We have an electric stove that has two two-burner cartridge inserts (for a total of 4 burners). The left side cartridge insert has large and small traditional coil-style burners, like the kind Grandma used, where the pans sit right on top of the coils.
The right side has large and small burners with a glass top. The electric heating element glows red under the glass when hot. I don’t think those are induction burners, but I’m not 100% sure what they’re called.
Recently the larger burner control of the right-side glass burners has been failing in the middle temp dial settings-- ‘low’ up to 2 click on with the little red ‘on’ light above the dial, then after 2 the ‘on’ light goes off, there’s an audible ‘click’ again, and it doesn’t click back on until the dial is turned up to 9 and on up to ‘high’. Same result if I start at ‘high’ and go down, if it matters.
My question is, and I hope it’s more factual than opinion, is this a failing of the dial, or of the burner cartridge insert?
Well, some induction burners have a red light added to them artificially, as an indicator that they’re on. And if you’re not sure, you wouldn’t want to put your hand on it to test it. But yeah, probably not induction.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an induction burner that doesn’t have a glass top.
As for the question of the o.p., this may be a problem with the power supply or with the element, and it likely isn’t readily reparable because those glass-top integrated burner cartridges aren’t designed to be serviced unlike the older exposed coils where you can literally just unplug the element and plug in a replacement. You could try removing the cartridge and then checking continuity through the switch if you can figure out which pins go to which coil just to verify that it isn’t the switch but my money is on the power supply.
The electric burners I have experience with have dials (which I presume are potentiomitors) rather than switches. Are they switches turning on different size heaters, or indents on a pot?
My money is on the controllers, be they switches or pots.
You can test for resistance across the element, it should be a few tens of Ohms or less. There’s also a good a chance you can switch elements for troubleshooting, they probably have the same connector. But, yea, it’s almost certain to be the controls. Maybe just a greasy contact, though.
I have a Whirlpool Super Capacity 465 that uses radiant elements. It’s at least 15 years old. The control for the left front burner went ZAP one day and stopped working. After a little on-line research, I found that I could buy the entire control unit, which cost around $30. I just had to remove a single metal panel on the back of the range to remove and replace the control. (Be sure to completely disconnect the range from power before opening it.) Works fine now.
About a year later, one of the back burner controls started acting up, keeping the element on continuously even at low settings. I did exactly the same thing to fix it. All the controls were the same for each burner.
Anyway, that’s where I’d start. The control for that burner is probably shot. It’s worth a try.
They are not. Potentiometers would be massively wasteful of electricity, physically huge, and generate a bunch of unwanted heat. Conventional burner elements are either full-on or off, never in-between - the varying “power level” is achieved by controlling what percentage of the time the spend on vs. off (duty cycle).
Mechanical electric stove controls contain a metallic strip that bends when current passes through it and causes it to heat up. This strip is also the switching element: when it bends, it breaks the circuit. When current is no longer flowing, it stops producing heat, cools down, bends back, and re-closes the circuit. The control knob adjusts the positioning of the strip relative to the fixed electrical contact, which sets the duty cycle.
This does use some power, but it’s minuscule compared to what a potentiometer would waste.
Thanks for the replies. Just for the record, I confirmed the burners are definitely radiant.
After reading these replies and doing some googling, I figure the best course of action, after doing basics like checking and cleaning the cartridge connection, is to swap the control element of the malfunctioning dial with one of the other ones that work, see if that fixes the issue, and if so, order a new one.
Thanks, I didn’t know that’s how those worked. It’s so primative, I love it. My own home uses a bimetallic mercury bulb thermostat and electic rice cookers & auto cigar lighters (I 'member) use similar electromechanisms. An electrician from 1925 could jump right in and diagnose the faulty range burner, but probably not set the clock, lol.