I am replacing a 2 wire circuit for a fan/light combo with a 3 wire fan/light combo switch. I ran a new 12/2 w/grnd to the switch box. I ran a 12/3 w/grnd to the ceiling box for the fan. I have a ceiling fan and light control switch that control light and fan separately. I can't figure out which wires go to what.
Even though you gave an excellent explanation of the problem it is still too difficult to give you a proper answer without seeing the situation. If you have the money it is best for you to hire a pro. If not, then do you have a friend who knows a lot about wiring. The short you speak of is troubling and could be dangerous. You need to fix the problem soon. So get a pro or a qualified friend.
Normally, they are tagged as to which is the light, or the operators manual will say (e.g., solid black for fan, black with white stripe for lamp). If not, you'll have to either test with a meter (check for continuity with one wire and the center of the light fixture) or make a guess and switch if it doesn't line up the way you want the switches to operate.
To make that easy to understand we take fan as light and to turn on the fan you need one neutral wire one hot wire and one ground wire.Switch is a cut circuit device which will install in hot wire(simple circuit).If already it's wired you will have 4 connected wires in the light box which one of the hot wires and neutrals are directly to the light and separate from other wires,(BLACK AND WHITE) so connect them to the fan wires as same color and if you see green wire in fan connect it to the ground(COPPER). Now 3-way wiring is using 2 control for fan. 3-way switch has 3 entry 2on top and 1 in bottom (COMMON) SHOT DOWN POWER FIRST then: 1- connect main hot to first switch (TOP LEFT) 2-connect free hot wire 3/12(RED)to the (COMMON) 3- connect BLACK hot to (TOP RIGHT) 4-connect neutral to neutral and ground to ground 5-send 12/3 after connecting as above to the fan box. 6-IN other switch with another 3/12 wire connect BLACK to (TOP LEFT) 7-connect RED to (TOP RIGHT) 8-Connect WHITE to (COMMON)and by wire tape put a black sign to white wire as return HOT. 9-Send that wire to fan box . A-NOW in fan box connect RED TO RED and BLACK TO BLACK . B-connect NEUTRAL from first switch to the fan neutral wire C-connect all the ground to gather. D-connect WHITE wire from second switch to the BLACK wire of the fan and put the black tape on it to separate that from neutral wire. Before close the switches turn on power and try both switch to make sure one will turn off and another will turn on and opposite.
