12thgenusa
Lakewood, Colorado
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Joined: 12/08/2009
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I finally got tired enough of the piezoelectric igniter on my Atwood stovetop that I decided to replace it with a battery-powered igniter unit. You know what I’m talking about. You twist the knob; bam, bam, bam . . . bam, bam, bam and sometimes the burner lights and sometimes not.
I removed the old igniter and took some measurement to determine the available real estate. I found a replacement electronic igniter for Charbroil grills from Home Depot for $30 that looked promising.
The hole for the original igniter was 5/8” and the new one requires 7/8”. If you have a unibit step drill, that would work nice. But since I don’t and didn’t want to spend the $$ I used a stone grinder bit and “hogged” the hole out to 7/8. You need to “cheat” the hole slightly up and to the left for a little more clearance for the igniter.
Pull the wires off the old igniter and slide them on to the new, order does not matter. Even though the old igniter has round pins and the new has spade pins, the terminals slide on with a tight fit and work fine. Due to the higher voltage of this unit I saw occasional flashover between the terminals when it was activated. I solved that by adding a second layer of heat shrink over the terminals.
The new igniter has four terminals and since the stovetop only has three burners, that left one to add a sparker for the oven pilot light. The new unit comes with spare 37” and 32” igniter wires. I joined the two together and they were long enough to reach across the stovetop, and follow the oven control plumbing down into the oven. The longer wire looks like it has a high-temp coating, but I also wrapped the part that is actually in the oven with high-temp fiberglass tape. I needed a sparker so I removed the one from my gas grill side burner, which I never use anyway. After removing the burner assembly from the oven, I “guesstimated” the location for the sparker and drilled a 7/16” hole in the pilot support plate. Once the sparker was in place, I reinstalled the burner assembly. The sparker electrode had to be “tweaked” slightly to get a reliable spark to the outlet end of the pilot light tube.
If you don’t add the oven igniter, you need to install one of the supplied wires on the fourth terminal and coil and stow the wire so that it won’t short to the stove. If you don’t do this, the bare terminal on the igniter will flashover to the others.
After installing the single AA battery and turning on the gas, it was time for a test run.
Aaaahh . . . The stovetop burners light almost instantly, quietly and reliably. The electronic ignition sparks about six times per second for as long as you hold the button as opposed to three sparks per half-revolution of the knob on the old one.
The oven pilot lights nicely. I’ve found that if you turn the oven knob to “pilot” and hold it for about 10 seconds and then push the igniter button, it will light almost instantly. I was a little concerned about the wire in the oven, so I heated the oven to 500 degrees for a test. Everything looks good and smoke check passed.
DW is HAPPY, and you know what that means . . .
Before
Old Piezoelectric Igniter
New Electronic Igniter
Oven Pilot Light Sparker Installation
After
Dave & Gean
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ccrain2851
Palmyra, IN
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Joined: 08/07/2009
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wow.... very impressive.
C Crain
a Wife, 2 Kid, Dog & 2 Horses
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Alpenliter
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Thanks Dave, I have the same stove and I'm getting tired of having to get down on my hands and knees to light the oven whenever DW wants to use it. Your clear pictures and descriptions have given me the nudge I need to get the job done. Thanks very much for all your information and pictures!
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Normk
Canada's Wet Coast
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Fantastic! I'm on this like a sled dog on a pork chop!
Thanks hugely!
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ernestfortier
Palmdale, Calif.
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Great pictures great information. Thanks. I'll have to look into doing this myself. As soon as I get done procrastinating. I hope it will be soon.
Ernie Fortier
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w6pea
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ernestfortier wrote:Great pictures great information. Thanks. I'll have to look into doing this myself. As soon as I get done procrastinating. I hope it will be soon.
I second this post. Great pictures good job.
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ronfisherman
SE Michigan
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I was going to replace my Suburban stove top because it did not have piezoelectric ignition. This looks like a much better plan and a lot less work.  Thanks for the post.
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LarryJM
NoVa
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Joined: 11/09/2007
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Well all I can say is that my Atwood has worked great for over 3 years and have seen no need to modify it. I really like the no pilot lit burners.
Larry
* This post was
edited 10/31/10 07:16am by an administrator/moderator *
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LAdams
Northern Illinois
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Great Mod and nicely done Dave I'll consider this one for my rig if for no other reason having to sit on the floor to light the stove pilot
Les
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Jerry9n
SE Michigan
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I don't have an oven, but got tired of lighting burners with a lighter. You turn the burner down too far and out it goes. Got a kit from Walmart for grills and bought another electrode on line.
Only problem I had was where to put the ignitor module. Ended up in the closet wall next to the stove. Works well.
You can kind of see the little electrode in the back of the burner.
Pushbutton mounted in a box on the closet wall. Wires run directly from box into stove cavity.
Jerry9n
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