I replaced my fridge ice maker a few years ago because part of the circuitry burned out. The replacement has also now burned out (though not nearly as badly). For reference, the burned part is supposed to hold onto the end of a copper peg that leads to the heating element (which melts the ice slightly so it can be popped out of the mold).
It seems silly to spend $60 on a new one when it’s just $0.05 worth of copper that needs replacing. Is there a safe way to fix this? Unfortunately, I can’t just solder the connection because it is enclosed when assembled. For reference, those tabs aren’t just fouled, they are burned completely through. My first thought is to pull out the whole trace, solder on new tabs (not sure where I’d get the material), and put the trace back in.
Maybe you can drill a whole from the outside just enough to view the trace and the copper peg, solder it together through the whole and then close the hole up with a plastic patch and glue. It won’t be the prettiest fix, but soldering seems like a much better connection the this.
And this looks like a real engineers mistake to have such high current flow through such a flawed connection. Be safe though! Test a couple of times before trusting the machine again.