jenn air cooktop not warming up! help!

[italianjeremy]

HELLO EVERYONE!

i am trying to help my mom out before she buys a 1200$ replacement jenn air cooktop.

we have a jenn air a-105 electric downdraft cooktop. the numbers on the temperature switches were wearing off, so i got a set of four knobs to replace.
well, the knobs were quite hard to get off of this 15 year old cooktop(has ceramic burners), and we ended up breaking the switch nub off 2 of the 4 burner switches(things the knobs pop on to) .

well, i replaced the switch and im thinking i must have whacked a wire together cus now all the burners work, but theyre as hot as a heating pas for about 3 minutes, then get to maybe low temp in about 5 minutes. before the fan used to come on every time i turned a knob.

i know i know, the first thing you think is bad wiring. but i looked underneath(this time with the breaker off) and every single (4) switch below has the 5 wires in series exactly the same. im going to check it out now by pulling off all wires and taping them except for one switch and see what happens. . . its aggravating but they all seem to be wired fine. sounds like the resistance (impedence) is low and somethings funky.

ANY help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

[HayZee518]

where did you get the switches from? was it a jenn-air supplier or did you use an infinite heat control type switch. you should have looked into Appliance Parts from Repairclinic.com - HomePage for parts - or asked Dan O on his website.

[Dan O.]

we have a jenn air a-105 electric downdraft cooktop.

A105 is the model number of one of the cartridges only, not the cooktop itself. There is no way to trace that to the proper cooktop model number.

i replaced the switch and im thinking i must have whacked a wire together cus now all the burners work, but theyre as hot as a heating pas

I don't know what a heating pas is.

then get to maybe low temp in about 5 minutes.

The A105 cartridge contains solid, cast iron elements. They normally take *much* longer to heat up (and cool down) than regular element do. They also have an internal thermal protector which if it got too hot (like running it without a pot or pan would usually do) will cut the element heat down to 1/2 power until fully cooled again, allowing the protector to reset.

Basically, if the element is getting the full 240 volts it is designed to operate on, either it is working correctly or the element is defective. If the element is not getting 240 volts, the switch may be defective or there may be a problem in the wiring.

before the fan used to come on every time i turned a knob.

That would depend on the model of cooktop and how it was designed to operate. On some models the vent fan only comes on when using a grill element or on other models, when the fan switch is turned on.

im going to check it out now by pulling off all wires and taping them except for one switch and see what happens

I would suggest checking the wiring compared to the appliance's wiring diagram.

JMO

Dan O.
www.Appliance411.com
The Appliance Information Site
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[italianjeremy]

dan,

thanks for the help, i found out it was a faulty switch! thanks again!

[Dan O.]

i found out it was a faulty switch!

Glad to hear you found the problem. Thanks for the follow up.

Dan O.
www.Appliance411.com
The Appliance Information Site
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