Cooking apparatus with at least one glass-ceramic cooking plate

Claim 1

A cooking range, comprising: a glass-ceramic plate forming at least one cooking field; a fuel-gas burner disposed below said glass-ceramic plate and having an orifice plate spaced below and juxtaposed with said glass-ceramic plate for producing gas jet which are combustible to heat said cooking field and produce combustion gas; a magnetic valve controlling flow of fuel gas to said burner; a burner control connected to said magnetic valve for turning said burner ON and OFF; a glow-type igniter disposed proximal to said orifice plate and energizable to ignite said gas jets; a glow-igniter circuit connected to said glow-type igniter and energizable by said burner control upon turning said burner ON; monitoring means responsive to combustion at said burner for controlling said igniter, said monitoring means including; an ionization sensor disposed proximal to said orifice plate and responsive to ionization in said combustion gas, and means operatively connected to said ionization sensor for interrupting said circuit upon a response of said ionization sensor to ionization in said combustion gas; and wherein a plurality of cooking fields are provided and said cooking fields have respective burners, magnetic valves, sensors and igniters, said cooking range further comprising sequencing means connected to said igniters for energizing an n th igniter only after an (n-1) th igniter has ignited its respective burner and has been turned off, n being an integer greater than 1.