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Related Articles. Two Basic Types Automatic icemakers fall into two general types: One type uses a flexible plastic tray that the machine inverts and twists to release the cubes. Automatic Ice Flexible-tray icemakers are timer controlled.
Since these fridges move the freezer to the bottom, they require a miniature freezer for the ice maker to be placed inside the refrigerator compartment. You usually see these stuck to the side of the fridge, or to the inside of the door containing the ice dispenser. Though they're fairly simple mechanisms, ice makers actually have a lot of moving parts.
The machine typically uses a motor, a water valve, and a heating element to complete the ice-making cycle. The cycle starts when a timer activates the water valve, which fills the ice mold in about seven seconds though this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Once the built-in thermostat determines that the ice has frozen, it activates the heating element, which warms the mold to soften the edges of the ice cubes. Next, the motor spins a shaft with small arms that scoop the ice cubes out of the tray and into the storage bin.
At the same time, the shaft raises a shut-off arm, which prevents the ice-making cycle from starting over again. Once the ice is in the bin, the shut-off arm falls back down.
If the arm doesn't hit any ice, the cycle starts over again. If it runs up against the cold stuff, it halts the cycle until you dispense more ice. Overall, the cycle usually takes about one to two hours. On the lower-end models that just dump the ice into a bucket, the ice cubes will stick together over time, eventually forming a solid lump of ice. This is a phenomenon called accretion, where the moisture in the air passing over the ice cubes bumps into the ice, and joins it.
It's the same phenomenon that makes icicles on tree branches on a cold night: moisture in the air freezes and sticks together, forming ice crystals that then pick up more moisture, and so on. Inside your ice maker, the ice cubes that are in contact will join together as they accrete new ice, forming a solid block. If you have a particularly bad refrigerator or an old one , the ice cubes may also be melting slightly as the temperature of the freezer compartment rises.
This creates a thin layer of liquid water on the surface of the ice cubes, which flows together, only to be refrozen when the freezer cools down again. More expensive fridges deal with this problem by including a stirrer, a metal rod that is turned occasionally inside the ice bucket, separating the ice cubes.
This also explains the mysterious noises that you may hear from your expensive fridge in the middle of the night: it isn't haunted, it is just stirring the ice. These more expensive fridges also separate the freezer and ice maker compartments, limiting the flow of cold air into the ice bucket so there is less moisture in the air to be captured. So consider this the next time you grab a chunk of ice to chill your soda: the ice that you take for granted is the result of some sophisticated engineering and some basic science.
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