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Amana ARTX owners usually discover this as cubes that got smaller before they stopped. Eight model numbers carry this family badge, and the matrix on this page is the list. That progression is the diagnosis: a restriction that tightens — a filter past its life, a fill tube slowly icing — rather than a component that failed.
What the owner notices
- The shut-off arm or sensor is holding the cycle off — A wire arm lifted by a stray cube, or an optical sensor with frost across it, stops production with nothing actually broken.
- Water pooling under the bin or freezing in the fill tube — A fill tube that has iced over turns into a plug, so each cycle delivers less than the one before.
- The module cycles and nothing is ejected — The rake turns on schedule but the tray is empty, which puts the fault upstream at the valve or the tube.
- NEAR MISS — the whole freezer is soft and the cabinet is warm — Soft ice cream and a bin that never fills together mean the freezer is the problem, not the ice maker.
What it usually is, in order
- Water supply: closed valve, kinked line or a spent filter — Ranked first on the ARTX line: the matrix on this page spans enough models to cross more than one production run and the supply path is outside the appliance entirely, so it fails the same way regardless of which model in the table you own.
- Shut-off arm lifted or the bin sensor blocked — Second: the mechanism is doing exactly what it was told. A cube wedged under the arm or frost across the sensor window reads as a full bin.
- Freezer not cold enough to complete a harvest — Third because production is gated on temperature. A freezer running a few degrees warm makes fewer and worse cubes long before anything in it thaws, so poor ice is an early warning about cooling.
- Fill valve, fill tube ice or the module itself — Last: these are the real failures, and they are worth reaching only once supply, mechanism state and temperature are clean.
What to check first, second, third
- Dispense water at the door, if the cabinet has a dispenser — Water at the door proves the supply, the shut-off valve and the filter are passing. No water puts the whole diagnosis upstream and ends it there.
- Lift the bin and look at the shut-off arm and the sensor window — A mechanism that has stopped itself looks exactly like one that has failed, and this costs nothing to rule out.
- Put a thermometer in the freezer overnight — A freezer holds food safely at 0 °F (−18 °C) or below; production is gated well before food is at risk, so a warm freezer explains poor ice with nothing else wrong.
- Look at the fill tube for ice and listen for the fill — Last, because it needs the bin out and the module exposed, and because the three checks above resolve most cases.
Safety first
Safety
Switch the appliance off at the breaker or unplug it before working on the module; a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Shut the water off at the household valve first, and keep a towel under the connection — the line stays pressurised after the appliance is dead. Do not chip ice out of the tray or the rake with anything metal.
Models in the ARTX family
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| ARTX2014T*** | amana:refrigerator:artx |
| ARTX2019S*** | amana:refrigerator:artx |
| ARTX2021T*** | amana:refrigerator:artx |
| ARTX2314T*** | amana:refrigerator:artx |
| ARTX2418T* | amana:refrigerator:artx |
| ARTX2419S** | amana:refrigerator:artx |
| ARTX2419S*** | amana:refrigerator:artx |
| ARTX3028P*** | amana:refrigerator:artx |
The service-call line
Book a technician when the fill valve, the module or the freezer temperature turns out to be the answer, and book one immediately if the freezer is also failing to hold food. On the ARTX line the practical boundary is whether the repair breaks a water joint — if it does, it is worth having done rather than attempted.
Other faults covered for this family
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
