Samsung ice maker model DA97-07365 fix

This fix is for:

• Ice maker model DA97-07365G, and related models, used in French door fridge models sold in the 2008–2013 window

• If your ice maker is making a knocking sound every few seconds when it's supposed to be dumping ice

The ice maker normal eject cycle includes turning on the tray heater to melt the cubes free of the tray, and then after a bit turning on the motor to eject the cubes until an internal sensor detects that the ice ejector arm/shaft has made the full rotation.

What's actually going on (my theory):  Due to some aging effect, after a period of time (a year?) the ice is not ready to be ejected when the motor is turned on to eject the ice.  The ice cubes seem to still be adhered to the tray when the motor comes on, so some of the teeth get sheared off of the motor output gear.  Then the gears slip, hence the knocking noise.

Your options...

• Buy a new fridge.  Seems costly, and really pisses me off.  Why trash an otherwise perfectly good expensive fridge?

• Buy a new ice maker.  There are lots of knock-offs available on Amazon because these things always fail.  $100.  I've bought four over the years.  This really pisses me off.

• Take a sledge hammer to your broken ice maker, then go down to the store periodically and buy a bag of ice.  Probably a smart think to do.

• Or...  make this replacement gear and maybe life will be wonderful again.

How I fixed it:  I redesigned the motor output gear to allow it to skip a notch if the ice won't yet budge in the tray.  This might be described as a torque-limiting overload clutch.

My new gear assembly will skip until the ice moves, and allow the eject cycle to complete without the ice maker tearing itself to pieces.  The assembly is held in position by 1) the pin inside the motor that t27 slips onto, and 2) the rim of the hole in the motor lid that t16 fits down into.

Note: I named the two pieces of this design based on the number of teeth on each:

• "t27" is the piece installed inside the motor.  See below for how to install it.

• "t16" is the piece installed from the outside and turns the driven gear on the ejector arm/shaft.  This new t16 is a bit taller than the original gear so that it barely clears the inside of the driven gear cover, and thus is held in the correct position on the t27 shaft.

These two are a single piece in the original design (except for the t16 teeth that have sheared off).

Recommendations for the best print

General settings

• Use PETG.  It works well at below freezing temperature.

• 0.4mm nozzle seems fine.  With a 0.4mm nozzle there are only 2 layers of filament in the beam of the pawls, which seems to be sufficient.

• I printed at 0.16mm layer height, however; 0.20mm might be just fine.

• Set top/bottom shell layers or wall loops set so that both pieces are 100% solid (no infill)

• Set seam location to Back so that the seam location can be controlled.  You'll not want seams on critical areas.

For t16:

• Print with the open/flat bottom down.  No supports needed.

• Carefully rotate the model so that the seam does not land on the peak of a tooth or on one of the 3 ratchet structures on the inside .  Best seam placement is on the side of a tooth.

For t27:

• Print with the top of the small center post down on the plate.  This is the best orientation for supports and clean printing where critical.

• Carefully rotate the model so that the seam does not land on the tip of one of the pawls.  Best case is that the seam lands on the beam portion of one of the three pawls.

• Support on 1) the bottom surface of the t27 gear itself, 2) the ledge/step between the gear itself and the pawls, and 3) under the 3 pawls.  I used Tree supports.  Where supports are painted is shown in one of the pictures.

Installation

• The lid of the motor needs to be removed.  Carefully, without bending the case, pry at the case edge near the white block where the wires come out to free the lid from the bent over tangs retaining the lid. You do not need to remove the heater wires from the motor connector, but it is somewhat clumsy (kind of irritating that they used one connector for both the motor and heater wires).

• Remove the original (destroyed) gear.

• Salvage as much silicone grease as you can and slather it on the pin and the t27 gear teeth.  I didn't put any grease on the ratchet/pawn internals, so I don't know if doing so would cause excessive slip.

• Install the t27 piece on the pin (without the t16 piece in place, to allow room to maneuver the lid into place and snap the tangs back in place.  Carefully inspect that the motor looks correctly reassembled.

• Slip on t16.  Test turn t16 to see that in one direction it takes some effort to overcome the ratchet/pawl hold, and in the other direction it rotates pretty easily.  You won't do any damage by turning t16. 

• Put the ice maker back together and install it.  You may need to do the ice maker reset procedure.

Side notes

1. Post updated to Version 2.19 - This version improves the pawl design.  I had one of the pawls on version 2.14 break.  Version 2.19 is keeping my ice bin full.

2. Motor noise:  The motor armature must have pressure applied to it for it to be fully seated in the motor, else the the armature rides too high and rattles when it's running.  This pressure is accomplished by the little steel spring straddling two pins, and the lid of the case provides the pressure.  While the motor lid is off pluck off the spring and give it an extra bend so that it pushes off of the lid with enough force to keep the armature in place.

3. The cycle time of the ice maker seems to be about 2.5 hours.

4. I understand that if you do a ice maker reset that it will do 2 cycles without dispensing water on the first cycle (in case there's already water/ice in the tray), so you may not see an ice dump until about 5 hours after a reset.

5. When this gear is skipping (when the ice wont budge) the time between skips is about 13 seconds.  The motor speed is 1.5 revolutions per minute.  You may hear a few skips at 13 second intervals before the ice dumps.  Its working!

Also provided:

• Fusion 360 model included

• A Bambu P1S Project file (.3mf) and gcode file (.gcode.3mf) are included witch have the proper setup and supports for generic (Hatchbox) PETG.

Did you build it?  Please leave a comment and rating.

If you really love it you're welcome to throw me a bone.  Thank you.  :)