungrounded (hot) wire that is not controlled by the dimmer.
  • Connect all the grounding conductors.

At the switch

  • Connect the LINE wire (probably black, but depends on manufacturer) from the dimmer, in with the black wire from the feeder cable.
  • Connect the black wire from the armored cable, to the switched (probably red) wire from the dimmer.
  • Connect the ground wire from the dimmer, with the other grounds in the box.

This should allow the dimmer to control the recessed lights, and the remote to control the fan/light.

Of course this assumes that power comes to the switch first, and one of the wires in the cable is always hot.

Based on the info you've provided, it should look something like this.

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According to the documentation for the dimmer, the black lead is LINE and the red lead is LOAD.

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Tester101
    Jun 2, 2016 at 11:52
  • Didn't have time until today. Going to take down the fan again and try what you stated
    – tekaddict
    Jun 3, 2016 at 12:45
  • So everything was working once again while down. I put it up and then the recessed light stood on with no dimmer control. I played around with the fan ceiling mount and noticed that when I pushed up, light remained on. If I pulled down, light worked with dimmer. Only exposed cable in the ceiling box was the ground so I taped them up and pushed everything up again, and it worked. Problem is, I turned the dimmer switch on and off a couple of times and it blew it out. Fan still works, but dimmer is fried.
    – tekaddict
    Jun 3, 2016 at 14:31
  • That's scary. I think it might be time to call in some local help.
    – Tester101
    Jun 3, 2016 at 15:27
  • I'm going to run 1 additional romex from the switch box to the recessed lights and tie in that cable to the black and white.
    – tekaddict
    Jun 3, 2016 at 18:15
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The issue turned out to be a bad recessed can. I removed added one can at a time to the chain until I found which was causing the switch to short. Replaced that can and all 4 lights are working.

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  • You can choose this as your preferred answer to your question (you may have to wait a day).
    – Daniel Griscom
    Aug 30, 2016 at 2:05
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To my understanding, you have black wire which has constant power and it doesnt work by any switch. You can connect your fan to the black, white and ground wires. Leaving the red out. Now you can use the red wire to connect some recessed lights and i assume that red wire will control by the switch.

For the fan you will have to use remote to turn it on and off.

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  • 1
    The OP already answered his question (indicating that there was a bad light fixture) 6 years ago. There's no need for another answer.
    – FreeMan
    Apr 22 at 15:45

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