cookmaster crisis!

[dalangdon]

A wolf has crept to the door of my idyllic new flair! While the convenience outlet works, I can't get it to work with the cookmaster. The owner's manual sheds no light on what might be happening, but the owner's manual I have is several models behind this model. Any thoughts?

And speaking of owner's manuals: The only owner's manual I have ever seen for a flair is the one with the lady with the crown on her head standing by the stove. Did later models have a different manual?

Thanks for any info!

Dan

 

[coldspot66]

Hi Dan,

If I'm not mistaken(I may be), I think the cookmaster just controls a time bake function of the oven. I could be wrong.

 

[gansky1]

Yes, it's only the oven.

 

[dalangdon]

Don't make me quote the manual... ;-)

Oh, why not...it says:

"Appliance Outlet" Located at right above surface unit cover. Lets you plug in a coffee maker, toaster, other small appliances at range. For automatic control, by the "Cookmaster" see page 19.

and page 19 (which I don't have scanned yet) says just set the thing like you would if you were using the oven, but don't set the oven.

But, as I pointed out, I have an earlier version of the Flair manual.

As it stands right now, In normal operation (cookmaster set to "manual") the outlet works. But If I set the cookmaster, the outlet doesn't work, even during the time it's supposed to be working.

It's not that big a deal, but since John gets up at 4am every morning, I thought it would be nice to set up the percolator for him.

http://danlangdon.com/flairmanual/page45.pdf

 

[appnut]

Dan, there's always a confusing "gotcha" in setting that delayed time start & stop. Double check all your steps as if you were gonna delay time bake in the oven as epr manual. I've been nkown to get confused and screw up a few times cuz it can be frustrating. And remember to do it with "flair".

 

[petek]

So is it supposed to be a delayed start feature only which would explain why there's no power when you set the cookmaster dial?

 

[dalangdon]

Here's what I'm doing:

About 10pm or so I set up the coffee pot.

I set the "end cook time" (4am)

I set the "hours to cook" (1 hour)

I plug in the coffee pot. No power to is (as it should be.)

At 3am, the coffee should start, right? Well, This is where it all goes horribly, horribly wrong)

I wake up at 4am and stumble out to the kitchen The power is off on the coffeemaker, and no coffee has been made.

I turn the "cookmaster" to "manual" and the coffeemaker starts up.

John comes into the kitchen and looks disappointed that the coffee is not made

I avoid domestic violence by going back to bed and crying myself to sleep (ok, maybe I don't cry myself to sleep, but it sounds dramatic, doesnt't it?).

 

[gansky1]

What model do you have now, Dan? I'll pull out the service doctrine and scan it for you...

 

[dalangdon]

It is a RCIH-645.

Thanks, Greg!

 

[petek]

This is all too much for television, call me when it's fixed LOL

 

[gansky1]

Well, the wealth of information I expected to find on the Cookmaster controls for your range simply wasn't there. Going all the way back to 1956 and forward to the late 60's, there is only a mention of the control as a feature of the ranges, how to replace the clock motor or the entire control itself. It does state that the Cookmaster does control the appliance receptacle, but nothing more about diagnosis, etc. I guess we can conclude that possibly your control is bad - at least when it is used for the appliance receptacle, have you tried using it for the oven?

 

[toggleswitch]

on my Caloric the mechanical control timer

DELAY START went bad.
DELAY STOP Was fine.

Once delay start was initialted I could not get ot to "CANCEL"

maybe same issue?

 

[dalangdon]

Mystery solved!?!?!

For some reason, the "cookmaster" thinks that it's an hour later than it is (maybe it didn't understand the time change?) so if I set it for 3am instead of 4am, it *should* work. I know you are all anxious to know what happens, so I will post something as soon as I find out, but be sure to get some rest ;-)

 

[dalangdon]

btw, Greg - does your information happen to mention where the fuses are on this model?

 

[dalangdon]

Now I've done it.....

So I woke up this morning, and went to check on the percolater. Of course, it wasn't working, so I started to slowly turn the "end cook" dial. I came on when I hit 6 or so, but then I heard this buzzing noise from the clock area - not a good buzzing either, it sounded sort of like arcing. So turned it to manual. But it was too late. now neither the large oven or convenience outlet works!

I'm going to take the front off and take a look tomorrow. Hopefully I didn't break anything permanent-like. The clock and timer still work, so it might be a matter of just bypassing the cookmaster control.

 

[toggleswitch]

Careful there tiger.

Don't want 220v in a 110v outlet!!!!!

 

[dalangdon]

But wouldn't that just make everything cook twice as fast? ;-)

 

[toggleswitch]

4th of July came early (late?) this year.

uh... try it and see.. LOL

When I was in Paris a few years back there were some young ladies from Michigan TRYING to do laundry in a front-loader. First they had ever seen. They thought the laundromat had dryers only. I pointed out the washers to them [pointing and gesturing as if I spoke no English, of course,... TE HE HE HE)and faked in French "un petite peu" (just a little bit) when adding my detergent to my machine, so they'd get the point. Dumber than a box of rocks. LOL SUDS everywhere. LOL ROFL LMAO

They were heard discussing having plugged their (American) hair-dryers into French outlets with only a pin converter.

MELTDOWN! SPARKS! FLAMES!
Quite entertaining. And still they had no idea why.

 

[toggleswitch]

I mean buy hair dryers and irons there and plug it in here. B/B no prob! Just slower to heat.

 

[toggleswitch]

S/B=> should be

NOT

B/B=> Bare-back. or BIG-BOTTOM LOL (BLUSH)

 

[dalangdon]

So the recovery continues

I have separated the three wires that control the oven: a black wire, a Red wire, and Red with white stripe wire. As we know, the cookmaster works as a switch, and ideally, when set on manual, let's the juice flow between these three (I think the red and red/white are feeds to the thermostat)

So here's the 240volt question: How do I bypass this thing? I don't care about the appliance outlet - that can stay dead - but I would like to get the oven back up and running.

 

[petek]

Dan, you never mentioned if you found the fuses or not? I thought all electric stoves had a fuse for the oven and one for each element. The Canadian versions also have a fuse for the outlets as well but I don't think the US models ever had that and now don't even come with an outlet.

 

[dalangdon]

There are some fusible links, but no fuses per se, as in the older flair.

 

[coldspot66]

Do you have a schematic diagram of the stove??? Cookmaster may be in line with one "leg" (110v) of the circuit. Prolly the red wire.

 

[gansky1]

RCIH-645 Wiring diagram

 

[gansky1]

This is re-sized on here, but you can save it to your computer and open it with a photo viewer to enlarge it so it's readable.

 

[toggleswitch]

I thought all electric stoves had a fuse ....

I was trying to rescue an old Caloric (manual clean UGH) electric stove with coils for my basement entertaining kitchen. Couldn't get a new door to replace the broken glass one. Got the last one in inventory and UPS broke the glass during shiping @#$%%^&! [Yes UPS Pat--wink--] IIRC it was Maytag who sent the part..Never even had to bother with the broken broil element.

ANYHOO.. I found in there that all the stove was wired as if 110 v. ONE hot-leg was uninterrupted from power cord terminal block to load.

There WAS, however, a temperature limiting safey device (one-time only and non-resettable) that would kill power to the bake and broil elements should the oven become too hot.

Let me explain this for Europe and locals.
For 220v here, power is taken from TWO hot leads in the panel box ("conusmer unit"=> UK). Neither lead/leg is a grounded (earthed==> UK) condutor.

Therefore rather than a ground-fault causing a fuse to blow, as in a 110v circuit. A ground-fault could cause a 110v current to flow to each 110v circuit.

[one hot to ground--the fault--one way and again the other way]

around it (or to the fault actually), and perhaps not blow a fuse because the voltage and amperage is lower than regular use. In theory an element could "turn-on" by itself. Hence the thermal limiter.

 

[dalangdon]

After all that drama, and wanting get this fixed but being afraid of electricity, It hit me.

stoveclockrepair.com

I don't know why I didn't think of them before, as they have fixed other stove clocks for me, and are perfectly capable of repairing the cookmaster part as well.

Since I'm going to be gone starting next Monday through the New Year, I'm not going to need the stove anyway, so let them deal with it.

Thanks for the Schematic, Greg - I will definitely need it when it comes time to hook the clock back up, and it's a good thing to have handy anyway.

 

[petek]

so is this "crisis in the kitchen" resolved. I've hardly slept a wink with worry LOL

 

[jamiel]

I've often wondered about the differences between Canadian and US electric stoves...the Canadian ones are different--walk through The Bay and you can see differences:

1. Size...Cdn has the 24" wide commonly, you very rarely see it in the US.
2. Outlet...Canada still allows the outlet on the stove--as I recall the US CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) outlawed them in about 1970.
3. Coils...there is a subtly different shape to some of the Canadian "easy clean" coils where they pivot up (twist) rather than plug out
4. Electric...seems like much less cooking with gas in Canada than in the US.

From walking through those stores, it looks like there are 2 Cdn stove manufacturers still--the one which makes most of the stoves (and stacks the controls right and left which makes a lot of sense) and Frigidaire in Quebec which makes all their built-in equipment for US and Canada (do they make regular ranges as well?)

I wonder if I could legally bring a Canadian stove back through customs? Frankly, I grew up with my mother and grandmother always using the outlet on the stove so it seems really normal to me to have one.

JL