U-Line Ice Makers

Sounds like a bad limit switch (part # 109). This is basically a one-time fuse. When it "pops," the unit hangs up in mid-ejection cycle, with the fan and compressor turned off. In essence, the machine doesn't do anything at all, and for all intents and purposes, is "dead." Replacing the limit switch will most likely solve the problem. It is located in the ice mold unit, behind the metal plate with all the switches on it. It is right in the center of the "black box" when you fold the metal plate back. It kind of looks like a little thermostat, but is actually a fuse.

Unless you're comfortable working with electricity, I'd suggest you get a technician to work on it.
 
Vic, final update !!

Installed the new cube mechanism this evening and everything seems fine. I didn't hook it up to water, but as soon as I powered it up, it cycled. It ejected the non existent cubes, arm came up and checked ice bin level and I heard the water switch come on momentarily to fill the cube tray. Then the compressor and fan came on and it began to cool.

I have to thank you again for your help. Your explanations made everthing come together.
 
Sounds good! Now, as long as your thermostat (cold control) is good, the machine should function properly for a good, long time. Good job!
 
Vic
Is there a way to test the cold control thermostat?
My Uline SP18 stays very cold on the inside but it never ejects the cubes. The motor on the cube ejector works fine, it fills with water etc. Sometimes it will make one or 2 batches of cubes in a 24 hour period
 
Vic,

My U-Line icemaker (I think it's a BI-95) was working OK until recently when my automatic water pump pressure switch broke and left the water pump running constantly. I shut off the icemaker until I could replace the water pump. After replacing the water pump, I turned the icemaker on and left the boat. As I was leaving I heard the water pump cycle for about five seconds but didn't really think about it. Next time I boarded the boat the icemaker was warm inside and the ice bin was full of water. I shut the icemaker off and went for a cocktail. Any suggestions besides more cocktails?

Nick
 
Jim, you're describing the classic symptom of a failed thermostat (cold control). That's the most common failure with the machine. A replacement costs somewhere between $75 and $100, through U-Line.
 
Nick, what position were the ejector fingers in, the ones that push out the cubes? their normal position is pointing nearly straight up in the air. There are a couple of possibilities, but those possibilities hinge on what position the fingers are in.
 
The fingers were in the down position. However, when I turn the power switch on the fingers move continually and water keeps being added to the mold. The compressor makes no noise and it is not cooling at all.
 
The fingers were in the down position. However, when I turn the power switch on the fingers move continually and water keeps being added to the mold. The compressor makes no noise and it is not cooling at all.
 
Nick, either the Holding Switch has failed, and is stuck, or the thermostat (cold control) is stuck in the ejection mode. The holding switch is a common microswitch, located behind the metal plate where the white gear wheel is. It is activated by the rotating cam back there. There is a wiring diagram sticker on the inside of the square white cover on the front of the ice mold unit, to aid you in locating the holding switch. Check to be sure the little plunger on the switch can move in and out, that it isn't stuck in the "in" positon. If it is stuck, it will have to be replaced. You can get a suitable replacement at any Radio Shack for less than $10. Wait until you get the new one before removing the old one, so you don't get the wires mixed up. When putting the metal plate back in position, note that there is a spring attached to the wire bail arm that checks the ice level in the ice bucket. The spring has a tang on it, that must go into a hole in the metal plate, before it will go back together properly. If replacing the holding switch doesn't solve the problem, it is the cold control, which is only available from U-Line or one of their service outlets. Expect to pay between $75 and $100 for one of those.
 
Hi Vic, a very informative thread you are hosting here. Quite a bit to be learned. We have a 2 year old CO29.
Over the last two years it's been a pita. Initially the fill tube was not installed correctly and it leaked all over the place. That was fun, and it enhanced my ability to include diverse technical assertions in my dialog.
After this it was running water down the back and by cutting back on the supply of water via the adjustment things were going well.
Then the whole unit frosted up and the icemaker seized up on the ejection. I busted up all the ice with a hair dryer and freed things up. We thought we were out of the woods and then the ice started building up again. Water is filling the tub and freezing up the bottom two inches of the tub.
So using the info herein, I pulled the cover off and observed. Eventually the compressor shut down and the fingers started to move. I believe the heater is ok since the cubes freed up but did not fall. I think they were good size and joined together as usual. So I waited hoping to hear them fall.
Nothing.
Looking in, the cubes were smaller now. I wiggled the gears and they took off completing the cycle.
Something is jammed up but not always since there were some cubes on top of the ice in the tub. But the cycle is definitely slowed down on the eject and I am wondering if either the motor is toast or something is binding.

By the way there is this screw with a red with a red label that states "remove this screw and you die" actually it voids the warrantee. What's it do?
Can I pull the plate out and have a look for binding hdwr back there?

Update:

Pulled out the motor panel and had a peek. The fingers bind up a bit but I suspect this was due to a refreeze of the cubes that were melted when it jammed up. Letting it cycle some more to see if it hangs in the same spot.
Given the motor has some built in gear reduction is it possible they were mangled when the frost seized things up?

Update 2:

On the next cycle there were good sized cubes coming up but it seemed to hang up at the same spot. Looking at the gears they would move a tick and return back, move forward a tick and pop back. This continued. I took all the ice out of the mold and there was a small piece at the far end. One cube was broken into a couple of pieces. Once cleared out it moved along and the fingers pointed up. I can't see this being caused by the broken cube since it was on the uphill side and not sitting on the rake the fingers move through? It also came out quite easily.

Update 3:

So waiting on the next cycle, we heard the compressor shut down (actually the S.O. who likes cold soda and was a significant contributor to the emphasis on this project heard the shut down). Upon openging the door I could see the fingers had moved around and made contact with the ice which had yet to be released. The gears were exhibiting the same behavior I outlined above but at a different spot. Watching intently, the ice broke free and started to come out but then hung up at the same spot as before. Looking closely with a flashlight, I saw that the innermost cube was hung up on the alignment tang for the water trough feeding the mold. This tang had been out of whack all along. So I pulled the whole deal apart and managed to remount the trough.

What was happening was this; the ice was hanging up at a point the heater was active. So the cubes melted and when the water came on it overflowed. I'm thinking one of the cubes was being crushed all along. This then led to overfilling and extra water.
We'll see but I'm optimistic.

End of Story!

The tub was almost full this morning and all of the cubes fell out when I poured the tub into our cooler! I was also able to increase the cube size and set the cool down cycle to a warmer settting.

Vic and everyone thanks for all the informative leads. Everything fell together and all of the cubes fell apart instead of being a massive chunk.
 
Dan, I had to laugh about your description of the warning label that said, "Remove this screw and you die!" That screw is there to act as a stop, limiting how far you can adjust the horizontal spring-loaded screw immediately above it. The horizontal screw is the water level adjustment screw, that regulates how much water comes into the ice mold when the water valve opens. You'll see that it has a + and - stamped into the plate, indicating more water or less water to come into the ice mold. The spring-loaded screw moves a metal arm that can only go as far in the + direction as the ("you die") screw that we're discussing.

The switch that controls the incoming water valve is attached to the metal arm and is activated when the red cam behind the metal plate reaches a certain spot in its rotation. If you remove the "you die" screw, the water adjustment can be extended to where the water valve will stay open all the time and not shut off once the cam reaches that point, even though the cam will continue to rotate. This will cause the incoming water to overflow the mold and run out under the door onto the floor.

It is a conceivable possibility that if your storage tank(s) contain enough water, and the boat remains unattended long enough, the boat could eventually "go a-glub!" (Eastern Somalian, loosely translated, "Dummy's boat just sunk at the dock!"). It could, at the very least, soak your carpeting and make a helluva mess to clean up.
 
Vic glad you had a chuckle over it :D.
Given all of the good updates herein, and the manual, I knew what the spring loaded screw did, and when looking at the plate when I had it out to remove the finger axel assembly, nothing clicked on the warrantee death screw.
There certainly are a few pitfalls with the machine aren't there? We know about the flooding deal. In the frost episode I talked to above the mechanism actually stopped the cam on the fill portion of the cycle. Water was all over the aft deck and the S.O. was complaining about not having cold soda again. I'm not sure which was worse.
We were lucky since we are on the boat all the time now and the unit is on the aft deck which drains over the side.

But I'm still in for a new tub since I've beaten it to release some frozen cubes and ice, and the door seal has already cracked and is growing mildew. The original unit that was 20+ years old had neither issue.
 
Dan, as the prophet said, "They don't build 'em like they used to..."

You can get a new ice bucket and door gasket from U-Line (800) 779-2547.
 
Eyaaahhhh!

The S.O. used 409 on the inside of the box and now it's all yellowed after sitting a couple of months.. Is there something we can use on it to clear out the yellowing?
 
I haven't a clue on that one... [:-bonc01] Sandpaper? [:-bonc01] Pepsodent? [:-bonc01]

My area is makin' 'em work - whut they look like "ain't" in my job derskripshun...!

The inside of the box is part of the refrigeration evaporator, which is powder-coated white refrigerator enamel; it shouldn't have stained. The plastic parts and the door gasket, I've no idea how to get the yellow off of them.

For getting rid of the mildew in the cracks and crevices, and from the door gasket, I've had real good luck with Dow Tub and Tile Cleaner in the aerosol can, with "Scrubbing Bubbles."
 
Ok, it was a mildew or mold. Sorry I did not respond, we have most of it out with a cleaner. Windex or something like it as I recall.
So we had the block ice issue again and this time it turned out to be a bad water filter was dumping sediment. I replaced the filter, buttoned things up and cleaned up more parts put it back together and turned down the temperature again. All was well and we decided to take a day off boat work and go to the park.
When we came back I opted for a glass of wine which we keep in (you probably new this was coming) the Uline. It was flat dead and stuck in the eject cycle. So after pulling the unit out to probe behind the back cover (I know I should have read this thread first) I went after the limit switch.
I had the cover off the motor box set up my probes and when I turned the switch on the unit comes to life. My wife had to stop me from throwing it over the side.
I think we are going to chaulk this up to a balky limit switch and try to locate one nearby (Lake Worth Fla.). Boat Owners Wharehouse had the ice bucket (40 effin 5 effin dollars) and a spare solenoid/valve so at least we have that. Coincidentally I installed the new ice bucket today. I'm thinking the unit misses the old bucket.
It may yet meet up with it again. In a freakin' dumpster.
 
Any idea how old the unit is? Sometimes they reach a point where it is no longer practical to try and repair them. When the limit switch fails, it will usually stop midway through the ejection cycle, and for all intents and purposes, the machine is "dead" - it won't do anything at all. Bypassing the limit switch is one way to check it out - if it works when the limit switch is jumped out, you've got a bad limit switch. The limit switch basically, is a one-time fuse. It is located in the center of the "black box," behind the metal switch plate. In the older versions it was round, about the size of a quarter, and silver-colored, sort of resembling a thermostat. In the newer versions, it is black in color, and is sort of oblong in shape. Jumping across it is the basic way to do the test.
 
Hi Vic, been there done that. I've learned more about this unit than I ever wanted to. It's only 3 years old and I have been on the phone with U-line support. I am hoping to receive a new icemaker assembly later this week.
As it turns out I replaced the limit switch with a new one and while it was a different part number it worked. Not only that it resets and once the tray cools down the unit will start up again. I have also changed out the solenoid valve a micro switch and the tub.
The reason for the drip this time I believe is because the unit is heating too long. That is because the mold is shot and all sorts of crap is coming out with the ice. I used a mirror to get in there and look around. It looks very bad.
When I explained to U-line that we paid as much as we did three years ago, they talked amoungst themselves and committed to shipping out a new ice maker. I am paying for expidited shipping since we are on the move.
At this point we use the machine as a frige and leave the ice maker off.
To summarize the saga of this unit, we paid 1140 for it 6/2006. It had three half year seasons on it. In that time we had to;
Fix the alignment of the trough on the mold because water was spilling down the back of the unit. This froze up and made a genuine mess of things.
Next, the seals on the door failed. They're cracked in a few spots. They still function but they are on the list.
In search of this latest failure indicated by block ice, I found the limit switch was cutting off. Once while I was probing it cooled down enough to reset and the unit started up again. Since I thought this was a one time fuse deal, I was going to call it a baulky switch. However I looked it up online with the switch mfg. and it is supposed to reset and close again. I guess this is a fail safe for over heating the tray. But eventually this switch did not reset so I went and got another one along with micro switches.
Having swapped out all of these and the valve, I was convinced something else was going on. I got out my handy mirror and looked around enough to see the ridges in the mold rotting away and that's when I blew my stack and called U-line. I am still shocked the mold failed so early in the life of the unit.
The dialog with U-line was professional and we all stayed calm. He quoted me the price of the mold and icemaker and I turned to Deb and said do you want to spend any more on this unit? She said no. I told the rep. that I could go buy a small freezer for 200 bucks. In fact we have an Avanti 3 or 4 cu. ft. on the boat this year. At fully 1/6 the cost of this unit less all the repair parts and time. We have paid in total about 1500 for this unit so far. When he heard that he went to the supervisors and some heads came together saying they would give me a new ice maker to install in the unit.
We have always been good to the hardware on the boat. We used air to blow out the system every year since 2000. So we have no idea what led to the early failure of the mold.
Perhaps it was the extra heat required when the trough was out of line and crushed ice at the rear of the mold jammed it until enough melted. The water going into the unit is pre filtered by an AquaPure AP517 filter system.

With that, it looks like I am going to learn yet more about this box and install a completely new icemaker.
 
Reading boatbums report has inspired me to respond to my previous post:

"They have a problem with their U-lane combo CO29FB, about 5 years old, and hoping you can help. They tell me it has always been a problem...so here is their explanation of the issue..
The water enters normally but drains from the front of the ice tray. They have turned the fill adjuster to a lower setting, as you have previously advised on this topic, but it still spills and causes an ice stallegn(t)ite to form at the front of the ice maker part of the combo.
I'm thinking that they should shim the front of the machine, but the deck is already convex and appears to permit the ice-maker to lean aft."

The problem above turned out to be similar to boatbums....there was a hole in the mold! Before the water could freeze it would slowly drip out of the mold and cause a long run of frozen water.

Hope this helps others to identify a problem if its similar.

David
 
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