Question of the ice maker harvesting process.

[Quick Jay]

Hi everyone, 

I have a question regarding ice maker harvesting process. There is a kind of ice maker which uses an optical sensor to detect the volume of the ice filled into the ice bin. My question is, what will happen if user takes out the ice bin while the ice maker is harvesting. If the ice maker will stop harvesting and the harvesting arm stop turning, will the heating element keep being energized when the ice bin's off? Or, will the heating element go off? When the harvesting arm stopped turning, and element went off, could the ice cubes which were still in the mold be frozen and stuck on the mold again?

[J5*]

anything is possible 

they all work differently 

some wont dispense if the bin isnt there

others will fill the freezer with ice cubes 

 

[Quick Jay]

On 6/30/2023 at 3:33 AM, J5* said:

anything is possible 

they all work differently 

some wont dispense if the bin isnt there

others will fill the freezer with ice cubes 

 

I was working on a KitchenAid side-by-side fridge which its ice bin stayed on the freezer door. The ice maker that I installed on this unit 3 months ago got stuck. The harvesting arm stuck in the half way while an ice cube stuck out of the mold slot and was frozen on the mold. The other side of the ice cube was against the funnel where the water fill nozzle goes.  I can tell the rotor turned and has passed the heating element working stage. I believed that the element has already turned off for a while when the arm got stuck. Now, I'm quite sure that when the flap shutters the beam to the optical receiver, it will cut off the power to the ice maker, and the ice maker's harvesting arm will stop at the position it was. However, the freezer won't stop at that moment, and it keeps blowing cold air toward the ice maker. Therefore the ice cubes will be frozen again on the mold. After that, even user close the door, recovered the power to the ice maker, the arm may be not able to turn at all because the ice cube frozen over there hold the arm back from turning.

A really bad design! No fail-safe mechanisms working behind at all.