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The Pitchfork’s survival projects,

Sunpentown IM-101 Portable Ice Maker with LCD

Product Review

Blog of January 31, 2011

Pitchfork © 2011
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Freely quote with attribution

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INTRODUCTION

This is 'Fork's product review of the Sunpentown IM-101 Portable Ice Maker with LCD.  'Fork and The Missus included a standalone ice maker in their staying-put survival list of kitchen appliances.  Had to.  Neither of the commercial Frigidaire appliances - refrigerator or freezer - that they acquired automatically made ice.  Sure. Sure.  They have trays galore as manual backups for the freezer; however, day-to-day they fetched about for an icemaker on its own.  This biz of independent living has its limits and loads.  If a machine can do it automatically, then let it.

Took a long time to figure that - short of big bucks for something commercial - little, autodefrost freezers, automatic ice makers were not a satisfied market.  Gotta grand or and more and really good reviews?  Then have at it.  Far as AG and The Missus figured, they'd put the ranch into the freezer and refrigerator.

Get a grip: something portable.  Sunpentown IM-101 Portable Ice Maker with LCD = way cheaper and well reviewed

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Whassup With This

Price ok.  Delivery ok.  Makes ice.

Conclusion:  a keeper, a default position

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Why 'Fork would, with significant reservation, suggest to a friend that this ice maker might be a constellation of considerations . . . but only after said friend had read out loud to the bottom of this webpage.  If Rube Lucius Goldberg were alive to witness this ice maker in action, AG opines that old rube might could be writhin' in raptures of joy and admiration and dance the happy dance.

Pro:

1. Doesn't have to run all the time (though it's tough to tell if it would without unplugging . . . please see below)

2. Makes ice fast; makes a lotta ice in a day for AG and The Missus

3. Water must be manually brought to the machine and poured in

Con:

1. Noisy - gracelessly creaks and groans and intakes water and dumps ice - it's two rooms and a short hallway away from the kitchen and even with a door closed in-between, AG and The Missus know its every goings-on

2. Doesn't exactly make cubes or their like - you know, solid through and through. . . makes smallish cylinders in three sizes . . . that is, kinda like an ice tube with a hole in the middle . . . the only downside of which AG and The Missus can possiblize is that when you think you've got a lot of cooling going on with a full glass of ice, you don't so much as you would if the ice were more conventionally cubed or crescented or whatever.

3. PITA to fully drain . . . the manual drain low down on one side doesn't exhaust all the water leftovers for AG and The Missus - gotta mop and tilt some

4. Can't yet figure how to shut if off furshur short of unplugging . . . ya think the bugger is gone to bed and so do you, until, say, very early in the morning when it starts up again . . . dunno . . . so, when you're not in the mood for more creaks and groans and incoming water and dumping ice, unplug

5. Ice isn't exactly dry and sticky-crunchy.  The 'cubes' can have a little water sheen, the effect of which when bagged for the freezer is that the 'cubes' can clump frozen together - nothing that a few bag-drops on the kitchen counter can mostly break up, but it's another step in the process to gitrdun

6. Water must be manually brought to the machine and poured in