Replacing a WellTec 3-speed pull switch on a Hampton Bay Ceiling Fan with a Generic Zing Ear Switch

 It's common to pull the chain right out of the switch in a Hampton Bay ceiling fan. Alas, fixing it isn't easy. Nothing is easy with cheap electronics. You will probably have to replace the whole switch, and that means wiring. It also means working with non-standard wire colors, so take lots of pictures.

You'll probably need to work in strong daylight, as you must cut off electricity to the unit before you proceed (so no access to artificial light).

I made the stupid error of not photogaphing EVERYTHING, and paid the price. I'll say it again: photograph EVERYTHING!!

Take out the bulbs.

Take off the bulb shades. Use this opportunity to give them a wash.

Unscrew the cover in the center of the unit (three shortish screws on the side of the barrel) and carefully let the light fixture hang (the light fixture might fall out, and if so, ensure that no wires become disconnected. Don't unscrew the screws next to the switch. Be especially careful about the black and yellow wires, which connect with slim, easily disconnected, plugs to the unit's blue and white wires):

Now, disentangle the mess of wires, making sure not to disconnect anything. Take pictures as you go along. This mess is all going back into that small space.

You know what you're replacing: it's the little ear-shaped switch that fits through the hole in the side of the housing. Unscrew the outside retainer and very carefully get the switch to a position of visibility and accessibility. Take a picture of your switch, front and back. It should look a bit like this:

If you've pulled the chain right out, here's where you note the model number of the chain pull switch and go buy a replacement. You'll probably have to get it online, but your local store may have something. If not, you'll be waiting until it arrives in the post. Save and label everything in a shoebox. Don't let your teenager touch anything!

Take careful note of your wiring. Mine was:

L    Purple

3    Grey

2    Black

1    Brown

This is highly non-standard wiring. L is usually black. But not in this case.

If the gods are smiling, you will get an exact replacement of the switch, and you'll simply have to rewire it the same way. If the gods are displeased, you will get a weird knock-off switch, which I got. Something from the Zing Ear company. For some inexplicable reason the switch goes L-2-3-1. I haven't been able to get a straight answer on what the numbers mean for Zing Ear, so that means, even after you've attached the purple wire to L, that there are nine possible wiring combinations with the other three wires.

That really sucks. Because for each test you have to wire the unit while probably standing on a chair, go to the fuseboard and turn the circuit on, return to the ceiling fan, turn it on and then test the four switch positions without pulling the wires out of their slots. Which is REALLY DIFFICULT. Particularly if it's 90 degrees, because that's why you need the fan in the first place.

Wiring these switches is easy, but a bloody pain. The chain pulls under tension from a spring, and the thing will jump apart when you open it!). You just slide the wires into the slots from outside and they should stay put. If the wires are too soft to slide in (several of mine were), slide a paper clip in first, then the wire, and then pull the paper clip back out.

I'm probably going to blow the damn thing up, but honestly, after four tests with wires falling out of slots and several runs to and from the fuseboard, I found one wiring configuration that put the fan on high, and that was enough for me. So no medium or low settings on the fan anymore.

Zing Ear provide wiring instructions for their units, but none matched the configuration that I had (with L=purple). I tried mapping the old switch's configuration onto their weirdly misnumbered unit, but it wouldn't work. It's worth looking at the discussion here, which suggests that these switches have very idiosyncratic internal layouts and aren't really possible to replace. 

Screwing the switch back in and forcing the rats' nest of wires back into the housing is your next challenge. If you can do that and reattach the cover, then congratulations - your ceiling fan works again (kind of).

Moral: these things aren't designed for repair. You're probably better off just buying a new fan.