My Ice Maker has been giving me fits lately. It seems that the cubes are getting stuck in the prongs before they are released, jamming the machine. I’ve tried adjusting the temperature both ways–no help at all. I’ve cleared the jams several times, but they just keep occuring.
Any advice on how this could be fixed?
Not sure. We’re having the same problem. Along with the cubes being produced with hollow spaces inside of them, the water supply line freezing up every couple of days, and flecks of black insulation getting put into the glasses when we use the little delivery chute on the front of the fridge.
We plan on fixing it by replacing the ice maker (and the refrigerator that surrounds it) in a couple of months, but for short term fixes we just pull out the stuck cubes when it starts making that weird grinding noise.
First-understand what is supposed to happen and then narrow down by troubleshooting. When the mold becomes cold enough that the cubes have indeed frozen, the next step is to energize the mold release heater. This warms the mold just enough to permit the harvest fingers to sweep the crescents out of the mold and into the receiver bin.
See if searching online for the appliance make and model yields any specs for the icemaker. One can typically do a series of component checks on an icemaker with a digital or analog volt/ohmmeter. If you can’t find your specific model, there are some generic specs which you can use.
Changing the freezer cabinet temperature only effects the length of time required to change the water from fluid state to frozen state.
Mine has been doing the same thing lately. I don’t know of any good solution.
Consumer Reports has reported, for many years now, that buyers report the icemakers as the most unreliable part of refrigerators.
Also, their tests have generally shown that manual freezing (putting ice-cube trays full of water into the freezer) produces more ice, faster.
So why is anyone surprised at problems like this?
My own experiences with ice makers have shown that the trouble is often with crappy water gumming up the feed solenoid (inline filters are cheap prevention), or a component in the head (microswitch or drive motor) checks out.
With through-the-door feed units, I’ve seen the flapper spring become weak and allow frost buildup within the door, and some solenoid failures because the ferrous components get sweaty and rust.
I have had my Whirlpool refrigerator for less than 5 years and have replaced the ice maker once already just after 3 years. Don’t really know what the exact problem was internally, but it wasn’t making ice.
There ya go! But pretty much nobody’s going to do that.
If you do, I recommend this ice maker.
mangeorge