 Have you ever wondered how your oven cooks your food? Well, it's not as difficult as it may seem, and we're going to explain that right now. For example, when you cook a cake, most people cook it at 350, so you turn it on at 350. And then the burner comes on, this is a gas stove here, if you have an electric stove, electric bake-out will come on, but this is a gas stove, so your burner comes on, heats the oven up to 350, and then shuts off. And then the temperature drops down to, say, 340-330, thermostat turns the burner back on, comes back to 350, and it cycles on and off and continues that cycle, until your food is done, you take it out of the oven, and you turn the oven off. Now, in our last episode, we explained how a gas burner works, how it uses an electronic ignition system, a spark in essence, to heat from the spark and to ignite the burner. Well, most modern ovens do not have a spark ignition system, so they don't have a pilot either, so how do they intern light? Well, I've prepared a small demonstration here. This thing here is an igniter, and this is where it replaces the spark and your burner up here, and we're going to plug this in here, because the one you turn on, you turn on your stove, all it does, so your thermostat, all it does, supply 120 volts to the igniter, and if we're patient here, we'll see the igniter getting hot. And as it gets hot, the heat from the igniter is what ignites the gas. So, again, we turned on 350, the igniter comes on, and one step I admitted was this in series with the gas valve, and gas valve detects when the igniter is on, so the igniter comes on, gas valve sends to the igniter is on, opens up, that's gas, come out of the burner, tube, which in turn hits the hot igniter, it lights the burner, heats up 350, and we explain the rest. Now, when this gets up to 350, or you shut it off, the igniter goes off, gas valve sends to that, and shuts the gas valve off, and that's how it maintains the proper temperature. Now, a common problem we've seen with these is that the igniter come on, but the burner will not ignite. Well, why is that? Well, you may not be able to see it, but I have an ammeter here hooked up to the igniter, and it is measuring the amount of current flowing through the igniter. This particular one needs 2.8 to 3.2 amps, for the gas valve to operate properly, and as these igniters get older, they draw less and less amps until they drop below a certain minimum. You may have noticed that as you put a few years on your stove, it takes longer and longer to ignite the burner, and this is why, because when this drops below 2.8 amps, then the gas valve will no longer open, even though the igniter is on, and the igniter must be replaced. So, keep that in mind next time you go to cook a stove or cook a cake, and you notice that it is taking longer and longer for your food to cook, it is because your igniter is going back. Look for more Frith Quick Tips on YouTube.