Portable ice maker for RV.

philh wrote:

ktmrfs wrote:
when boondocking we run it off the inverter as needed. We bought the smallest one we could get.

the one we have makes plenty of ice and the cubes seem to work just fine keeping the coolers cold.

How big is the inverter?

Portable icemakers are pretty much the same setup using a standard refrigerator compressor..

I have one, but not feeling like running out to the trailer at this moment to check data plate..

But, a quick search and found an answer on how much draw..

HERE


"Question:
How many watts does this use ?
Answer:
105 watts"

Since it will be a compressor, there will be a startup surge of about 8-10 times the running current..

So, in reality you will need at least 800W but I would highly recommend 1000W inverter with short and very heavy ga wire (#1 or heavier).. Not sure this is something you will want to waste a lot of battery capacity over if you are boondocking.

However, be aware of a few things with these icemakers..

They produce "soft wet" cubes unlike a cube made in a freezer which is hard ice. You can bag them and put in your freezer to make them hard but since they are wet, they tend to freeze into a big glob..

These units also will pretty much continuously run until the ice bin is full or it runs out of water.

The cubes in the bin will melt back into water as the unit runs so the icemaker generally keeps cycling making new cubes..

The cubes are also not solid, think of more like a doughnut with a hole in the center.

Unit makes the cubes from the inside to the outside by dunking "tines" into a pool of water, the tines are chilled by the compressor, when time is up, the water is dumped, the tines are warmed slightly and the ice cubes fall of into the ice bin.

The fans on these units is loud, not good for making ice inside the RV, we set ours on a picnic table outside..

That brings up another issue we ran into, bright sun light hitting the unit falses the bin full detection shutting off the unit.. We ended up putting a dish towel over top of the unit to stop that.

First few batches, toss the cubes, drain the unit and refill with fresh water.. Otherwise you will taste and off taste in the cubes.

We like ours even with some of the limitations.

They DO make ice pretty quick, typically one cycle every 10 minutes and you get about 8 cubes each cycle.

Be aware, there are many "brands", but most of them are made by the same company just rebranded and some have a lot of complaints for defective units or failed units with the full sensor failure..

We bought ours at Sam's club on a whim a few yrs back, so far it has been OK.