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Counter top ice maker for the RV?

Yota Up said:
Anyone use an ice maker this like?
I'm looking at buying this one and have no idea what I'm in for.

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Do they suck? Is spending $65 on one gonna get me 99% of what a $150 one can do, or do you need to pay more to avoid a piece of junk?
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Pretty sure we had that exact model at work. Lasted about 3 years of heavy use. The self cleaning part is a lie.
 
That looks like the one we bought and IIRC, thats about what we spent.
It works fine. It only makes a couple cups at a time and they are barely frozen. Ive never timed it.
I make a gallon or so to keep in the freezer.
That way they are ready when I want them and they are frozen better.
 
I have tried a few, I did not like them.
If you didn't know, how they work is you fill a hopper with water, the machine creates the ice, then dumps the ice into an uninsulated basket, where it starts to melt and re fill the water hopper and recycle the water.
Mine all made the ice with the hole in the middle of it, so it's already 1/2 not actual ice.
The ice was never really frozen, it was just hard enough to fall out of the holder.'

I've seen some from vevor that look promising, but at $2-300 a $4 bag of ice seems like a pretty good deal.
 
welndmn said:
I have tried a few, I did not like them.
If you didn't know, how they work is you fill a hopper with water, the machine creates the ice, then dumps the ice into an uninsulated basket, where it starts to melt and re fill the water hopper and recycle the water.
Mine all made the ice with the hole in the middle of it, so it's already 1/2 not actual ice.
The ice was never really frozen, it was just hard enough to fall out of the holder.'

I've seen some from vevor that look promising, but at $2-300 a $4 bag of ice seems like a pretty good deal.
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Nailed it...
Even when you bag it if you wait too long it makes a giant block in the bag after it re-freezes.
IMO if you need ICE in volume build a DIY freezer icemaker like the above. They won't have a high production per day but most of us don't need it per day, just need 20 lbs on Friday, another 10-20 on Saturday etc.

If you are needing 20 lbs ice daily (for cooling not drinking) then you might want to seriously consider a Engel, ARB, CHingading etc.
 
wireman said:
We have this one. It works better than the last one we had. The old one lasted a few years with pretty heavy use.

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com
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I have this one, but a Silonn "brand" sticker on it. It has worked well, but has only run indoors for few hours at a time or overnight.
 
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CarterKraft said:
Theres another version in a side by side fridge where the dude used a big trash can. Pretty cool ideas.
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I did this a few years ago with the side by side in my garage. I pulled out a couple shelves, and found a kitchen size plastic trash can that fits good. I removed the in-door dispenser parts to gain clearance for a bigger can. It works good, the only real problem is that the ice at the bottom all starts to melt together and get freezer burned due to the self-defrost. But it gets cycled through when I dump it all in the cooler.

An added bonus is that I also have water in the garage now, via the in-door dispenser. I wish I had a slop sink in the garage, but don't have the space or a way to drain it.

I also make ice blocks for the coolers, it really helps to extend the ice. I use the 1-gallon containers that generic ice cream comes in, they work ok but eventually crack. I put one in the drink cooler, and one in the 5-gallon water jug. If you have a real freezer available on your trip, it's easy to make a block a day to add to the cooler. Then the cooler stays full of ice water.

What helped our ice situation the most though was just getting a bigger cooler. With our old 70 quart we would need to restock on a hot 3-night weekend, which killed the ice. With the 100 quart we use now, we don't need to restock on a 3-night trip. And of course prechilling the drinks in the fridge goes a long way (or just buying cold beer for the cooler. I like to keep a bag of ice in the camper freezer, too, to add to drinks (especially later in the trip when the cooler runs low).
 
welndmn said:
If you didn't know, how they work is you fill a hopper with water, the machine creates the ice, then dumps the ice into an uninsulated basket, where it starts to melt and re fill the water hopper and recycle the water.
Click to expand...
All true, but probly every ice cube you've ever had in a restaurant or bar was made in the same style of ice maker, just much larger.
 
ThePanzerFuhrer said:
question for someone who has one of these. Any chance I could punch a hole in the bottom one one of these to set ontop a mini deep freeze to dump the ice into? I use about 30-40lbs a weekend for the coolers and this guy would do the trick set ontop a mini deep freeze.
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On all of them*, the basket that catches the ice sit above the tub that holds the water. Some can be hooked to a water line.

ETA: *All of the sub $100 counter top units being discussed here.
 
pcorssmit said:
What helped our ice situation the most though was just getting a bigger cooler. With our old 70 quart we would need to restock on a hot 3-night weekend, which killed the ice. With the 100 quart we use now, we don't need to restock on a 3-night trip. And of course prechilling the drinks in the fridge goes a long way (or just buying cold beer for the cooler. I like to keep a bag of ice in the camper freezer, too, to add to drinks (especially later in the trip when the cooler runs low).
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Good point, ICE to BEER ratio is very important.
Towards the end of me and my buddy camping together he would bring 120qt Yeti with only ice in it from the electrical supply house courtesy desk.
But that cooler full of ice is damn near impossible to move and cost what a 12v cooler does these days .
 
That's why I originally bought the 70 qt. instead of the 100. They were the same price, but I wasn't sure I could lift the 100 into the truck solo. After using the 70 for a year or two, I decided to give it a try. These are Coleman xtreme marine coolers, so not as much dead weight compared to the rotomolded ones. For $50 a piece, I've been real happy with them.

Aside from a Moab trip and a week at Lake of the Ozarks, I haven't bought ice this summer.
 
One of these showed up in a Amazon box one day...


I'm not sure if she paid full price for it or not, and to tell the truth it's her money anyway. The idea is that it was going in the 5th wheel to make ice, and that was the hill I decided to die on, that camper already has it on damn instantPot, Air Fryer, mixer... Under no circumstances was I going to tote around a 40lb ice maker on top of all the other bullshit that has found it's way in there.


SO it ended up on our kitchen counter, it gets a lot of use as the GF is constantly carrying around her emotional support tumbler full of water and ice that she doesn't drink, however there are some drawbacks.

It has to be cleaned regularly, I have it set as a monthly task on my calendar, and rarely does it make it that full month before it sounds like a feral cat is being murdered in the kitchen. I've read that using distilled water will mitigate this, but fuck that. When cleaning time rolls around we end up dumping a quart of white vinegar in it and hitting the clean button whenever we walk into the kitchen for 24 hours, and then flushing it. All in all it's way more of a pain in the ass than it's worth, but apparently chewable ice is a basic human right in this house.
 
CrustyJeep said:
All true, but probly every ice cube you've ever had in a restaurant or bar was made in the same style of ice maker, just much larger.
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None I ever seen reused the melted ice water, that’s nasty. The ice maker was separate from the insulated ice bin with a drain.
 
Yota Up said:
Why did you hate them?
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They melt really fast, and the machine couldn’t keep up with our camping beverage consumption. :grinpimp:

Mrs prefers the crescent shaped ice cubes, but we haven’t found a portable machine that made crescent cubes that would work in the trailer (size). So for now, we have square ice cubes :homer:
 
CrustyJeep said:
Oh, good point. They do work the same in that the ice is continually melting and being re-made.
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Not really, for a commercial ice maker the bin is insulated and refrigerated so the stored ice is kept and not being melted.
The drain is there for service.
 
All our commercial units constantly melt ice and refill.
Steady stream of water running out the drain.
 
Here's a couple shots of my garage ice maker. I removed the parts under the duct tape because I was tired of having to pull my truck out of the garage to get the trash can out.

ice maker 4.jpg



Ice maker 1.jpg
 
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