I feel for you. I've done that a lot. My best success was to email
customer support for a high end pro-sumer digital camera with poorly
programmed firmware. I described their state machine as I observed it
(for credibility), then made specific recommendations, even showing why
my approach would have a minimal programming impact vs other ways to do
the same thing. I then said I would be forwarding my recommendations to
the Chairman by letter with whatever reply they made. A nice senior
manager replied, rather than the usual, and its contents led me to
believe it hit home, some of which said development would try to
implement what they could. There were about 8 flaws I had found, and
some of the fixes even addressed problems that were 'publicly known'
about that model.

3 weeks after my note, they announced that model would be discontinued
as of then...  I didn't even get a chance to write the Chairman.

I'd use that approach again, but your case may be different.
Refrigerators have one compressor, and its use is prioritized by
plumbing. There's one cooling system, and it responds to need. The top,
bottom, or ice maker can turn it on. There may not even be firmware
involved for the thermostatic control. In most, the fridge gets a
portion of the cooling and the freezer gets the most. The fridge
controls the temp, with the design being that if it's cold enough there,
the freezer will be fine. Yours just has the ice maker at the top of the
list it seems.

If it needs the compressor on to make ice, and you're using the ice,
it's gonna keep cooling. Personally, I'd love -15 in my freezer.
Depending on physical arrangement, the freezer probably has a heating
element for the auto defrost, but it's kept physically away from the ice
area. Hook it to a generic freezer thermostat and a NC relay so it comes
on to keep the freezer part at your best temp. Put it in parallel with
the timer motor or control that turns on it on for defrost so your still
keep that function. It will raise the air in the box to 45F for a short
time every so often to defrost, but not long enough to thaw the solid stuff.

-Skip

Bob Blick wrote:
> How can one(informed engineer type of person) talk to a major appliance
> manufacturer about a serious firmware flaw in one of their products?
>
> I just bought a new Samsung refrigerator, and its programming has a
> major defect. If it's making ice, the compressor is always on and all
> cooling is diverted to the freezer. But since the icemaker is tiny, if
> you use even a quart or two of ice per day, it's always making ice.
> Consequently, day after day, the freezer temperature hovers around -15
> degrees F and the thermostat settings are completely ignored.
>
> I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with what happens when I call the
> Samsung help line. It's very much like most big corporations. Polite
> people are on the phone, and all they can do is interpret the owner's
> manual to you or schedule a service call. Speak to level 2 support and
> they'll email you a wiring diagram, but basically they can't do much
> more than level 1 support.
>
> The last thing I want is to get in a cycle of service calls, the result
> being my refrigerator is worked over and non-broken parts are swapped
> out, and screws get stripped and shrouds and guards get bent, torn, and
> left off. Problem never gets resolved but I get tired of the hassle and
> give up, or ask for my money back under the lemon law.
>
> I want it fixed. I want to talk to someone who can actually make it
> happen, send an email to the right person and get a bug report filed and
> new firmware issued and a corrected PC board installed in my fridge.
>
> Good luck, eh?
>
> I'd do better to make a piggyback board(perhaps with a PIC in it) that
> runs the icemaker but fools the fridge into thinking no ice needs to be
> made. But I really don't have the time for it.
>
> Have you tried to eat(or scoop) ice cream at -15 F?
>
> -Bob
>   

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