On Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:30:41 -0500, "Adam Field" said:
> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Bob Blick wrote:
>=20
> > How about a refrigerator? That'd be me :) I can make custom ice now, an=
d
> > stats come out the serial port.
>=20
> I'm curious. Any details on what you did? What exactly is "custom ice"?

More like "scheduled ice". I seem to be very sensitive to sound when I'm
dropping off to sleep, if I am awakened at that point it seems to take a
while to fall back to sleep. So the refrigerator can schedule the tray
eject to inhibit during certain times.

But that was just a small feature I added, the real reason to hack the
refrigerator was to correct a software decision made by Samsung that
screwed up the operation of the freezer and also would have shortened
the life of the whole refrigerator. I'll give you the whole story.

About thirty years ago I bought a used refrigerator for $35 and told
myself I'd replace it when it broke. It never did, it was an old
International Harvester, built to last. When it turned sixty years old I
decided it would never die and gave it to a machinist who liked
well-made old stuff. He'll probably keep it for thirty years and then
pass it on to someone else :)

Enter the new, sleek Samsung refrigerator with blue digital readouts. It
was beautiful and worked great until I hooked up the water supply for
the internal icemaker. At that point it seemed to run all the time, and
the freezer was -25 or colder, regardless of the settings(and the
temperature display lied about the temperature, too). After a bit of
experimentation I deduced that the freezer section was programmed to run
at maximum unless the ice bucket was full. I figure there must have been
an engineering/marketing decision to increase the icemaker output at any
cost. The icemaker can make ice faster if the freezer is super cold.

After a visit by a sub-sub-sub-subcontracted repairman confirmed there
was nothing wrong with the refrigerator, other than it not working
properly, I got a call from Samsung and they offered to refund the full
price of the refrigerator if I cut off the power cord, tore off the
serial number sticker, and mailed those items to them. I was surprised,
and asked them if they would take the old refrigerator back, to which
they said they didn't want it back and I could put a new cord on it and
keep using it if I wanted, as long as I didn't sue them or expect them
to service the refrigerator. This was all rather unexpected, since I
hadn't pressured or threatened them at all.

So I figured I'd take the money and treat it as a commission to design a
fix. Which I did, and now my freezer works beautifully, I have plenty of
ice, and I sleep peacefully :)

Cheerful regards,

Bob

--=20
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