The short answer
Before anything else on an ARF cabinet, settle whether your number makes ice automatically at all, because the table covers a family rather than one machine. On a plumbed cabinet the supply is checked before the ice maker, always.
What you observe on these models
- The mould is dry and the ice maker never cycles — Supply first, arm second, module last.
- Trays take most of a day to freeze — Compartment temperature, or a tray that is not in contact with anything cold.
- Cubes are smaller than they used to be — A short fill on a plumbed cabinet; a warmer compartment on one that is not.
- NEAR MISS — plenty of ice but the cabinet is warm elsewhere — Read the cooling page for this family first; ice is a symptom there, not the fault.
Causes, most likely first on the ARF family
- Water supply, shut-off and the line behind the cabinet — First on a plumbed full-height cabinet, because it is the most common and the easiest to confirm: no water in means no ice out, with a perfectly healthy ice maker.
- Freezer temperature too high to complete a harvest — Second: the ice maker will not drop a load until its mould reaches its cut-out point, so a compartment running warm produces nothing at all rather than producing less.
- Recent restocking with warm items — Third: a load of warm shopping pulls the compartment up for hours, and ice production is the first thing to stop and the last to resume.
- Where the cabinet stands and how warm the room is — Fourth: a cabinet in a hot room spends its capacity holding the food it already has, and the ice is what it gives up first.
- Fill tube or fill valve frozen — Last: a tube full of ice gives a short fill or none; the tell is a hollow shell of ice in the mould.
Check in this order, and why that order
- Check the shut-off valve and the line behind the cabinet first — No water in, no ice out, and it is the fastest thing on the list to prove.
- Read the freezer temperature overnight — A freezer holds food safely at 0 °F (−18 °C) or below.
- Watch how the cabinet is loaded and used for a day — Warm shopping and a door left ajar downstairs both show up as slow ice upstairs.
- On a plumbed number, check supply, fill tube and valve in that order — Cheapest and most likely first, as always.
- Fill a shallow metal tray and stand it directly on a cold surface — It separates a slow compartment from a slow tray in a single night.
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. On this platform there is no check worth doing that cannot wait the thirty seconds it takes to isolate the machine properly.
Models in the ARF family — The numbers this page covers.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| ARF58S3S | avanti:refrigerator:arf |
When to call a technician
Checking a supply valve, a fill tube, an arm and a compartment temperature is owner work on a apartment-size refrigerator. On these models the line falls at anything behind a panel and anything on the sealed system. Call without working through anything at all for frost or ice returning within days of being cleared, together with a cabinet that will not hold.
Nearest pages of this class
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