My Hampton Bay ceiling fan with light is about 8 years old. The light recently burned out, so replaced with with a 100 E11 halogen 100 watt bulb, resulting in very little light – about 50 watts. I have since tried 150 haologen watt bulb, same results – about 50 watts shinning. I replaced the E11 socket, no change. The three-speed fan works okay. I have replaced the Hampton Bay remote control – no difference, so not the problem. What is the problem? Can the problem be in the the remote modual.
The limiting circuit isn’t just government nonsense. The bigger problem is the fan’s mechanism is not made for that much heat. If you put a bulb whose watts-actual are larger than rating, you will slowly cook internal parts of the fan such as the wiring to the socket. We’ve seen overheated scorched light fixtures, it’s not pretty.
A high-wattage lamp also defeats the purpose of a fan by adding heat to the room. Even if you want heat, it’s the most expensive kind – electric.
I have been steadily increasing the light in my house by going LED. I know there,s some resistance to “gub’mint” bulbs, but LEDs actually won on the merits despite the government’s best efforts to promote the dreadful CFLs. They have solved early color temperature and CRI problems, and now cannot be distinguished from incandescent. My favorite is a non-subsidized GE bulb that is 50/150/100W equivalent, and if used in a non-3way base, gives 150W (not 100W as a normal 3way bulb will). That is a wonderful bunch of light at around 20W actual, with no chance of scorching a fixture rated for 40-60W.
Sometimes, if the power limiting circuit is cheap (because the fan is cheap), it must be bypassed to play well with LEDs.