FRIGIDAIRE EFIC452-SS 40 Lbs Extra Large Clear Maker, Stainless Steel, Makes Square Ice

Great counter top ice maker, fits under the kitchen cabinets, nice digital display water, level temp, very quite, these are square cubes that are clear, Much better than bullet shaped and cloudy, Wife likes it better than the last one which you had to check the water level all the time.

The pros: the ice maker works well. The machine is quiet while running, and its small size belies the good volume of ice it makes.The cons: when the ice is dumped into the distribution basket, it’s a LOUD BANG. It’s a surprise at first Zo but you get used to it. Because the machine is compact, both the reservoir and distribution basket are small, so you need to empty and refill pretty often. Also, the ice is dumped in something of a slab, but a crab mallet or meat tenderizer easily breaks up the cubes. Finally, i was unable to register the product. Frigidaire sends you to Curtis International, and the Curtis product registration page is never found. At least it wasn’t found by GoDaddy, Edge, or Safari.

I had high hopes for this ice maker as a replacement for my freezer’s broken ice maker, but my experience has been far from ideal. Here’s a breakdown of the issues I encountered:1. **Inconsistent Performance** – It does make ice… when it works.2. **Excessive Moisture** – The ice comes out very wet.3. **Constant Monitoring Required** – You either have to wait for ice to accumulate before transferring it to the freezer or move small batches when the bin gets full. At least twice if you fill thw water well.4. **Freezer Dependency** – Since the ice is so wet, I have to solidify it in the freezer. I use metal containers (hotel pans) specifically for this purpose.5. **Tedious Once solidified, the ice needs to be broken apart. I use a metal meat tenderizer for the task, but if done immediately after freezing, the chunks stick together and become difficult to separate.6. **Problematic Ice Cube Settings** – The thick setting is too thick, while the thinner setting produces partial slabs. The "0" setting is somewhat effective, but it still requires hammering each batch.7. **Lack of Cleaning Functionality** – Surprisingly, there’s no dedicated cleaning function—just instructions to wipe things down, which seems inadequate.8. **Build Quality Concerns** – On its first use, the button panel started popping up, exposing the unit’s inner components. While I could press it back into place, this doesn’t inspire confidence in its durability.9. **Deteriorating Performance** – After about ten uses, the machine began making unsettling noises and eventually stopped producing ice altogether.10. **Inefficiency** – The entire process—from ice formation to freezing, transferring, and breaking—takes far too long. I could easily fill ice trays twenty times over in the time it takes to manage this machine.Ultimately, this ice maker demands too much effort for too little payoff. If reliability, ease of use, and efficiency matter to you, this might not be the best solution.

Frigidaire EFIC452-SSBLACK XL Maker, Makes 40 Lbs. of Clear Square Ice Cubes A Day, Black StainlessThe Frigidaire ice maker comes packaged in a retail-printed cardboard box. Inside the box, right on the top, you can see the power cord curl across the top and the ice maker itself is packaged in styrofoam as you may see in many other larger appliances. Keep in mind, that this product is fairly heavy. The box weighed out at close to 40 lb. It would have been helpful if the manufacturer had finger cutouts to make it easier to lift and move the box. Besides the cord on top of the box, you also found the find instruction booklet in there kind of crumpled up and thrown on top. They didn't put any of the paperwork in a baggie as I've seen in the past. It was a bit difficult trying to get the ice maker out of the box, we ended up turning it upside down and pulling the box off of the ice maker. Once you've got the ice maker out of the box, there's a plastic bag around the unit itself to keep the dust and dirt from it. Furthermore, there are tape strips holding drawers in any moving opening shut that you'll have to remove.Looking through the instructions, they note that you'll need to wash down the interior of this before using it to make ice. They recommend a diluted detergent and a soft cloth. The washing procedure is a bit of a pain in the neck, mainly because the unit is so large. Once it was clean and rinsed out well, we had to leave it set for 2 hours per the instructions before turning it on. I'm guessing that so the onboard compressor oil has a chance to allow gravity to work and put the oil downward belongs and not in the lines, but that's just my theory.After waiting two hours, we filled it full of filtered water and plugged it in.It made ice fairly well, mainly smallish cubes that have a dimple on one side because the cube does not freeze solidly. If you use the longer freezing option oh, it does freeze into a sturdier, thicker cube.The best machine is fairly noisy. the air cooling fans make quite a bit of noise, and when the mechanism triggers the cycle to dump the cubes you can hear that resonate two rooms away. All in all, it's a pretty decent ice maker and just a bit on the noisy side.