I have turned a cheap floor fan into a floor study lamp; i.e. 30cm of 240V 5W a/c LED (under cupboard) strip light facing down on to the desk. These LED strip lights can be easily daisy chained in series to make a long long line of one strip light. The wiring is straightforward using all three live output wires (blue, white and red) from the fan switch to switch one light on. (I have taken the capacitor and resistor out.) I could have used only one wire, but then I would have to press the exact button on the fan switch to turn my light on. The neutral (black wire) and earth wires just pass directly through to the light, as was the case when this was a fan - The fan did not pass the earth to the motor, so I added it.
OK. So, just removed the old fan switch and added 2 on/off a/c switches for 1 or 2 lights on.
Also, as promised, opened up one light to show the rectifier and 24 LEDs. I tried to measure the volt being fed into the LEDs but only shows 1. When switched off and as the large capacitor is discharging I can see a countdown from "20V" down to 0 ish.
No problem. However, I want to use the power buttons (0,1,2,3) of the original fan to turn on 1, 2 or 3 lights, which will be in parallel. But, the problem is how can I use this switch which only has one specific live output for each button 1, 2 and 3.
I thought about (switch at position 2) connecting 2 output wires (blue and white) to two lights respectively and (switch at position 3) all three output wires (blue, white and red) to all three lights respectively - naturally, at switch position 1, only one light would have a live wire (blue); i.e. all lights will have all 3 live outputs connected.
So, the question is, should I use diodes to stop current flowing back to lights 2 and 3 when switch is 1; and diodes to stop current flowing back to light 3 when switch is 2?
Thank you.
proposed: