[arcangel]

Oven wont lite. with control on any temp ,glow strip heats up but no gas . is it thermostat or valve?

[AmpDraw]

Here's a parts breakdown and a wiring diagram for this oven. If you look at this wiring diagram you will see that in order for the gas valve to get power to it several things need to take place first.

Maytag MGR4411BDW Parts List

First the Thermostat needs to close, this will then allow power to the indicator light and the igniter. The indicator light could be just burnt out so its not always safe to use it for diagnosis. Your igniter you say is glowing so we can at least rule out the thermostat as your problem.

A glowing igniter is not always an indication of a good igniter, this may sound strange, but you have to consider how the igniter is working in this circuit. When the igniter is cold it has a higher resistance to it and allows very little current to flow through it. Too little current in fact to even allow that gas valve coil to energize and open. This keeps you from getting a delayed ignition, which terrifies people when they hear the powerful whoosh and the oven door blows open.

As the igniter heats up, its internal resistance to electrical flow decreases and it then allows more current to pass through it to the gas valve. Its been designed so that this decrease in resistance happens to also take place at the same time the surface of it is hot enough to flash the gas and ignite it as soon as the gas is released, thus no delayed ignition from excess gas building up while the igniter heats.

What can often happen is as the igniter ages its ability to heat decomposes, so its internal resistance does not drop enough to allow enough current to pass to energize the coil of the gas valve. You'll have your full 120 volts at the gas valve, but not enough current to create a strong enough magnetic field in the coil for it to pull its internal plunger up and open the valve.

The way a technician in your home determines this is by using an Amp Clamp on a meter over one wire on the igniter. Most igniter's you're looking for it to heat up to the point of allowing about 3 Amps of current to be passing through it before its able to energize the gas valve.

If you have no way to measure the current like this you have a 50/50 guess as to if its the gas valve or the igniter causing your problem. $40 for the igniter and $54 for the gas valve the problem is you most likely only need one or the other. If you're luck is like mine and just try to guess it will be the wrong guess and 40 or 50 dollars just wasted. Without knowing the current though, all you can do is guess, or buy the cheapest meter you can find that has an Amp clamp on it, probably about $20, which will cut your guess loss in half at least and leave you with a handy tool to have around for future repair projects.

[maytag1952]

Over the past number of years I have seen this scenario countless times . I would say for every 1 valve changed I would change 100 ignitors. Thats pretty good odds your ignitor is at fault. I'm sure if wou read it with a amp probe it would only read 2.6amps or so . It should be around 3.1 amps or more

[kayakcrzy]

Change the ignitor. The way the product is wired if the ignitor comes on, then the gas valve is good, and everything is good telling it to come on. It is the ignitor, it is not glowing bright enough to pull the amps to open the gas valve. TRUST ME!!! If you need me you can reach me at my website at ApplianceEducator.com This is the condensed answer. Tom

[AmpDraw]

Actually this is not safe to assume, if the igniter comes on it means the coil on the gas valve is at least allowing power to pass though it (even if that coil is shorted).

This doesn't mean that the gas valve itself is properly functioning even if the coil is good, the plunger inside the gas valve that the coil magnetizes when energized and lifts could be stuck, or the coil could very easily be shorted inside its plastic case, thus not creating a strong enough magnetic field to lift the plunger, but allowing enough power to pass though it to heat the hot surface igniter.

In either case you would see sufficient current passing but still no gas and be able to conclude the problem was with the gas valve.

Highest probability is the igniter, but by no means any way to make a conclusive diagnosis on this without measuring the amp draw at the igniter.