Aristarchus (@RevBaker)

How morons and crooks can make your life way too interesting. Fridge ice maker quit making ice. The 5v motor is a really nice induction unit made in Korea but it had a fried coil that went to ground. Ordered up another that was advertised as new, not the same part number but was spot on electrically (all colored wires were present in the same order and color) and connectors. The big connector brought all the cables out of the freezer door to the ice maker and had a pigtail for the 120v ice auger motor. Just swapped over the auger motor to the three pin connector.....but thought it odd that the same cable also had a much smaller three pin connector. Maybe it was for some other unit as they tend to use the same parts in a lot of different models. Powered back up and the ice maker worked and the chute power flap would open but the auger motor wasn't coming on. So I ordered a new motor. That's a beast of a geared motor and I couldn't see it going out at the same time. Everything was free in the gear case, motor turned over fine, no stripped teeth, etc. but just would not start. It was a split coil affair required a capacitor to get it started and two coils , one with less resistance and the other with more to create a split phase start up. So found the main board on top of the fridge cabinet. 120v was seen at the supply along with the relay operation that controlled it but no movement from the auger with the ice call paddle depressed. Checked the voltage on the small three pin I mentioned earlier and there was 120v there too. But the big connector that I needed for the auger motor....no bueno, no voltage. Well, damned odd. Stripped back the electrical tape wrapped around both sets of cables and right there.....the big connector's wires had been snipped and only the small connector was contacting the three supply wires. And I mean "contacting" in the loosest sense of the word. Each wire was just stripped back, laid along side the supply wire and wrapped with more electrical tape. Not even twisted together. New, my ass. Somebody bought it, screwed around with it, sent it back and the Amazon reseller just sent it right back out the door to me. That's the Moron and Crook part. Retards. Amazon heard about this shit pronto. They're sending out a replacement and I fixed the cut cables to the wiring harness so now I have a working ice maker/auger unit til the replacement shows up. And I'll put my old auger unit motor/gear set back in service since the screwed up power supply cable led me to believe the auger motor was bad, too. Another refund incoming. This was just a cascade of stupidity. Lesson. Never trust a wiring harness, always verify. Ohm it out and make sure connectors are....well, connected.