Ice maker

[Toddm316]

Portable ice makers do they work well?

[Woodworker]

Very well. I make ice a day before we go put it in an ice tub in freezer. Get low I make more. It takes a while to get a decent amount that's why I make some on advance.
Plus makin some at home first I learned how long it takes to make X amount an how much it would make before I needed to add water.
Don't recommend for filling coolers though. Ice is great for drinks that's about it

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by Woodworker

Don't recommend for filling coolers though. Ice is great for drinks that's about it

X-2 It's a wet ice so not much below 32 degrees as compared to a home freezer.

[Woodworker]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

X-2 It's a wet ice so not much below 32 degrees as compared to a home freezer.

Not to mention it has a hole in it so it's not solid. Still a great thing to have.

[LuckyDuck]

Originally Posted by Toddm316

Portable ice makers do they work well?

Not to be a contrarian, but we bought a Frigidaire version and took it back in less than a day. It wasn’t cheap either but we were very disappointed. Yeah, it produces cubes in about 8 minutes but only a few, and they are hollow so even less ice than you’d think. It was the ice maker version of a kid’s Easy-bake Oven. Plus, the cubes are watery and already melting.

It would take hours to get the same amount of ice we can freeze in an ice tray in our freezer. It’s no problem for DW to freeze a tray, bag it and freeze another. Figured it wasn’t worth almost $200, but YMMV.

[TCNashville]

Originally Posted by LuckyDuck

Not to be a contrarian, but we bought a Frigidaire version and took it back in less than a day. Figured it wasn’t worth almost $200, but YMMV.

I was thinking about getting one of those as well but the reviews were as you said. Plus $200 buys a lot of ice.

[Camper_bob]

We made so much fun of our neighbor who had one. Then we got one and wouldn't be without it!

I have ice trays that I use in the freezer, the little Camco ones actually work pretty well. I have 8 of them, plus some "normal" sized ones, so I can make a lot of ice. But the ice machine will sit and churn ice all day long so long as you keep water in it. Sure, it's "wet", but it works well. After the first couple batches, they start coming out better (bigger, less "wet"). I have an ice bin in my RV freezer, and will empty the ice maker contents into it. This gives me a somewhat solid block of ice (remember, this ice is somewhat "wet", in the freezer, the "cubes" freeze together), but I just grab the butt end of a butter knife and give it a few whacks, and it breaks up.

I still supplement with trayed ice, but I always have ice at the ready with the ice maker.

Only 2 downsides: 1) it's noisy, so we turn it off at night, and 2) it creates a bit of heat, which makes it just a touch harder for the AC unit to keep up on really hot days.

The ice maker in our S&B house fridge sucks so bad (small capacity, jams often) that we've been known to have the countertop unit in the home kitchen churning ice. But most of the time, it lives in the camper.

Our family drinks enough iced water and tea that ice is pretty serious business for us. Between my trays and our countertop unit, I keep all our cups full of ice all day. No trying to store bags of ice, or running to the store to purchase more.

[ThaNurseLady]

The ice maker is one of my favorite purchases. I let it make and then dump in a zip lock bag and put in the freezer. We always have ice on hand when we want it.