--- title: "Ice makers" description: "U-Line ice makers — 10 crescent ice makers and combination refrigerator/ice makers." url: "https://ulinemiami.support/appliances/ice-maker/" date_modified: "2026-08-29" Appliance type: "Ice makers" --- # U-Line ice makers ### The oldest thing U-Line makes Crescent ice makers are what the company has been building since 1962, and the design has the virtue of its age: a fill valve, a mold, a heater, a mechanical arm. There is very little to go wrong and most of what does go wrong is on the water side rather than the cold side. ### Three questions in order Is water arriving — shut-off, filter, line, inlet valve. Is the machine being told to stop — the bin arm and the fill limit. Is the harvest working — the mold heater that releases the crescents. Almost every failure on these machines is one of those three, and the first is more likely than the other two together. ### No service menu on most of them Several of these machines have no service mode at all: their manuals carry a troubleshooting table and a wiring diagram and nothing else. That is a fact about the appliance rather than a gap in what we know, and it means the diagnosis is done by measurement — flow, continuity and temperature — rather than by reading a log. ### The one that ends these machines Scale. Everything in an ice maker sits in water, and South Florida water leaves something behind on all of it. A machine that is descaled on a schedule outlives one that is not by years, and it is the cheapest service on this site. ### What to have ready when you call The model number from the plate on the upper right or the rear wall inside, what the appliance is doing rather than what you think has failed, whether it is built into a run or standing in a gap, and anything showing on the display — photographed rather than described. On this make the display shows very little, so what you can see is worth more than usual. 10 models · crescent ice · U-Line's oldest line Ice maker repair Crescent cubes, mechanical harvest, bin arm Water problems outnumber everything else No service menu on most of them The oldest thing U-Line makes Crescent ice makers are what the company has been building since 1962, and the design has the virtue of its age: a fill valve, a mold, a heater, a mechanical arm. There is very little to go wrong and most of what does go wrong is on the water side rather than the cold side. Three questions in order Is water arriving — shut-off, filter, line, inlet valve. Is the machine being told to stop — the bin arm and the fill limit. Is the harvest working — the mold heater that releases the crescents. Almost every failure on these machines is one of those three, and the first is more likely than the other two together. No service menu on most of them Several of these machines have no service mode at all: their manuals carry a troubleshooting table and a wiring diagram and nothing else. That is a fact about the appliance rather than a gap in what we know, and it means the diagnosis is done by measurement — flow, continuity and temperature — rather than by reading a log. The one that ends these machines Scale. Everything in an ice maker sits in water, and South Florida water leaves something behind on all of it. A machine that is descaled on a schedule outlives one that is not by years, and it is the cheapest service on this site. What to have ready when you call The model number from the plate on the upper right or the rear wall inside, what the appliance is doing rather than what you think has failed, whether it is built into a run or standing in a gap, and anything showing on the display — photographed rather than described. On this make the display shows very little, so what you can see is worth more than usual. ### It has stopped making ice. Where should I start? The shut-off valve, the filter, and the bin arm — in that order and all three cost nothing. The valve behind or under a built-in machine gets closed during other work more often than anybody admits. A filter at the end of its life does not stop the water, it slows it, so the machine makes less each month rather than stopping. And an arm resting in the up position means the machine has been told the bin is full and will sit there indefinitely being perfectly healthy. ### The arm will not stay down. That is one of the most searched things about these machines and it is not a figure of speech. Ice built up behind the bin, a bin that has not gone fully home, or a linkage knocked during a clean will all hold it up. Lower it by hand and watch: if it lifts again, something is holding it; if it stays and nothing happens, the arm was never the problem. ### What is the difference between a crescent ice maker and an ice machine? The ice and the machinery behind it. A crescent maker freezes water in a mold and releases it with a heater, which makes the familiar half-moon cubes and involves very few moving parts. A clear ice machine freezes moving water slowly to make dense clear cubes, and a nugget machine drives a screw through ice on the wall of a cylinder. They are three different appliances that all produce ice, and they fail in completely different ways. ### How much ice should it be making? Less than a freezer-door ice maker in a full-size refrigerator, and that surprises people. These are undercounter machines with undercounter refrigeration. A machine that has always made about this much and is still making about this much is working; a machine making measurably less each month is describing a restriction. --- **[Read full article: Ice makers](https://ulinemiami.support/appliances/ice-maker/)**