Installing spark ignitors on stove!

[Michael Pupeza]

Hi,
I thought that some might be interested in how I installed a sparking system for my 4 burner Wedgewood stove in the Bigfoot 17.
I've included, I hope, 4 pictures showing how my install went.
The battery ignitor was an ebay purchase for about $25 and had 4 outputs. I used teflon coated wires to run each output to a ceramic spacer, available in old electronic supply houses, or fleamarkets, or use homemade substitutes. From the top of each spacer I used a piece of stainless steel wire, onto which I slipped a teflon sleeve, stripped from some other teflon coated coax cable wire, and bent to shape to clear the cover yet make a nice spark right in front of a gas outlet in the burners. The positioning of each of these did appear to be fairly critical, in that it took a lot of sparking before the burner would light if it was offset too much. I made sure the wire was below the main flame so it shouldn't scorch too much. I'm not sure how well the SS wire will hold up with the heat, but I also have some chromaloy high temp. wire that I can use if it doesn't work out.
I couldn't get enough clearance inside the stove so I mounted it outside, between the burner knobs and the oven knob. It sticks out a bit, but doesn't look too bad. The oven, however, still has to be lit with a hand ignitor. Boo!
To use the system, I turn on a burner and depress the red button. All 4 burners start sparking and the one I want usually ignites within the first 2 sparks - about 1 a second.
It's not an essential mod., but just another neat one!
Good luck.
Mike .....>

[Chester Taje]

That looks pretty good to me. Nice Job.

[peterh]

I did something similar with the 2-burner stove in our Scamp . . . it's a really great and worthwhile mod that we really enjoy having!