We have an SGM365 5 burner Dacor cooktop about a year and a half old
with one ignitor that became somewhat erratic and eventually just
stopped sparking at all. I expected a flaky connection so I removed and
cleaned it up, and removed, tightened the spade connector slightly with
pliers and reassembled it. That seemed to help but now the problem has
returned.

The other burners typically all fire up within two or three sparks, but
occasionally one of the others will sit there clacking for maybe 10-12
sparks before it finally lights. If you watch that particular ignitor,
it's clear that it may not be sparking on every single 'clack', maybe
missing 1 or 2 in a row and then sparking again.

Anyway, I swapped the problem burner ring with one that seemed to have
no problem to rule things out. The problem remained at the location
rather than following the burner, so that seemed to indicate a wire or
other downline problem.

Yesterday I raised the top and removed/tightened/reinserted the subject
wire to the spark generator box. This doesn't seem to have helped much
either; with all the ignitors cleaned up, the problem burner still
isn't nearly 100% reliable as far as firing right off every time. It
is lighting now however, whereas it wasn't before this last try.

Also, almost accidentally, I noticed that if I lay a screwdriver blade
alongside the porcelain, parallel to the cooktop surface and running in
to the actual burner, then an ignitor that was missing sparks begins
sparking much more reliably, as if the capacitance of the screwdriver
blade is somehow remedying whatever problem exists.

In rec.food.cooking, I did find a mention of a Viking which was firing
for no apparent reason; one poster suggested that if everything was
clean, then the black box was probably to blame.

We had an Amana cooktop prior to the Dacor and I must say, the system
it used was MUCH more reliable; as I recall, it lit the burners with
ONE spark EVERY time. The Dacor now typically takes at least two or
three on most burners, and again, sometimes many more. On the large
one, sometimes I'll even blow a puff of air down into the burner area
thinking that somehow the gas just isn't where it needs to be to light
up, which seems rather impossible, but blowing seems to help as well.

Finally, in some tests just now, I found that on more than one burner,
the sparks seem to weaken if the volume of gas is increased; in other
words, if you crank the know just barely on, it starts up the spark
generator but without gas flow, so everything is clacking away, and
then as you increase rotation the gas begins to flow; it was clear that
the spark on the big burner at least became more intermittent and
visibly weaker as the gas flow increased.

Does all this sound simply like not enough voltage out of the blue box?
I certainly wouldn't be overjoyed to have to lay out $400 on a $1000
appliance that's under two years old. The box is made by Tytronics, an
Aussie firm, but I can't locate anyone selling them on the web nor any
info other than the mfg. site.

Any ideas out there?

a disappointed Dacor owner

wrote:
>
> We have an SGM365 5 burner Dacor cooktop about a year and a half old
> with one ignitor that became somewhat erratic and eventually just
> stopped sparking at all....
> [snip]
> Any ideas out there?

We have an Epicure ERD-36 which is a little over a year old. Have seen
the same issue. Interestingly, the lighting problems often occur soon
after the cleaning people have been in the house. Perhaps it caused by
a residue from whatever cleaning spray they use?

After the cleaners have been by, I always check all the burners. The gals
often fail the seemingly simple task of properly positioning the burner
rings in the keyed slots. So that is the first thing to check. Then I run
my fingernail around the tip of the igniter, including under the little ridge
at the top of the insulator. This usually causes things to work right.
Also may have to rinse the rings too. (And they don't work well at all when
wet. So if you want to dry them quickly on the burner, you have to use a match
to light it.)

Our burners, when working properly, always take 2-3 sparks to light.

HTH,

Walt