Ice Maker Concepts

[DADoES]

 
Allen, the unit you're dealing with isn't electronic if it doesn't have the green LED.  Info says GE has gone back to a mechanical replacement in some instances. 

Water fill is controlled by the harvest cycle. It can't fill unless the mold is empty, else the water would overflow ... so fill happens at end of the harvest cycle after the current batch of cubes have been scooped out. Fill is timed.

 

[whirlcool]

I thought it was electronic because it has an on/off switch on it.

OK, so if it is filling properly with water that means it has power.(?) Since it isn't harvesting ice, make sure the temp in the freezer is at least 5F or below.

If it's not the temp, then it may be a defective ice maker?

Right so far?

 

[DADoES]

 
If it's a mechanical ice maker, the on/off switch may be mechanical as well, physically moving the sensor arm as if the bin is filled.  Electronic units (which such is in my GE Arctica), the on-off switch is electrical, does not physically interact with the sensor arm.

Electronic units, a harvest cycle can be triggered by turning the switch off for 20+ seconds, then back on, and fully depress/release the sensor arm three times.  Mechanical units, the ejector arm is turned manually far enough until the motor comes on to run a cycle ... assuming doing so doesn't hurt anything.  That's what we did for testing Whirly units back in the day, can't say for sure if it applies to GE specimens.

Harvest cycle is triggered by a thermostat in the ice maker, that I believe is in physical contact with the mold. An empty unit, fresh installed, will trigger a harvest cycle when it gets cold enough (from being in the freezer) to get the first fill and the whole thing started running.  Harvest triggers again when the water for the first batch freezes and the mold again is cold enough ... and the harvest/fill/freeze/harvest cycle continues repeatedly, until interrupted by the sensor arm when the bin is full.

You know there's a heating element under the mold to loosen the cubes for ejection, yes?  Depending on how quick the element heats and how fast the arm turns, the arm may stall when it contacts the cubes in the mold until the cubes warm enough to release.

 

[arbilab]

It took almost an hour searching but here is the best cycle and wiring diagram of GE mechanical icemaker I could find. Ideally there would be a second cam at 2:1 gearing controlling the water valve. But that would take more parts so they made the thermo do 2 things and crossed their fingers. Apparently the length of time it takes the thermo to reach 36F determines the cycle length, which should be 2 revolutions of the main shaft. Were the freezer much warmer, the thermo could open in 1 revolution, dispense water, and stop at the 'home' position with the crescents parked as you seem to be observing. Are you certain the freezer fan is running and the defrost heater and timer working?

Note, the mechanicals may have 'off' switches but they do NOT have LEDs. Both the mechanicals and electronics may exist in current replacement stock, though "the buzz" is that the electronic has been set aside and the mechanical is currently shipping. Which also means part sellers can be eager to clear their stock of electronics and preferentially ship those until exhausted. Both have apparently transitioned to the 7-slot layout, though the mechanical layout and operation matches my 8-slot (I partially disassembled it).

GE Icemaker Repair

This page will describe how a GE icemaker works and what to do to repair them. These icemakers are simple to repair but can be difficult to understand. This page will clear that up.

www.appliance-repair-it.com

 

[whirlcool]

Thank you all for taking the time to research this problem for me. I certainly do appreciate it.

I'm going back there tomorrow armed with a freezer thermometer (a good one) and my trusty old voltmeter/continuity tester. I've contacted the seller who pretty much said that this model is the only real replacement for most GE Icemakers and he is aware that the quality control is less than desirable, but that's what GE makes today.

I'm going to run the tests outlined above and check to make sure the temps are normal in the freezer, etc. If it doesn't do the diagnostics back it goes and the owner will have to revert back to ice cube trays in this case.

I'll let you all know what happens.

 

[arbilab]

Best I can determine, if it doesn't have LED it is NOT electronic and doesn't have diagnostics. At the same time I found no mention of the "paddle" sensor being associated with the mechanical version.

But as has been already pointed out, with GE anything is possible.

 

[magic_clean]

Allen

this may have been previously mentioned----while you are checking things out, make sure to observe the condition of the condensor coils and fan. They are tucked away behind the kickplate. If they are dusty, this can impact the cooling ability. This can lead to temperatures that seem ok, but they are just not cold enough to operate the icemaker. This is an older refrigerator, so there could be some deferred maintenance.

Another area to check is the defrost system. Look for frost forming on rear panel of the freezer.

 

[whirlcool]

There is a possibility that the coils may be dirty. There's a few cats in the house.
When I meant diagnostics, I meant trying to get the ice maker to initiate a manual harvest of the ice. So far all we have seen is 1/2 a cycle and no more movement at all from the machine since then.
The ice cubes inside are frozen though.

So today we'll check the temp in the freezer, check the coils, check the electrical plug.
I'll let you all know.

 

[whirlcool]

OK, here we go.... mission accomplished.

This refrigerator had multiple problems as a number of you guessed.

The initial problem was the ice maker wouldn't make ice because the fill solenoid quit. I put in a new one to solve that problem but it wouldn't make ice.

So today I went down there armed with an arsenal of test equipment and cleaning equipment.

First off all, what was causing the ice maker not to work? Well, the old ice maker collection bin (where the ice goes after being dumped) wasn't compatible with the new ice maker even though they looked the same and are the same size. It seems the cord with the power connector on the original was "keyed" so it would only connect with the cable to the ice maker on the top of the socket. This kept it out of the way of the bin. The new ice maker power cable was keyed so the socket would only fit if the cable was coming from the bottom of the freezer. So when you pushed the collection bin in the freezer, it would knock the ice machines power connector out of the socket. You couldn't see this because you couldn't see behind the bin when it was installed. So I removed the bin and put in a good freezer thermometer to see what the temp was.

But wait, there's more!

3 hours later the temp in the freezer was +15 and the temp in the refrigerator was +46F. And this was with the temp controls set at maximum cold. So I disconnected the power from the wall and popped off the trim plate on the bottom of the front of the refrigerator. What did I find? It was almost death by cat hair. I have never seen a refrigerator coil so filthy! It was just packed solid with dirt, dust, cat hair & even a few feathers. We tilted the refrigerator on it's side and got under there with a coil brush. I must have pulled out a full plastic garbage bag full of debris. Then we vacuumed it out with a shop vac. Those coils were gleaming shiny when we were done.
When we plugged the refrigerator back in you could actually hear the compressor switch on and those coils got good & hot. I left the thermometer there so I could call and check in with the owner about what the temps are doing later.

So I suggested to the owner to just get a generic bin for the ice maker and go from there. BUT this is a through the door side by side and the owner wants to maintain that feature with the ice through the door. Have you seen the prices of those bins with the augers inside? Just as pricey as the ice maker itself.
I was able to force a harvest of ice, but even though there wasn't any in the ice maker it went through the motions correctly.

A special huge thanks to all of you who responded to help me out with this. I now know more than I ever wanted to know about ice makers and freezers. And I still don't know all that much! The owner is very happy with the way things turned out and I pointed him to where he could order the compatible bin himself. I'm done with the ice maker & appliance business for sure!

 

[applianceguy47]

Allen, your certainly a hero.  I'm sure this guy is VERY GRATEFUL for all you've done.

 

And look a the talent here, who helped out.  I would have had a clue but not the experience these fine people did.

 

All YOU need to do now is learn how to charge the sealed system, and you could become  a certified technician.  seriously,  If you managed this much....

 

 

OK, so for the snark.  Tell us about the feathers?  

Are we talking parakeet- cat-got-ahold-of-a-previous-pet-that-"magically disappeared", type feathers

or

are we talking feathers from a dramatic, my-best-friend-has-a-fetish-I-didn't-know-about-headband-that-was-worn-to-a 'special'-parade, kind of thing?

 

 

[whirlcool]

I don't know where the feathers came from. Neither does the owner. Since they have a kitty door for the cats to go out and play while he's at work lord only know what they may have dragged in.
No, I am certain that this guy is not a drag queen. He's a aero engineer that used to work for NASA until the shuttle went away. Then he got laid off and has been looking for an engineering job ever since. Currently he's working for an oil company as a computer programmer.
But "nobody ever told me" that he had to clean the bottom of the refrigerator. I think this refrigerator dates back to the early/mid 90's. It's in good shape overall and he keeps the inside clean. That was probably 15 years worth of debris that we cleaned out of it today.

I really don't know what he's going to do to find an ice bin that is compatible with his through the door unit, it has to be at least 3 inches shorter than the one the freezer came with. If this were my refrigerator, I'd buy a generic fit one and just grab the cubes out of that.

 

[applianceguy47]

I've heard that like 90% of the jobs in Houston are related to the oil industry???

 

He's an Engineer and he couldn't fix his own icemaker ??    Don't you feel a little used now? 

I mean,  you haven't been doing this guys homework for him, have you?

 

And, um,  just because he's an 'engineer', doesn't preclude him from also being a drag queen.   I mean really, who better to manage all that girly make-up, shaving, the sequins, the perfect dress, the glitter, and where to tuck certain things. 

I know I wouldn't be able to do all that.

 

Lets think about this, Allen.  Is refrigerator guy married?  Ever been married?  Ever gone on mysterious weekend trips to Austin with friends you've never met, and came back with the smell of perfume, the subtle hint of cherry red on his lips, and a satisfied grin on his face?    hmmm.

 

As for "They didn't tell me..." ,  This is the problem with the coils on the bottom of the refrigerator.  People don't see them, and their difficult to reach.  Even the cleanest persons don't do it.  Its a bad design and it, in my opinion comes down to energy use and politics.  In other words it was designed to be bad so it would use more energy.  Thats what is does when it can't breath.

 

As for the Ice Bin.  Is it just too tall on the edges now?   If that is the case, and it were me,  I would take a jig saw and carefully cut the top edge off (using a straight line to get a clean edge)  No one is ever going to see it or even have to use it.   I wonder if GE purposely designed the new maker to be bigger so that people, who aren't creative,  would then have to go and buy another part that cost as much as the icemaker.

I can just see it.

 

Thanks for listening to my snark and politics and stuff...

 

 

 

[whirlcool]

Oh no problems with your comments, I actually laughed a little bit.

No, this guy has been married twice. He's an aeronautical engineer. Not much common sense either. If you ever have known any engineers they are in a world of their own, usually. I first met this guy when I was involved with an aviation museum here in town a number of years ago.

And besides the dirt& debris under the refrigerator he used the small space between the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator to store brooms, mops, dustpans, etc and no air could get under the refrigerator that way, on the other side he stored a ton of paper grocery bags in there so air could only get to the coils from the front and back of the refrigerator. That has now been rectified.

The replacement ice maker is the exact same size as the original. It's the way the new power cord connects into the ice maker electrical socket that's the problem. The cable on the new ice maker is 180 degrees off from the original as far as the power cable is oriented in the refrigerator. It's just one corner that's about two inches too tall. I think a Dremel with a plastic cutting tool will do the job in just a few minutes.

That is why this ice maker wouldn't go into forced harvest mode, the bin had pulled the power plug out of the socket. Without the bin installed the forced harvest works just fine. So we just put a plastic bowl in there and I just heard from the guy and he said the freezer is now -5F and the refrigerator is +35F so I told him to adjust the control downwards one notch. But the ice maker is making a lot of ice now.

What a difference a cleaning can make! I wonder how many pro appliance repair guys run into the same situation I did today?

Thank God....

 

[whirlcool]

And no, I didn't feel used at all. I just hung in there because I started the repair job and I always finish what I start. The owner honestly doesn't know anything about appliances. Remember his dryer? Just clogged up with lint until I took it apart and cleaned it and replaced the belt.

But this total repair only cost him $75.00 whereas it probably would have cost over $200 is a GE Repair Guy came a calling.

And besides, having one drag queen in the family is one too many.

 

[applianceguy47]

Dremil tool ! See, this is why you could do this stuff. Your already on top of this.

The mess... service people run into it all the time. Thats another reason why I said your qualified. You've just done the typical service call.

I remember, when I was 12, helping an Uncle in his Appliance service business. One call we went on, the people lived in a typical suburban ranch house of moderate cleanliness. Well they had been cleaning off the top of the frig and after that the frig soon stopped cooling. They called for service, all panicky.

When we pulled out the white Amana, bottom-mount frig, he found a plastic bread bag had simply been sucked into the exhaust fan, covering the recirculation. Removal is all that was needed.

I, and probably everyone else, would love to see pictures, if your friend agrees to the modification you suggested.

Now, now, Back the important stuff-
Your friend <span style="text-decoration: underline;">WAS</span> married ?  So he's single now?  And he doesn't have a lot of common sense...  hmmm. 

So if this guy, shall we say, chose the wrong team to play on.... 

oh, just my thinking out loud.  I'm sure its nothing.

Maybe just ask him about the feathers again.

 

 

 

 

[whirlcool]

When I deal with people I usually don't think about if they are straight or gay. It doesn't really enter my mind until someone does something that makes me think that.
I've known this guy for several years and he definitely does not hang out with "the girls". What he does on his own time is really none of my business. And I don't really care either way.

I'll take some photos when I get around to doing the modification to the ice bin.
But that will be after Christmas. If this thread hangs around that long. I just want to get this ice maker stress out of my mind for the time being.

Another thing about repair work. Down here we have all kinds of creepy crawlies.
I would hate to have to work on an appliance that is infested with roaches, or mice or anything of that ilk. So far I haven't encountered any like that. So for the time being until someone comes begging, and I do mean begging, my days of repairing appliances for others are over!

I still remember the Whirlpool repairman who had to replace the fan in our Whirlpool refrigerator. It was about 1/2 in under the back of the refrigerator on the bottom. It was in a tight place. He had to lay one the floor with his legs up the wall and then while laying on his back with his hands over his head reach in there and without being able to see anything at all, unscrew the fan motor and disconnect the power cable and install a new one the same way. If there had been any bugs in there they would have been crawling all over his hair. When he was done with the repair I told him he earned every penny of the rather high labor charge.

 

[arbilab]

I had located a mechanical GE icemaker for free but it probably wouldn't fit, older.

Cats will glom up computers too, laptops even faster. Just looked under my fridge and it's pretty fuzzy and inaccessable unless someone else held it tilted.

 

[applianceguy47]

"Down here we have all kinds of creepy crawlies. "   I don't blame you.  I've seen some things that....

 

I once bought a used frig. that came from a Chicago apartment complex for an apartment I owned.  I had it outside and was planning to do a complete clean out with the hose, soap, scrub brush, etc.

 

I cleaned it, brought it in the house and had to reverse the door swing.  I'm thinking this is all cleaned and ready to go.  I popped the cover off the screw/hinge cover on the top of the frig. and off and running a couple of roaches go.  Quickly I smashed them so they didn't get away, but no one needs that surprise.

 

Snakes, fleas, roaches, mice, ants, dust mites, in addition to dust, rust, dirt, spiders, splatters, spills, webs, mouse nests, dampness, apparently feathers.... these all migrate to the bottom portions of a refrig. 

The heat from the poorly placed compressor (that should be on the top of the frig) along with insulation, the condensate pan, free flowing air are what attracts it.  

That really is disgusting, the more I do the math.  Refrigs with compressors underneath, coils underneath, and fiber glas insulation are aweful!

 

Anyway,  good for you for completing your project.  I hope to see your pictures of the ice bucket modification.

 

 

 

[whirlcool]

Down here it's pretty easy to keep vermin and insects out of your house. But apartment complexes are usually notorious roach castles. Years ago the owners of apt complexes used to spray them down every other month to keep the roach population down. But too many people started complaining that they were allergic to the sprays that were being used and most of them stopped the roach control.

I won't say anymore but you can use your imagination about what the appliances were probably like.

Here is a question for you all. Would installing an inline water filter on the water line going into the refrigerator help with extending the life of the new ice maker? When we took the old ice maker out and after it dried there was all kinds of reddish powdery residue in each of the pockets where the ice was made. Remember this is a 1994 GE refrigerator.

And I did use a can of compressed air to blow out the line leading from the water inlet solenoid to the ice maker before I installed it to make sure there wasn't any debris in the line.

 

[DADoES]

 
<blockquote>He's an Engineer and he couldn't fix his own icemaker ?? Don't you feel a little used now?</blockquote> I once helped a NASA rocket engineer fix his dryer via contact through another message board.  His e-mail addy referenced a research base and search of his name confirmed it.