NewAirSilver Countertop Ice Maker Machine, Compact Automatic Ice Maker, Cubes Ready in Under 15 Minutes, Portable Ice Cube Maker, Perfect for Home/Kitchen/Office/Bar

Order arrived early, 7 days, in perfect condition. The NewAir ClearIce 40 is an amazingly small, but productive ice maker. It really does make 40 lbs of CLEAR ice/day. The ice bin holds 3.5 lbs, so it must be emptied every 2 hours. The overhead water supply reservoir holds just over 2.0 liters, or 2 quarts 4 ounces, and needs filling 9 times/day, or every 2 hrs 40 min. No supply/drain plumbing!The ice itself is very roughly a cube in shape. It is produced by a 3-high, 8-wide refrigerated grid. Water pours over the grid and gradually forms ice. This makes ice with no air, so it is crystal clear. When the machine is ready it switches from refrigeration to heating on the grid metal. In 30+ seconds it warms the grid enough to drop the ice into the ice bin below. Immediately after dropping ice, the machine starts making the next ice.The ice generally does not break into individual pieces to any significant degree when it falls in the ice bin. As other users have suggested, the ice can be broken up by dumping it into a large Ziploc bag and smacking it down on a hard surface to separate the individual cubes. You can put the ice bag in a freezer after that if you want, but you will need to smack that totally frozen bag of formerly wet ice down on a hard surface because the wet ice cubes will freeze together.The cubes produced by the above process are compatible with my freezer’s ice dispenser and crusher, which is designed for the usual crescent-shaped ice.This machine is great because it does not require a supply water and sewer drain hook-up, and it is about as energy efficient as can be.It takes more user effort to use than a commercial ice machine that just makes ice and dumps it in a very large bin, non-stop. Such machines have no refrigeration for the ice, so the ice is constantly melting and going down the drain, which adds to electricity cost.This ice machine uses 180W. In 24 hours this will be 4.3 kWh (30 to 80 cents) on your electric bill, in the production of 40 pounds of ice. It has implicit refrigeration of the ice storage bin because the very cold, 32° water pouring over the freezing grid falls below the ice bin, where it is re-pumped over the freezing grid, serving to refrigerate the ice bin compartment without hard freezing. This results in bin ice lasting well with little melting through the entire two hours to create six loads of ice, at which time you must empty the bin.The machine automatically stops when ice bin is full, and that ends refrigeration until either you dump the ice bin or some of the ice simply melts. Once the machine is waiting for you to empty the bin, the rate of icemelt increases because the refrigeration compressor stays off until some ice melts or you empty the 3.5 lb bin.The cost of this machine will be recovered after it has made enough ice to fill from a few dozen to several dozen bags of store-bought ice. So in the long run it will save on your cost of ice.

I am a heavy user of ice and the refrigerator doesn’t really hold up to my needs so for twenty years I’ve had $80-150 ice makers doing its thing day and night. They don’t last forever, but I am happy with anything that can give me four or five years of continuous use.So. I have lived with cloudy ice all my home life. My Frigidaire maker died and I needed a new ice maker. I started doing research instead of picking up whatever Costco features this week.The idea of clear ice sounded unnecessary to start with. I don’t drink nearly enough whiskey to be bothered by cloudy ice cubes. Sure, I’ve got a couple of ice ball makers and I get the idea of controlling the water dilution of your alcoholic beverage.But two things sold me on this ice maker - it produces a pretty large amount of ice (perhaps a little slower than my cloudy ice makers but when you’re into the production each finished cycle is easily more than twice as voluminous as the cloudy makers I’ve had.The other “feature” is that clear ice causes vastly less foaming in a carbonated drink. I thought this was a throwaway feature but is it not. It is my absolutely favorite feature of the clear ice. You can fill a glass of carbonated water a lot quicker when you don’t have to wait for the foam to dissipate. Snd the carbonation sticks around in the drink much longer.The clear ice also does not melt as fast as cloudy ice. I generally take a class of fizzy water to bed at night, in a yeti tumbler. With cloudy ice there is generally some ice left in the morning, but the glass is substantially fuller of remaining clear ice.There a “trick” not clearly labeled in the manual (and an ice maker manual is a rather cursory read) and that is how to make thicker ice cubes. You good the start button (when you turn in the appliance) for about five seconds, and you don’t get much in way of confirmation, but the ice making is a little slower and the cubes a good bit thicker.Now this comes at a price: when the flat sheet of thick ice cubes come off as a solid sheet, the anemic little plastic scoop is NOT up to the task of breaking up the sheet into individual cubes.Do yourself a favor and buy a metal scoop. Wait until you get the unit so you can measure what is a comfortable width and depth of your scoop. (And while you’re waiting for the new scoop, just run the ice maker in small cubes - the plastic scoop can handle that.)While I researched the Clear Ice Makers, I did see several that offered an attachment where you can use an external jug for water.Min retrospect, I would like to have a ten gallon set up, but I am so pleased with every other aspect of this ice maker that I would buy this unit again, in spite of not having an external water attachment. But: I’ve gotta have SOMETHING to complain about so you know that I really like the other aspects of the maker.You’ll be done with cloudy ice forever after this!

Wrote to the company after having this for less than 4 months about how the ice clogs up, resetting it didn't help, so we unplugged it for 9 hours, and it worked fine for 2 days then again went to this BLOCK of ice that is not falling and gets stuck as water falls around it making it larger and larger. THIS IS ALWAYS HAPPENING now, and it's a bummer as this is our 2nd ice maker we've tried, the prior one had metal shards in the water, and though it was easier to use (sets ice thickness, didn't block up) it was tough to keep clean...so we tried this one, only to find this constant problem.When I wrote to their email from their booklet, they NEVER RESPONDED. So this is a WASTE OF MONEY PRODUCT! it's not working to make ice, only forms a giant block which (if left on and unattended) may cause some POWER OUTAGE or a fire to happen thanks to it being locked up and not moving the ice, but water flows constantly over the block making it larger and larger. We only used it for a few hours a few times a week, so leaving it on and wasting that much electricity wasn't an option for us, and it SHOULD NOT BE THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS MACHINE WORKS. Many letters to them and calls to them led to NOTHING and sadly it's been a few months of us having it so AMAZON won't refund it. Amazon needs to know, this is a terrible machine and should not be on their website as anything purchasable.