Many people mix up the ceiling fan’s speed regulator with he ceiling fan’s switch. The fact is the ceiling fan has two items controlling it. First you have a normal switch for switching the fan ON or OFF. Then we have a speed regulator to regulate the fan’s speed. Each is an individual item though they are inter dependant on each other to make the fan run smoothly.
The fact that I said both are individual items is because the fan will still be able to run with any one of them. We can forgo the switch and have the electrical supply go straight to the speed regulator and the fan will still run if you set the speed to 1 and above. If you set to 0, the fan will stop. However doing it this way pose some danger. Should the regulator turns faulty, there will be no quick way to isolate the electrical supply other than switching OFF the Mains.
That is why there is always a switch present before the fan speed regulator. The switch will allow the user to switch OFF the current in case of emergencies or during maintenance. It also prevents the ceiling fan’s regulator from too much wear and tear. If and however, the regulator decides to quit on you in the middle of a humid night, you can still make the ceiling fan run without a regulator. All you have to do is to by-pass the regulator by connecting the two wire terminals that you see inside the regulator. Make sure you Switch OFF the electrical supply before attempting this though. The ceiling fan will run without the speed regulator, the only problem is the fan will be running at full blast and there will be no way to control the speed.