I did something wrong to my ice maker, help!-gctid811309

[Pcpete]

What did was vacuume the heat coils to get rid of the dust. I didn't take the unit out of the cabinet, just removed the front cover and cleaned out the dust. Apparently that was enough of a shock to give it a heart attack! The box gets cold enough for condensation to freeze in the back upper corner but not in the bin. The harvester will cycle with a little encouragement to rotate, and the tray fills with water. I tried turning the colder/warmer adjustment to no avail. It turned, but no significant change was evident. Yes, the unit is running, and was doing just fine until I tried to clean the cooling fins.

I'm sure its the 1988 original to the boat, I'm reluctant to start throwing parts at it, and the Admiral isn't going to approve a new unit at Uline pricing. Fact is, neither am I.

Any insight out there as to what may be going on? I suspect it's some circuit board or sensor and its laughing at me.....

[Pacrimrat]

Maybe you knocked some corrosion loose on the coils and lost the charge.

[stargazerwa]

If the freezer box is freezing you might just replace the entire ice making assembly, I did this recently fairly easy job the part is on Amazon. Essentially it just a freezer with an ice maker that cost 3 times what a home fridge ice maker costs. Other than the freezing box, the other moving piece is the water valve, sounds like yours is working.

[Guest]

After ordering kits to repair my Uline unsuccessfully, I bought an Igloo counter top ice maker for $129 a Amazon. Plugged in, added bottled water, produced 10 lbs of beautiful tubular ice in an hour!

Plan to pull the Igloo out and make a new cabinet space.

[Pcpete]

I let the thing run to see what temps it was reaching and it was a steady 35 degrees. I changed the temperature controller a couple of times with no change resulting so I ordered a new controller. We'll see if it works out in a week or so.

[CaptBC]

I just finished repairing my U-Line ice maker. The system is actually pretty simple. It's all driven by the thermostat which initiates all the functions, finger rotation, tray fill, compressor, etc. In my case the unit was only three years old and was making ice, but was also overflowing water into the bin winding up in a block of ice. U-Line recommended replacing the water control valve which I did, but did not solve the problem. What did fix the problem was replacing the front plate assembly which housed the drive motor and micro switches. The motor needs to produce 3 RPM minimum to properly time the different functions controlled by a cam and the limit switches, which also connects to the shaft that drives the fingers through the ice mold. If the rotation is too slow the water valve remains open too long and over filling the mold. I checked this by removing the front plate and the drive motor/gear reduction assembly, disconnecting the two wire leads to the motor and plugging them into an extension cord to power them up. Confirmed the motor/gear assembly was not producing 3 RPM at the output gear. I was able to find the front plate assembly on e-Bay a lot cheaper than U-Line.

It is normal for the rotation motor to hesitate in the cycle until the mold has heated and released the ice, but once released the rotation needs to be 3 RPM to work properly.Also, I learned that the Teflon coating in the mold needs to be in good shape or sticking of the ice may occur. Maybe this will help in tracking down your problem.