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Earlier I mentioned that the stove doesn't work. This evening we took it apart.
We took out the burners and tested as much as we could with a multimeter. Our major finding was that the previous owners used this thing as a grill A LOT and never ever opened it to clean. I used this opportunity to scrub the bejesus out of a lot of it.
Anyway, the problem we've seen is this: when any of the burner controls are turned on, the "caution, it's hot" light will illuminate and that's it. The burners stay cold. We determined that the modules themselves were fine - they are of a very simple design, too, so we could quickly tell they were fine.
Next we found how to take the control unit facing off. Wow, that's a lot of wires... and a heck of a lot of grease. Sadly, the complexity has so far defeated us. We're trying to figure out, given a multimeter and a broken stove, how the thing should once have worked. There are no wiring diagrams available on the net. The stove manual, which of course we still have, is not very detailed and says only to install the stove "in accordance with local codes".
We got as far as trying to remove the top facing before we realized that was probably the only thing holding the guts of the stove up, so we sheepishly put a whole bunch of screws back in.
More on this later, I hope.
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| Interior Wiring |
We took out the burners and tested as much as we could with a multimeter. Our major finding was that the previous owners used this thing as a grill A LOT and never ever opened it to clean. I used this opportunity to scrub the bejesus out of a lot of it.
Anyway, the problem we've seen is this: when any of the burner controls are turned on, the "caution, it's hot" light will illuminate and that's it. The burners stay cold. We determined that the modules themselves were fine - they are of a very simple design, too, so we could quickly tell they were fine.
Next we found how to take the control unit facing off. Wow, that's a lot of wires... and a heck of a lot of grease. Sadly, the complexity has so far defeated us. We're trying to figure out, given a multimeter and a broken stove, how the thing should once have worked. There are no wiring diagrams available on the net. The stove manual, which of course we still have, is not very detailed and says only to install the stove "in accordance with local codes".
We got as far as trying to remove the top facing before we realized that was probably the only thing holding the guts of the stove up, so we sheepishly put a whole bunch of screws back in.
More on this later, I hope.
no subject
I disconnected the red from the system to make sure there wasn't any kind of high-resistance short. No change.
How do you think we could have a partial-voltage failure?
no subject
Corrosion or a loose connection ( leading to oxidation, etc ) at the breaker would be the first thing I'd check. This would be high resistance at a connection somewhere. Which incidentally would tend to get very hot at high currents.
A damaged wire between the breaker box and the stove is another possibility. As would be the splice where the stove connects to the feed wire. ( grease in the wire nuts maybe ? )
Exercise caution in the following. Don't work alone, electricity is bad for you, etc. ad naseum...
Oh - the red wire's connections at the breaker and at the stove top are obviously suspect at this point.
Set the DMM to 600 Volts AC and probe the terminals on the breaker that feeds the stove. Some breakers have set screws that you can probe ( near where the wires connect ), some you'll have to stick the probe tip in where the wire connects to the breaker. You should see 240 or a reasonable facsimile. If not, the breaker is suspect. Verify by probing across each breaker terminal to the neutral bar. You should see 120 at each terminal on the breaker, but if it's bad, the 27 volt reading or similar will show up again.
If there is no obvious problem on the output side of the breaker, you might have a bad contact on the back side of the breaker. I mention that just in case nothing else has cropped up. Hopefully whatever is wrong will be obvious in a visual inspection.
no subject
At this point oxidation or a damaged wire seems like the likely cause. Maybe one of those squirrels that gets under the house. I've decided to delegate to an electrician, because I don't feel like crawling under the house, and don't feel like I want to open up the house service circuit breaker box. He's coming tomorrow morning. We'll let you know what happens.
no subject
no subject
Nice to see that all those times I bugged the crap out of repair guys by following them around asking how stuff works are paying off once in a while.
:-)