slowdriver

Well, that's very odd then because I finally got this sorted today in France at Emeraud Evasion (a La Strada dealer) in Dinard across the river from St-Malo, at no cost! https://www.emeraude-evasion.com It would "appear" that the Italian Can integrated sink and hob unit uses the body of the hob as earth and therefore the body of the thermocouple needs to be in contact with it in order to reliably operate. Cleaning the thermocouple itself may work but only if you make sure there is no build-up of grot between the hob base, (which is about 1- 2mm thick) and the thermocouple body. We live in a hard water area and calcification is a regular issue on anything metal. In this instance, the layer of calcium wasn't obvious when looking from above but nevertheless was there. The dealership owner cleaned it out with the point of a Stanley knife from above and it did the job. He did not reposition the thermocouple in relation to the adjacent flame. So if removing the calcification fixed the issue and yet the hob body is not used as a return current then there must be another explanation as to why this cleaning and wiggling solution is the most commonly proposed. Maybe the thermocouple touching the hob via the calcification interferes with the circuitry and cleaning it eradicates the problem? He indicated this was something they see reasonably often on various different makes of van.

Apologies for the tardy response to all three of you. Many thanks I will try the "wiggle" technique and see if that fixes it.

I have an integrated sink/hob unit, with two burners. It was manufactured by the Italian company - Can. My van is three years old. Recently the small burner will ignite but after about 45 seconds it goes out whether or not there is a pan on the burner. It has been suggested that the thermocouple for that burner has failed. Therefore I have: Cleaned the thermocouple (It was not particularly dirty). Removed all debris. I have checked that the thermocouple is in the flame, (it is as close as the other burner, and in any event, if it was not sufficiently close to a source of heat it would presumably send a signal to close the valve immediately after initial ignition rather than run for 45 seconds). I have tried "flicking" the thermocouple as suggested in earlier threads. The second larger burner works perfectly. I have a new, full, French, 9kg bottle of propane. Three questions: Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? Any further diagnostic checks I can make? Any suggestions for a mobile, habitation/Truma/gas-qualified engineer, in the Oxfordshire area?