Midea Group Co., Ltd.

General Electric Company

Vern Alden Neal

Richard W Cowan

Daniel J Trice

John Kenneth Hooker

Felix Conde Zelocuatecatl

Mark Wayne Wilson

Nathan Ernell Nelson

Justin Tyler Brown

Philip Ames Barber

Brian S Henninger

Clayton James O'Donoghue

A temperature setpoint is reestablished and maintained in a gas oven using multiple gas burners. In some instances, the multiple gas burners may be cycled using predetermined activation durations for each gas burner when reestablishing the temperature setpoint, and in some instances, the gas burners may be cycled over multiple iterations in order to reestablish the temperature setpoint. Furthermore, in some instances, each gas burner may include a spark igniter that may be used to minimize the amount of time required to ignite the gas burner when reestablishing the temperature setpoint.

Cooking appliance with cycling of multiple gas burners to maintain temperature setpoint

An igniter assembly for a gas cooking appliance is disclosed herein. In some embodiments, the igniter assembly may have an igniter that can be removed from and/or inserted into an igniter socket/base through a surface of a cooking appliance without having to remove the surface of the cooking appliance. Accordingly, when the surface is being cleaned after cooking applications, the igniter can be removed from the surface, thereby eliminating any potential damage to the igniter and allowing the surface to be thoroughly cleaned. After cleaning, the igniter can then be re-inserted into the igniter socket through the surface of the cooking appliance without having to remove the surface of the cooking appliance.

Igniter assembly for a gas cooking appliance

A cooking appliance and method of operation thereof in which cooking element drying operations are implemented to drive moisture out of the electrically-insulative material in a sheathed electrical cooking element. In many instances, the cooking element drying operations are of relatively short duration and/or include multiple cycles to drive moisture out of the electrically-insulative material without generating sufficient leakage current to cause a GFCI trip, and in some instances, while maintaining a surface temperature of the cooking element below a temperature that could cause a skin burn to occur and/or for items in contact with the cooking element to be damaged.

Cooking appliance with electrical cooking element drying operations

A cooking appliance includes: a gas cooking element; an igniter disposed adjacent to the gas cooking element to ignite the gas cooking element; a gas valve for regulating gas flow to the gas cooking element; a burner control mechanically coupled to the gas valve to vary the gas flow to the gas cooking element; a sensor for detecting the positioning of the burner control in an ignition range of positions; and a control circuit coupled to the igniter and the sensor and to activate the igniter in response to detected movement of the burner control into the ignition range of positions, the control circuit further configured to maintain activation of the igniter for a predetermined minimum length of time once activated.

Minimum ignition period for gas burners

A cooking appliance may employ one or both of a post-preheat phase and a two stage preheat phase to both accelerate preheating of an oven cavity while minimizing temperature differentials therein. A post-preheat phase may be performed subsequent to a preheat phase, but prior to a cooking phase, to cycle a cooking element disposed in a cooler portion of an oven cavity to reduce a temperature differential between the top and bottom of the oven cavity. A two stage preheat phase may sequentially activate each of top and bottom cooking elements in an oven cavity a single time.

Oven cooking cycle with post-preheat and/or two stage preheat phases

A cooking appliance includes a secondary venting arrangement within an oven cavity to supplement a primary venting arrangement with localized venting of combustion products adjacent a flame detector that detects a flame emitted by a gas burner disposed under the oven cavity. Doing so may assist with stabilizing the flame generated by the gas burner prior to establishment of steady state flow pattern within the oven cavity.

Secondary venting arrangement for gas oven cooking appliance

A multi-burner gas oven control system is used in a cooking appliance to control multiple gas burners disposed in one or more cooking cavities of the cooking appliance. Each gas burner has an associated dedicated gas valve that is coupled to a gas supply through a common, shared gas valve, as well as an igniter that is used to ignite the gas supplied to the gas burner. During activation of a selected gas burner, all igniters are activated in connection with activating the shared gas valve and the dedicated gas valve for the selected gas burner. In addition, in some instances individual ignition sensors may be used to both confirm ignition of the selected gas burner and detect ignition of any unintended gas burner.

Cooking appliance with multi-burner gas oven control

An apparatus, cooking appliance and method functionally verify a gas burner that is controlled by two or more electronically-controlled gas valves coupled in series with one another. Functional verification is performed during ignition and/or shut off of the gas burner at least in part by sequencing the activation and/or deactivation of the gas valves and testing the ignition state of the gas burner while one of the valves is activated and the other is deactivated.

Cooking appliance with electronically-controlled gas burner verification

A system for inhibiting and providing access to appliance control knobs includes a support structure for mounting individual control knobs or groups thereof, and an actuator assembly for extending and retracting control knobs either individually or collectively.

Retracting and extending control selectors

A cooking appliance includes a gas cooking element, an electromechanical valve fluidly coupled with the gas cooking element to regulate a flow of gas to the cooking element, a flame detector configured to detect an active state of a flame for the gas cooking element, a manually-actuated user control movable over a range of positions, and a controller coupled to the electromechanical valve, the flame detector, and the manually-actuated user control. The controller is configured to initiate a calibration process to determine an active range for the gas cooking element.

Method and system for auto-adjusting an active range of a gas cooking appliance

One or more cooking elements of a cooking appliance may be controlled during the preheat phase of an oven self-clean cycle to maintain a temperature within an oven cavity proximate an intermediate temperature setpoint that is below a self-clean temperature setpoint for the oven self-clean cycle until reaching a predetermined time in the oven self-clean cycle.

Staged oven self-clean preheat temperature control

An optical sensor is used in a cooling system of a cooking appliance to sense rotation of the cooling fan. For example, in one aspect a cooking appliance is disclosed as including a housing with a cooking enclosure and cooling passage for venting heat generated within the cooking enclosure; a cooling fan in fluid communication with the cooling passage in order to provide a directed airflow within the cooling passage; and an optical sensor to sense rotation of the cooling fan.

Cooking appliance cooling fan with optical speed sensor

One or more cooking elements of a cooking appliance may be controlled during the preheat phase of an oven self-clean cycle to dynamically control a rate of temperature rise to reach a target temperature setpoint at a predetermined time in the oven self-clean cycle.

Targeted oven self-clean preheat temperature control

A method and apparatus for a gas burner head with one or more rotating burners. The gas burner head may include an outer burner and an inner burner rotating about an axis. Multiple gas burner heads may be rotatably interconnected. Rotating one or more burners within one or more gas burner heads may allow a variety of burner characteristics and/or patterns. One or more gas burner heads may be used in a variety of applications.

Growing community of inventors

Louisville, KY, United States of America

Vern Alden Neal