Ice Makers Plus vs Minus?

[cdaniels]

We where looking at the Magic Chef ice maker? Those that have portable ice makers. What are the pro and con's? When we looked into it information stated 12 ice cubes in a cycle. A cycle takes 7 min. When we did the calculations seems to take a long time to make enough ice to put in the cooler. What are your experiences.

[Delaine and Lindy]

This is our 3rd 5th wheel with the 4 door fridge with Ice Maker. And we never use them. They are very slow and a lot of States has terrible tasting water. We use bottled water and the old fashioned ice trays. But we use very little Ice. GBY..

[washley1]

I just buy a bag of ice at the grocery store and throw it in the freezer. I take it out after a short trip and put it in the stick house freezer. We went out for three weekend trips the past three months, and I used the same bag for all three trip. And I think there is some left for next trip! Not like the old pop up days, at a bag or two a day!

[Jay Bird]

We have two and love them. It makes plenty of ice as long as you keep the reservoir filled. In areas where water quality is not the best and bottled water is used the portable ice maker is very handy. Just pour bottle water in and ice. As a matter of fact we put one in the stick house.

George

[boylanag]

Target has sales occasionally on ice makers and we got one. We use it both in the stick house and in the Monty. We love it. It is not fast but works fast enough to keep us in ice and that means we drink more water, which is good too. We use distilled water from Walmart for the ice machine. Like a cell phone, never wanted one but now wonder how we got along without it.

[NCFischers]

It might not make a lot of ice for a cooler but it makes it plenty fast for a glass. We pour water in it when we first start setting up and there's ice for the gin & tonics by the time we are done.

[Lawman]

I think a lot has to do with how much ice you use. We don't use that much, therefore, we make our ice the old way, with trays.

[KDS MONY]

Our current fridge has an icemaker and we love it, use it a lot. Our previous Monty did not have an icemaker so we bought one from CW and used it a lot, loved it, it made plenty of ice for our needs. Your can probably get one cheaper elsewhere, Best wishes, Jay and Kathy

[Mudchief]

We have one and it makes ice plenty fast for us.

[Carl n Susan]

The biggest advantage to the portable ice maker, in my wife's opinion, is not having a large 7 Lb. bag of ice in her limited freezer space. We store freshly made ice in a one gallon ziploc that lives in the freezer door. That holds us for a day usually and when it gets close to empty, we just fire up the ice maker again. As others said, if you have bad water use an alternative source. We dry camped for five consecutive weeks in AZ (some bad water) and used RO water for ice, coffee and tea. The ice maker was indispensable.

[exav8tr]

We have an extra 4 ft refer/freezer that resides in the front closet where the W/D would normally be. We use ice trays and store in 1 gal freezer bags in OEM freezer. We started out with an ice maker, but it didn't seem to make "Hard" ice which melted quickly. Maybe others have had better luck. BTW, we are fulltimers and use a lot of ice....

[BirdingRVer]

I think almost everyone at Quartzsite has an ice maker. Quartzsite Happy Hours can be long

We bought our Magic Chef at Home Depot for $99. For some reason they are in the plumbing area next to hot water heaters.

Like Butch we fill one gallon freezer bags and use good water or bottled water.

One thing I have found is the longer the ice maker runs the faster it makes cubes and the harder the cubes are. I usually just toss the first couple of trays back into the reservoir and then keep the cubes after the first two cycles.

[bncinwv]

We have one in the rig and one in the house like JayBird. Would not do without either now.
Bingo

[K&Gs3400RL]

We have one, with the Couger we had we kept it under the 5er. With the Montana we have it in the Basement because we have power in there. We got ours at Cabelas and Love it.

[klash]

My wife got tired of trying to juggle those tiny little trays into the freezer in our Monty, and of course sometimes they spilled. If company came for Happy Hour, well, guess what - not enough ice cubes. We are currently on the road in transit from the west coast to the east coast, and traveling across the US. When we were back in Nashville, we went to the Camping World store, and invested in a Roam Ice Maker. Not cheap, but on sale at $239. The staff said the previous units they carried were very prone to failure, but they dropped that line, and they now carry units made by Roam. Size is 14" by 16" by 16" high, and they weigh 36 lbs empty. We use distilled water, and the unit will make little round cubes in small, medium and large sizes. They have a hole in the centre, as that is how the ice is made. The unit is made of stainless steel.
Unit will shut down when ice basket is full, or when it runs out of water. If you expect a unit
like this to make enough ice to fill a cooler for sodas or beer, I don't think this machine is for you. If you want lots of ice for a simple happy hour, this will work fine. I found that the ice is firmer and nicer when I dumped the first couple of batches back down into the
water tank. It seems when the unit is chilled throughout it works better. I have set ours in the basement right next to the mini bar fridge, and accessible from the right hand storage door. It rides along there perfectly, and when it is shut down and we are in transit there is some water in the tank, so it is all ready to go as soon as we set up.

[cdaniels]

Thanks a bunch. We are looking mostly for cooler ice verses everyday ice cubes so I do not think the ice maker will do what I want it to do. Thanks for all your input.

[Exnavydiver]

our 12 cube machine makes 35 lbs a day. If we need cooler ice we either stage several gallon ziplocks in the freezer or just buy a bag for the cooler. The machine makes all the ice we need and we don't even carry a cooler anymore... Dave

[sailer]

We got ours at Target 3 Years ago for 34.95 and love it , as it makes plenty of ice for the cooler so to keep the beer and wine and ice water out in the cooler;; now some just use a small refg instead;;ask ;;bob;; sailer