wiring a panasonic whisper ceiling fan

[Woall]

To anyone who is familiar with this type of fan...
There are three wires coming out of the "main power channel" (excuse my poor terminology)... black, white and green. I'm guessing I need to splice these wires with a PC cable. But there is also a green wire coming out of a little bolt of some sort at the bottom. the wire doesnt run anywhere... what should I do with it? Can anybody link me to a tutorial for splicing wires? I don't really know what I'm doing... is it pretty simple and safe or should I not be doing this?

 

[K-pax]

so simple.. give it a try. Just match the colors. you will know right away if somethings wrong..

 

[FreezerBoy]

Black to +
White to -
Green to the metal housing of your fan.

Electricity works in a circle or circuit. It's not enough to get power to the unit, the power has to go through the unit and back to it's source to complete the circle. An On/Off switch operates by breaking the circle.

Black is Hot/Live/+/Power In; It goes to the small flat prong. White is Neutral/Common/-/Power Out; It goes to the large flat prong (you always want the escape hatch larger than the entryway) Green is Ground/Earth; It goes to the round prong.

The green is NOT part of the circuit, it carries no power in normal operation. It's the emergency escape valve. Should a short allow electricity to run loose, it will try to use your body as a conduit to the earth (where all electricity wants to go, think lightning) The green connects the metal housing of your fan/light etc directly to planet Earth. Electricity prefers the ground over the inefficient route your body provides. Hopefully, it's connection is a waste of time but, three seconds of work to keep from frying your ass is well worth the time.

 

[Bulldog11]

Good info freezer boy. Black to Black (+possitive) White to White (-negative) and Green to Green (ground). Easy as pie.


Edit: Don't make any splices that are not in an electrical box. This is what causes fires.

 

[Woall]

freezer boy,

where are these prongs? You are talking about connecting these three wires to the three wires in a PC cable, right?

Inside the junction box there are three wires coming out of a white plastic thing (behind that, they run into the fan itself, via a grey cord). I am assuming these three wires are what I have to connect to the PC cord. One of these 3 wires is green. But there is also a separate green cord running out of the bottom of the metal junction box. It doesn't go anywhere. It is about five inches long, freyed at the end, just laying there. I am not sure if I need to connect this to the PC cord along with the 3 other cords.

Edit: Don't make any splices that are not in an electrical box. This is what causes fires.

I don't know what you mean. Could you explain this?

 

[FreezerBoy]

freezer boy,

where are these prongs? You are talking about connecting these three wires to the three wires in a PC cable, right?

The three prongs are those that plug into your wall socket.

You're not wiring a PC. USB, FireWire, ATA, Serial, SCSI, Ethernet, Parallel are all useless here. Whatever that "cable" is, dump it. You want a power cord.

Get a 14 gauge (or larger) 3 prong ext cord and cut off the female end. Inside you'll find three wires: black, white, and green. Black to black, white to white is easy. The trick is the two ground cords stuff?!? WTF? Personally, I wouldn't hook up either without dismantling the fan and seeing where they go. That or tape them both off, drill a hole in the housing and bolt the ground directly to the housing itself.

The "loose" electricity I spoke of earlier can only get to you through the housing. By grounding the housing, any loose electricity will bypass your body and use ground instead to go straight to earth.

 

[FreezerBoy]

Edit: Don't make any splices that are not in an electrical box. This is what causes fires.

I don't know what you mean. Could you explain this?

Wires exist both inside and outside an electrical or junction box. Any splices you make should be inside the box. Splicing outside the box allows access to live wires and bypasses the ground, meaning YOU will be the conduit to earth.

 

[FreezerBoy]

Are we talking the photo on left? If so, connect all 3 green wires together. Note how all splices are inside the box.

 

[Woall]

drill a hole in the housing and bolt the ground directly to the housing itself.

The "loose" electricity I spoke of earlier can only get to you through the housing. By grounding the housing, any loose electricity will bypass your body and use ground instead to go straight to earth.

I don't understand what "bolt the ground directly to the housing" means. I am clueless when it comes to this stuff, sorry. The "alternate green cord" looks like it is bolted to the housing. So would it be grounded? It is just a short cord that comes out of this bolt and doesn't connect to anything.

When I splice the wires to a power cord... I need to do it inside the junction box so there would just be one cord running out of the junction box and into my wall socket, right? There are metal "knockout holes" with horizontal slits in them on the top and side of the junction box. looking at the manual diagram I see that a "conduit" goes through the top one. this is probably where I should run the power cord through. I am not sure how to "knock out" the knockout holes.

 

[Woall]

I just saw your last post... let me look that over that picture for a moment..

 

[Woall]

yes that picture is exactly what I'm looking at. Nice find. I should have been the one to find that picture and show it to you! I really appreciate this. So I need to get those little plastic things that you use to splice wires... and from the diagram on the right it looks like you run both of the green cords into the same "plastic thing" used to splice with the green wire from the power cord. so after I do this and leave it all inside the metal box... this would be perfectly safe and "grounded?"

 

[Woall]

or maybe it just looks like there are "plastic things" from the illustration but they dont actually exist. I always thought splicing wires meant twisting them together and wrapping it with electrical tape. Is that what I should do here or are there actually little things I need to buy to help with this?

 

[FreezerBoy]

The "housing" is the big metal box the fan lives in. The fans "house" if you will.

Hold all three green wires together (2 from the fan, one from the cord), twist the exposed ends into one big connection and cap. Technically, you're not "grounded" until you plug in. That's the connector between planet Earth and your fan.

Knock-out plugs are knocked out with hammer and chisel. An old screwdriver will do.

 

[Woall]

would it be acceptable to cap with duct tape? or are there actual "caps" I should buy?

 

[FreezerBoy]

Duct or electrical tapes are subject to unraveling. I wouldn't recommend it. Wire caps (wire nuts, wire connectors, pick a name) are color coded according to size. See if you're cord is marked. If not, use your wire stripper to size the wire. Hold the wire to the holes in the stripper. Is it bigger or smaller(the wire not the insulation)? Find the hole it fits and note the number next to the hole.

Caps are sized for two wires. Because the ground is a triple, you may want the next size up.

Wire Cap chart

 

[Woall]

very helpful. I am planning on mounting this fan onto the wooden wall of my cab, which is 7 10ths of an inch thick. I am thinking about using metal elbows to support it... the fan can't weigh more than 8 or 9 pounds.. should I drill holes in the wall for this? Or would there be an easier way to mount this fan than drilling? hammer and nails?

 

[FreezerBoy]

You want to attach it in some way just to keep it from vibrating or relocating itself. Without seeing the fan and cab I wouldn't want to guess how. The wood should be strong enough to hold the weight whether you attach directly, with L brackets or build a shelf to sit on and bungie it down ...

 

[Woall]

you just use the end of the extension cord opposite of the end you plug in to the wall, right? that's the "famale end?"

What do you usually use to shave off the insulation around the wires? scissors? exacto knife?

my fan doesn't have an on/off switch. When I plug it in for the first time after splicing the wires... is there any chance of getting shocked if I made some sort of wiring error? It should be easy to match the wires... is there anything else that can go wrong? like fraying the wires by going too deep into the insulation? or leaving a little bit of the bare wires exposed? I would think it would be bad if exposed wires of different colors touched, inside the junction box. It would seem shaving off a minimal amount of insulation and covering your twists completely with the wire caps would prevent that from happening. As someone who has never spliced a wire before, am I overthinking this?

 

[FreezerBoy]

Redacted! This isn't an S&P and S&P specific advice doesn't apply.

 

[disfunktional]

hey woall if you have a home depot or lowes got to the electrical isle and find the electrical tools. you will want to find some wire strippers. they look like pliers but are notched so that you can strip different sized wires. the amount of insulation that you will need to strip off should be around 3/8ths of an inch. and youre right you do not want the different colored bare wires to touch that could get bad quick. as far as the extention cord and which side to splice to you will want the male end so that you can plug it into the outlet. and an extra step that you can take after putting the wire nuts on is wrap the wire nuts with electrical tape to the wire that it is connected to. just a lil added safety. peace and good luck