Importance

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Abstract

A fault restart routine for an icemaker having a microprocessor-based system controller. The fault restart routine provides at least a limited number of attempts at automatically restarting the icemaker after a shutdown has occurred because of a detected fault condition. If the fault condition is not a water inlet fault, the routine waits a first predetermined period of time before attempting to restart the icemaker. If the fault is detected as being a water inlet fault, then the system controller waits for a second predetermined time period before restarting the icemaker. If after restarting the icemaker, the icemaker completes one complete cycle of operation (i.e., a complete FREEZE cycle and a complete HARVEST cycle), then the fault restart routine is exited and a previously generated fault code is cleared. If the icemaker does not full one complete cycle of operation within a predetermined number of restart tries, then the system controller generates a fault signal to the LED display and no further attempts at restarting the icemaker are made. The method alleviates the need for an operator or attendant to manually attempt to restart the icemaker in the event a fault condition occurs, which fault condition may only be temporary and/or due to environmental conditions such as power surges or brown-outs, and which does not require operator intervention. The method further protects the icemaker by automatically shutting down the icemaker if after the predetermined number of restart tries the fault condition is still present.

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First Claim