An embodiment of an electric heating element is disclosed, including an electrically resistive inner heating element, an electrically resistive outer heating element, and a thermostat positioned underneath a centrally-positioned medallion and along a cold leg of the inner heating element. The thermostat is configured to selectively allow electrical current to be delivered to the inner heating element while maximum electrical current, for example, continues to be provided to the outer heating element. The thermostat cycles the electrical current on and off when detecting maximum and minimum desired temperatures radiated from the electric heating element. The inner heating element has a pair of cold legs that extend parallel to a pair of cold legs of the outer heating element, some or all of which may be supported by a terminal bracket.

Device and method are described for operational control of a knob on a stove or range. In some examples, a safety device, a sensor relay device, and method are described for automatically positioning an operational shaft of a burner to an Off position such that the power supplied to the burner is terminated upon the occurrence of a safety event.

Provided is an apparatus and method for protecting against unsafe electric current conditions. A protections circuit may be used in a device, as an electric grill, that has one or more electric loads, such as heating elements. The protection circuit may protect against various failure scenarios, including, without limitation, instances of ground fault, over current, driver failure, and failure of a microprocessor. In response to a failure, the protection circuit may trip a latch relay or disable a triac driver to stop current from flowing.

Cooking appliances and methods for operating cooking appliances are provided. In one exemplary embodiment, a method for operating a cooking appliance is provided. The method includes providing power to the heating source according to a first control mode; determining whether to transition from the first control mode to a second control mode and, if so, then providing power to the heating source according to the second control mode. The method further includes determining whether to transition to the first control mode and, if so, then returning to providing power to the heating source according to the first control mode. The cooking appliances and methods include features for limiting cooking utensil temperatures using dual control modes.

An outdoor gas cooking system having multiple burners in which, if the individual manual control valves for all of the burners are placed on a high heat setting or some other specified or recognized activation position, a single electronic master control valve can be activated to control the total gas fuel rate to all of the burners in the cooker based, for example, upon a cooking or operational control set point or upon a target flow rate equaling the sum of the design flow rates of all of the burners at the current operating set points of the manual valves.

Method for operating a kitchen appliance (100), the kitchen appliance (100) having: a rectifier (1) for producing a DC voltage (UG) from a grid voltage (UN), a first inverter (2) which is powered by the DC voltage (UG) and which is designed to generate a first control signal (AS1) having a first frequency (f1), a first coil (3) which is controlled by means of the first control signal (AS1) and by means of which an alternating magnetic field is able to be generated for heating a cooking vessel (4) and/or for transferring energy in the direction of an electrical load (5) by means of inductive coupling, a second inverter (6) which is powered by the DC voltage (UG) and which is designed to generate a second control signal (AS2) having a second frequency (f2), and a second coil (7) which is controlled by means of the second control signal (AS2) and by means of which an alternating magnetic field is able to be generated for heating a cooking vessel (8) and/or for transferring energy in the direction of an electrical load (9) by means of inductive coupling, the method having the step of: controlling the first inverter (2) and the second inverter (6) in such a way that the first frequency (f1) and the second frequency (f2) are dependent on each other.

A leakage current compensation system may be used in an appliance such as a cooking appliance or another device utilizing a sheathed electrical heating element, and may sense a leakage current in one or more phases of a multi-phase power circuit that supplies the appliance or other device using a current transformer and generate a compensating current in a different phase of the multi-phase power circuit to compensate for the leakage current and thereby reduce the likelihood of a false GFCI trip in the multi-phase power circuit.

A DC powered cooking appliance which uses an induction or a resistance based DC heating element and excludes AC powered heating elements and preferably does not rely on directly connected combustion powered heating elements. Some embodiments include wattage of 1500 watts or less, voltages of 40 or 48 volts or more and are installed on a boat, van, rv or bus such that an inverter of that boat, van, rv or bus is not electrically connected to the cooking appliance.

An infrared heating apparatus includes a sheet of ceramic glass having a passband in the infrared spectrum, a metal resistive element having a first portion that is covered by a ceramic refractory material and a second portion that is exposed by the ceramic refractory material, and a controller that controls the metal resistive element to emit infrared radiation in a wavelength corresponding to the passband of the ceramic glass.

Provided is an electric grill capable of precisely controlling the temperature of a grilling plate by directly applying a heating paste including carbon nanotubes to the bottom of the grilling plate. The present invention includes the grilling plate on which food to be cooked is placed; a heating body that is applied so as to be arranged on the lower portion of the grilling plate so as to heat the grilling plate; a heat insulating material which is disposed to be spaced apart from the heating body at a predetermined distance so as to block heat conduction to the outside; and a temperature sensor which is disposed between the heating body and the heat insulating material so as to measure the temperature of an upper plate. A pair of electrodes for supplying electricity to the heating body are arranged along opposite edges of both sides of the heating body, and a heating region can be divided and controlled by dividing and combining the pair of electrodes, the heating body, the coating thickness, and the like.