KRFF707ESS01 KitchenAid Refrigerator - not making ice automatically; manually only

[DeePee1973]

Model Number

KRFF707ESS01

Brand

KitchenAid

Age

1-5 years

Bought used; five months ago. Freezer section was working properly; refrigerator section wasn't. Previous owner said ice maker was new, and gave me the receipt for the ice maker and for the service call from an authorized KA service company. Previous owner had also replaced the refrigerator evaporator fan/thermistor. On a hunch, I replaced it again. Worked fine till refrigerator evaporator froze up (about a week). Thawed evaporator and set to Forced Defrost Mode. Working fine now: maintains 35 degrees in refrigerator; 0 degrees in freezer, per temperature settings I selected.

However, the ice maker wasn't making ice. After on-board diagnostics indicated a no-problem state, I decided to replace the ice maker fan because in diagnostic mode I could barely hear it, and air flow was very weak. After replacing the fan, I could hear it spool up and could feel air flow in diagnostic mode; however, still no ice.

Back to diagnostics. (Service Test = ST) ST15: 02; ST18: proper open/shut sequence; ST19: 01/on for 1 minute - could not feel heat when I stuck my fingers through the flap; ST45: could fill ice tray manually; ST56: E0; ST57: could harvest ice manually; ST58: turned heater on - after 2 1/2 minutes could feel heat in ice tray, with code 01 on display - turned off heater and 00 on display; ST59: harvest cycle completed - Digit 2: 1.

Conclusion: I am able to manually fill the ice tray with water and the water will freeze, but the ice maker will not harvest ice on its own (I can feel the ice in the tray). I can harvest the ice in the tray manually, but the ice maker will not initiate the harvest cycle on its own even though I can feel full ice cubes in the tray. Hope this info is relevant/helpful in suggesting what the problem is or isn't. Thanks.

 

[paulhl]

Water freezes @ 32 degrees, ice maker cycles @ 10 degrees or less. What is true temp at ice maker

 

[DeePee1973]

Water freezes @ 32 degrees, ice maker cycles @ 10 degrees or less. What is true temp at ice maker

Thanks for your reply. Good question; I don't know. If temp of air being drawn up from the freezer rises to something above 10 F by the time it reaches the ice maker thermistor, it simply won't cycle on its own; right? And/or, if the ice maker thermistor is not functioning correctly, that could be the culprit; right? So, the most prudent investment of time would be to put a temperature probe inside the ice maker air channel? If so, is there a specific place to put the probe that will render the best result? Thanks.

One other thing: if ST58 digit 2 is 0 ("temperature warmer than harvest temperature"), does that mean the air temp is too high to allow harvest to occur automatically such that, whereas I have ice, harvest won't be triggered because temp is above 10 F? Would it make sense to simply drop freezer temp setting to, say, -5 F and see what happens?