Kenmore Whirlpool Icemaker - With Light Sensor

[whirlcool]

One of my neighbors came to me this weekend with a problem with his Whirlpool refrigerator. It stopped making ice. So he replaced the ice maker and the water solenoid at the back of the refrigerator and while the water line was disconnected he blew some compressed air through the line that goes to the water fill for the ice maker (though the ceiling!) and he could feel the air blowing through the line easily.

Still no ice. But plenty of water through the door though. So he knows that side of the solenoid is working.

The strange thing is that on the control panel on the front of the refrigerator (where the paddles are for water/ice) there is a light that says "Light Sensor". And it is not illuminated. We went through the users guide and the light is not mentioned and is not shown on the illustration. So is this light on the exterior control panel supposed to be on or off? It remains off no matter what the position of the ice maker sensor on/off switch is.

This is the type of refrigerator that has the ice bucket in the door and a light is sent through the bucket from the right side to the left side through a cut out in the sides of the ice maker. I believe this is to measure the level of ice in the bucket. The sensor light on the right side is on "red" and the on/off switch is switched to "on".

What could be the problem? Has anyone worked on one of these style Kenmores?

Model #106.54602300

BTW, the users guide tells you not to put any ice made with any other ice machine in the door bucket as the ice maker will only "accept" ice that it has made. Never seen that before!

Thanks again!

 

[yogitunes]

I will have to look at my Whirlpool closely, but usually the light sensor on the door is for the amount of light in the room, like a photocell, which is used to turn on the light for the dispenser area....

for me it makes a great automatic night light for the kitchen....

that little light sensor in the ice bucket can be a pain sometimes, if one tiny little cube gets lodged, the ice machine stops....now its just a habit of keeping an eye on it for myself.....the down side for me with this in-door ice bucket is the amount it holds, I forever run out of ice, with the last unit located inside the freezer, it held a bucket load of ice.....I never hit rock bottom...

 

[whirlcool]

Ah, I see that controls the automatic light over the paddles.

The ice bin is completely empty. It sat on the counter top for a week. The light on the sensor inside the refrigerator is on. Replaced soleniod & ice maker. What else could be wrong? BTW this is a Kenmore appliance, but Whirlpool made it.

 

[rp2813]

This system seems to be easily thrown off course by the slightest bit of routine tampering.

 

I've seen complaints on line that after changing the filter on this type of fridge, ice making stops.  I've changed the filter a few times on our KA fridge which has the same in-door bin (controlled by an electric eye) and ambient light sensor for the dispensers and have not have any problems.

 

Please excuse me while I take a moment to knock on wood.

 

 

 

[combo52]

Non Working WP SXS With IN-Door ICE Bucket

Replace the optics board kit, it sounds like he did everything else that could cause this problem.

 

[whirlcool]

I don't know if this guy ever replaced the water filter in this unit.

Water is routed frorm the water outlet to the filter and then to the door water paddle & ice maker.

So since we are getting a good stream of water from the water outlet on the outside of the door wouldn't that say that water is getting to the solenoid? You can see the water in the tubing.

Looks like a door light sensor may be the problem. Looks like the light receptor panel is it then as the light emitting panel is working.

 

[mattl]

OK, so the switch is ON, but is the light flashing? When the door is open the flap on the left side interrupts the beam and the red light flashes off, on, on, off. If you press the spring loaded flap back the red light will be on continuously.

 

[whirlcool]

I think what is happening is that the red light on the right side blinks for about 30 seconds and then goes out with the freezer door open. Let me call the guy tomorrow and see what it's really doing.

Kind of a shame that he bought a new icemaker & solenoid for the wrong reasons. But this ice maker had been out of order sometime and I told him my experiences with the GE icemaker, so that encouraged him to do his own work.

Another quick question. He said when he bought the solenoid it came with about 25 feet of clear vinyl tubing. The instructions said nothing about it at all. When I bought the solenoid for that GE I was working on I didn't tubing with it. Anyone know why it was included?

 

[retro-man]

Yogitunes I was having the same problem running out of ice with the same refig. I adjusted the freezer temp down to -5 degrees. made a world of difference on how much more output the ice maker has. Just had to have a repair last week. The tubing that goes from the inlet valve to the water filter on the back of the refig developed pin holes and was leaking. cubes were smaller than normal and slow fill at the water dispenser.
Jon

 

[gansky1]

I have a KitchenAid SxS refrigerator with the same ice system. Mine was serviced under warranty as cubes would not fall off the top of it and the sweep arms would get stuck. Finally, it broke a gear and the whole thing stopped. It's been no trouble since then (2007) and makes copious amounts of ice set to 0 degrees.

The 25' tubing is probably a replacement for the whole line set in the refrigerator, there is a coil of tubing in the refrigerator section (probably at bottom of cabinet behind drawers) that is the "chilled" water reserve.

 

[whirlcool]

Well, you guys hit it again!

We ran the diagnostic. When you open the freezer the light goes blink blink, pause, blink blink, pause. But when you press that hinged thingy that lets the light from the immiter hit the receptor the red light goes out. No blinking, so steady light or anything.

So that's it! He ordered the parts which is a kit which contains two boards. They don't look too hard to replace.

Since the entire ice system has now been replaced, he asked me if he should take all the new parts out and reinstall the old parts which probably worked. I told him that most suppliers wouldn't take them back (electrical parts) and just to keep the old parts as spares for the future. He only paid about $125 for the icemaker and solenoid and $45.00 for the sensor light kit. I said if you had someone out to do it for you it would have been at least $400 by the time you add in house call charge, taxes, etc.

Once again we are all happy you are here to help out.

 

[combo52]

Non Working WP SXS With IN-Door ICE Bucket

Glad it looks like it will work again. If he had called our company to just fix the IM in the first place it would have been fixed for about $225 in one trip, but it can be fun to fix things yourself even if it ends up costing more, I would leave the other new parts in place.

 

[whirlcool]

When I went over there I looked it over and the bottom looked like it could be soon a death by dog hair case, but when I looked in the back around the compressor it appeared to be really clean.

And I noticed in this design that they moved the compressor fan motor to the back of the refrigerator out in the open and within easy reach. On the Whirlpool I had the fan motor was on the top of the compressor compartment on the top of it in the middle of the refrigerator. So if you had to replace it you couldn't even see where the mounting screws were. You just had to feel around blindly for it.

It also seems like you could replace anything using just a 1/4" nut driver and a phillips screwdriver. Definitely much easier to work on than the 2000 unit I had.

This unit I believe is now about 8 years old, so we'll see how much longer it lasts.

 

[whirlcool]

Today the owner of this fridge called to say he put in the light beam sensors and it still doesn't work! The beam is flashing twice, pausing, flashing twice, repeat over again. So I went over to look at it.

We unplugged the unit and I took the boards out and looked at them. They seemed to be installed correctly with the power connectors on properly and in their alignment fixtures just right. So I put them back in and tried again. Same thing.

So it was time to have a beer and then talk about sending the parts back as defective. About 15 minutes later we heard a click and water running. I opened the freezer up to find that the ejection arms on the icemaker had moved and there was now water in the icemaker! I looked at the sensor and with the left side pressed down we had a solid on light! Yeeaahh!

I wonder why it took the darned thing 15 minutes to decide to start working?

 

[rp2813]

These systems are weird.  Sometimes I hear a brief hum coming from the dispenser on ours, like it's resetting itself, even when it hasn't dispensed anything for an hour or so.  It's the same sound it makes when you're done using the dispenser.

 

[combo52]

Non Working WP SXS With IN-Door ICE Bucket

Patience, glad it worked Allen.

 

[whirlcool]

Well, since he replaced the ice maker, water solenoid and ice sensor board pair he shouldn't have any more trouble for years to come. Hopefully.

Another strange thing that happened is the water line to the refrigerator started leaking. What happened was the original water supply like from the refrigerator to the water supply valve on the wall is made from hard plastic and when it was moved around to be disconnected from the wall, the inside of the the compression fitting line plastic cracked. We replaced this small line with the softer vinyl tubing that came with the solenoid kit. Hard plastic tubing? I wonder how many of these have aged and cracked with the owners coming home to find a flooded kitchen? After it cracked it sure was shooting water everywhere.

Is it me or does it seem like when repairing an appliance you always encounter things that you don't expect to happen?

 

[DADoES]

 
<blockquote>Is it me or does it seem like when repairing an appliance you always encounter things that you don't expect to happen?</blockquote> Surely it's not specific to you! 

 

[combo52]

Water Lines For Ice Makers

Be very sure that you are using tubing that is designed for constant water pressure in any area where the tubing is constantly under pressure. The semitransparent polyethylene tubing that is usually running up the back of refrigerators from the inlet valve to the IM is NOT suitable for constant pressure. I have seen many refrigerators connected to the water supply with the wrong tubing only to see it end in a flood within just a few years or less.

 

[whirlcool]

This refrigerator was strange because the line that runs from the wall to the refrigerator doesn't connect at the nipple of the water solenoid like most do. Instead it goes from the wall water valve to somewhere under the refrigerator to the water filter and then to the solenoid. Most refrigerators I have seen allow the end user to supply their own line and it connects directly to the water solenoid input on the back of the refrigerator.

For example on our GE refrigerator we supplied a copper line to the water input.

The original line was semi flexible hard gray color line. Which through aging for 8 years has rendered it even stiffer. I think because of this it is brittle and the user may have a water leak sometime soon.

I'll pass word along that he should use the type of hose you recommended. Thanks for the heads up on this.

Back in the 80's we had a GE refrigerator whose water solenoid for the ice maker stuck open. It flooded our kitchen, dining room and den. We weren't at home when that happened. It sure was a mess to clean up.

 

[rp2813]

I learned from past experience and installed copper tubing between the source in the basement and the refrigerator.  I left a large coil of it behind the fridge, which is in between two sets of cabinets, so I can pull it all the way out from its nook without having to disconnect the water line.