Newair Silver Countertop Ice Maker Machine - Fast 15-Minute Ice Cube Production, Compact & Automatic for Home, Kitchen, Office, Bar - Perfect for Cocktails, Parties, and Daily Use

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.