On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 6:18:31 PM UTC-4, Chip C wrote:
I have a BlueStar gas range, six burners, oven+broiler, all gas. A few days ago the oven quit working: the pilot light comes on but there is no igniter heat or gas flow at any position of the oven control knob, including broil.


I'm confused. I thought appliances that had pilot lights did not have igniters.




A bit of googling and we figured it was the igniter. I had the igniter fail in my boiler a while ago so I was familiar with this.

The old igniter has a cold resistance of over 300 ohms; when the oven knob is on, 120 V appears across it but no current flows (I have a clamp ammeter). Got a replacement igniter, cold resistance is about 50 ohms.

But it still doesn't work. There's still 120 V across the igniter but still no current flows.


That would seem to be impossible. If it has a resistance of 50 ohms and 120v across it, current has to flow, per ohm's law.



The igniter doesn't heat and the gas valve doesn't open. Obviously at 50 ohms it should be passing 2.4 amps and generating 280+ Watts, at least until it warms up.

Agree, are you sure you're measuring what you think you're measuring.



So there's some other very high resistance in the circuit--but I *do* see 120 V so it's not a broken wire.

It doesn't matter what other resistance there is, if you have 120v across the igniter substantial current has to flow and it has to get hot.




Is the gas valve the next likely culprit?

I doubt it. The igniter should get hot with or without the valve.


The gas valve is a dual design that combines the oven and the broiler controls into one block. I cannot tell if these functions are inter-wired, except that the broiler doesn't work either, so perhaps they are. I never knew whether running the broiler also lit the bottom burner.

Any advice appreciated,

Chip C
Toronto