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Ice Machines

An automatic home ice maker does the same thing as the plastic ice trays we fill manually, but the water-filling and ice cube-extracting occurs automatically.  To provide power and water, the ice maker must be hooked up to the refrigerator’s electrical unit as well as your home’s plumbing system.  Both run through tubing that passes through the back of the freezer.

Ice machines operate cyclically as long as they’re set to run, going through the relatively simple process of filling reservoirs with water, waiting for the water to freeze, and shuffling the ice cubes out of the machine into a tray.  The basic mechanical components of an ice machine include a thermostat, a motor, a heating coil, ejectors, a motor to make the whole thing run, and an on/off arm to control production. 

The cycle begins by opening a valve that lets water into the ice mold.  The valve is timed so that it stays open only long enough to let in the proper amount of water.  Next, the ice maker “waits” while the freezer freezes the ice.  A thermostat built into the ice machine detects when the water is frozen and triggers a heating coil placed underneath the ice mold.  The ice cubes are heated just enough to loosen them from the mold, and then a motor activates a gear that rotates the ejecting blades.  The level of the on/off arm controls whether another cycle will begin; if there is a lot of ice in the collection bin, keeping the arm in an elevated position, the machine knows to wait until there is less ice.  Otherwise, the cycle continues.