Monday, December 31, 2012

Convert a Ceiling fan to LED lighting...

Most ceiling fans come with candelabra bulb sockets.  These sockets make it very difficult to use LED bulbs because as of 12/2012 I can't find a good candelabra LED bulb.  There is a reason for companies to ship ceiling fans with candelabra bulb sockets:  US regulations.  To make a long story short, in 2005 a regulation was published that forced companies to use them.  That is a simplification of course, but now we are stuck with it.

We built a house in 2005 and I bought three identical ceiling fans for our 3 bedrooms.  Two had candelabra sockets:


And one had standard sockets:


Funny, eh?  I have read that the companies had several years to comply so there was some of the standard socket ones in the sales channel.  Anyway, I want to use these:

That, my friends, is a Philips 60w equivalent bulb...
These babys are sweet and expensive.  I have a daughter that is paying rent and she has been buying them for me!  They are exactly like the normal 60w bulb but they use 12 watts.  Quite a saving but, for this post, they do NOT come in candelabra bulbs.  Hence the change.

Shut off the power before you try any of this!  Remove the screws that hold the light kit and you get this:


There is a black and white wire that connects the lights to the fan.  Those go down through the base of the light (they are sticking out the the left above).  Disconnect or cut them.  They usually have connectors because you can change light kits.   You need to remove the candelabra light fixture. It is the center picture below.  They unscrew pretty easily (usually).


The replacement is the top fixture above.  I bought it on the web, but found it at a local store a week later.  It sports two standard size sockets but is noticeably shorter.  We will need to add some length to the hollow screw at the bottom.  These hollow screws can be bought from a hardware store or you can cannibalize another light in the house to get one.  There are also connectors to affix two together. You will need to remove the hollow screw from the candelabra base fixture and add it to the standard fixture. Now doing this conversion will remove the switch that is at the bottom of the fan.  I have two switches on my wall:  one for the fan and one for the light.  So I don't need the switch.  YMMV.  Here is my finished fixture:


I removed the hollow screw from the candelabra fixture, connected it to another one of the same length that i had from another lamp, and screwed it all together.  Perfect length.  Screw it into the cover:


and then do the electrical connections:


Always use the correct sized wire nuts for this.  When this is done, reattach the entire fixture and add the bulbs:


Finally add the bottom globe holders and such and you get this:



This light will use 25 watts and give off 1600 lumens.  The old lights were using 120 watts and 1200 lumens.  Pretty good deal.  Now one thing to consider.  These LED lights are expensive so we only put the in one room with a ceiling fan.  My son plays video games in his room so the light is on a significant amount of time.  However,  our bedroom and my daughters are not used much, so we actually put regular 60 watt standard size bulbs in those fans.  They still give off more light than the candelabra bulbs, but use more electricity.  CFLs are slow to light up and my wife does not like them.