An ice-making apparatus for an appliance having a housing with an interior volume and an ice tray horizontally suspended in the interior volume. The ice tray has a cold plate with a top surface and a bottom surface and a containment wall surrounding an edge portion of the cold plate to retain water. A cooling source is thermally coupled to the bottom surface of the cold plate. An intake conduit extends into the interior volume over the ice tray and is configured to draw ambient air into the interior volume over the ice tray, and the ambient air is above freezing.

To provide an ice making device including an ice making tray, a drive unit configured to turn over the ice making tray, a frame including a frame body, the frame configured to support the ice making tray, and a fan motor configured to send wind to the ice making tray. The frame includes a block unit configured to contact a part of the ice making tray turning over to partially disturb the turning over of the ice making tray, and the fan motor is fixed only to a first frame part including one of a plurality of frame parts constituting sides surrounding a periphery of the ice making tray in a plan view of the frame.

The refrigerator according to the present invention comprises: a storage compartment for storing food; a cooler for supplying cold to the storage compartment; a first tray assembly forming a part of ice-making cells which are where water changes phase to ice due to the cold; a second tray assembly forming the other part of the ice-making cells; a heater located adjacently to the first tray assembly and/or the second tray assembly; and a control unit for controlling the heater. Any one of the first and second tray assemblies has a greater degree of cold transfer than the other tray assembly.

A method for preparing clear ice includes supporting an ice tray via a rotating assembly within a housing and separating an interior volume of the housing into a first air chamber and a second air chamber. The first air chamber is below the ice tray and the second air chamber is above the ice tray. Water is supplied into the ice tray and the ice tray is cooled with a cooling device thermally coupled to a bottom surface of the ice forming plate. The cooling device is exposed to chilled air from within the appliance in the first air chamber. Ambient air is supplied from outside the appliance into the second air chamber within the interior volume of the housing. The surface of the water in the ice tray is exposed to the ambient air.

A refrigerator of the present invention comprises: a storage chamber for storing food; a cool air supplying means for supplying cool air to the storage chamber; a first tray which forms a part of an ice-making cell in which water is phase-changed to ice by the cool air; a second tray which forms another part of the ice-making cell and can be in contact with the first tray during an ice-making process; a water supply valve for adjusting a flow of the water supplied to the ice-making cell; a water supply amount detector for detecting the amount of water supplied to the ice-making cell; and a controller for controlling the water supply valve. The controller controls the water supply valve to supply water to the ice-making cell as much as a first reference water supply amount, for supplying water to the ice-making cell at a water supply position of the second tray. After finishing the water supply as much as the first reference water supply amount, the controller moves the second tray to an ice-making position and determines whether the water supply amount of the ice-making cell has reached a target water supply amount by using the water supply amount detector. When the water supply amount of the ice making cell has reached the target water supply amount, the controller starts ice-making, and when the water supply amount of the ice making cell has not reached the target water supply amount, the controller moves the second tray back to the water supply position and controls the water supply valve to supply water as much as a second reference water supply amount which is less than the first reference water supply amount.

In a refrigerator, a cam of a cam gear rotating by a driving motor is provided with a structure protruding from an edge portion of a cam gear to a center, thereby increasing the thickness of a cam surface. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the magnitude of force directly transferred from the cam gear to a magnet lever.

An ice making device includes an ice tray, an ice separating mechanism which is a mechanism structured to take out ice pieces from the ice tray, a drive part structured to drive the ice separating mechanism, and a frame which supports the ice tray and the drive part. The frame is provided with a water passage part which guides water supplied from an outside to the ice tray, and the frame is attached with a water supply adaptor which is a water passage member separately provided from the water passage part for supplying the water to the water passage part.

Provided is an ice-making device that can autonomously perform a series of ice-making operations that include control of a fan motor, without relying on a higher-level device. An ice-making device that is characterized by comprising an ice-making tray, a fan motor that blows air onto the ice-making tray, an ice removal mechanism that removes ice from the ice-making tray, a control part, and a frame that holds the ice-making tray, the fan motor, the ice removal mechanism, and the control part. The ice-making device is also characterized in that the control part controls the operations of the fan motor, the ice removal mechanism, and a water supply mechanism that opens/closes a water supply path that supplies water to the ice-making tray.

A refrigerator appliance or ice maker may include an assembly frame, a rotating body, a thermistor wire, and a biasing spring. The rotating body may be rotatably attached to the assembly frame to rotate about an axial direction. The thermistor wire may extend between a static end and a movable end fixed to the rotating body to move therewith. The biasing spring may be fixed to the thermistor wire between the static end and the movable end. The biasing spring may be in biased engagement with the thermistor wire to motivate the movable end toward the static end.

An ice maker includes an upper assembly provided with an upper tray which has an upper chamber recessed upwardly to define an upper side of an ice chamber in which water is filled to generate ice, a lower assembly provided with a lower tray which has a lower chamber recessed downwardly to define a lower side of the ice chamber, and a lower supporter which supports a lower side of the lower tray, in which the lower assembly is rotatably connected to the upper assembly. The ice maker also includes an upper ejector provided with an upper ejecting pin which separates ice from the upper tray after ice-making is completed, in which the upper ejector is connected to the lower assembly to be interlocked with each other, such that when the lower assembly is rotated, the upper ejector is lifted and lowered.