Sunpentown IM-101S Portable Ice Maker with LCD with Stainless Steel Body

by Sunpentown

Product Features

• Make up to 35-Pounds of ice cubes per day
• Produces approx. 12 ice cubes in less than 10 minutes
• Makes 3 different ice cube sizes
• High efficiency CFC-free compressor
• 1.2 Gallon water reservoir

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17.1 x 15 x 17 inches ; 46 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 47.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000KD68AI
• Item model number: IM-101S
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,790 in Appliances (See Top 100 in Appliances)

Product Description

A self-contained ice maker: compact, easy to use and requires no installation. Makes 3 different ice cube sizes. Ideal for home bars, recreation rooms, boats...almost anywhere. Just a few simple steps and you'll get the first batch of 12 cubes in less than 10 minutes! Makes up to 2-Pounds of ice in an hour and up to 35-Pounds of ice in 24 hours. Highly portable, you can enjoy cool, refreshing ice wherever 115V outlet (and water) is available.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes Ice Well, June 30, 2010

By 

Charles G. "An Engineer and Business Person" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sunpentown IM-101S Portable Ice Maker with LCD with Stainless Steel Body (Kitchen)

Some advice if you are thinking of buying one of these:

First, go buy a bag of ice at the store for $2, see how long it lasts, and ask yourself if you really need an icemaker for $200. That's a lot of bags of ice, and you still have to pay for electricity and fill it up and clean it! If you can get by with a $2 bag once or twice a month for 5 months out of the year, this may not be the product for you!

We decided on this one because it looked like the best one after looking at the comments of other reviewers. We noted that ice makers in general have a pretty high breakdown rate, and so for the first time in my life, I actually bought an extended warranty that all consumer magazines tell you are a waste of money. We'll see.

If you buy it, while it's on its way, go buy a quart size container of vinegar. The plastic smell this thing generates when you first get it is pretty strong. That's just the smell AROUND the unit when it's on, I didn't even bother tasting the ice.

Dump the vinegar and an equal amount of water in it and press the self clean button. Run it twice then as it makes ice, throw the ice out.

Now you have a second problem: the vinegar will smell even though you got rid of all the ice. That's because there is 4 cups of water left in the thing when it looks empty. The only way to get rid of the 4 cups of vinegar-smelling water is to drain it using the drain on the lower left. Fill it again, run it, toss out the ice, drain and repeat until the ice stops smelling like vinegar. We had to run it through several times. It took several days.

And then: it makes ice. Enough to fill 5 large ice tea glasses in about 3 hours. As another reviewer noted, the ice stays in an insulated bucket with holes in it that sits above the water reservoir. When the ice melts, the melted ice drips into the reservoir. When the level of ice is less than full, it makes more.

The reviewer stating that he can't tell when it's on is absolutely nuts. It sounds like a modestly quiet dishwasher in the rinse cycle. You can tell when its on from 20 feet away. It runs continuously until the ice bucket is full then stops and then it is silent until enough ice melts for another batch to be made to refill it.

It's a fairly large appliance, but most of its size is dedicated to insulation that you WANT, so it's large in a good way. 13" wide by 16" high by 16" deep. About the size of a big office printer.

It's more energy efficient than you'd expect. It uses 2.4 amps to make the ice and 3.5 amps for the minute it takes when it's pushing the ice from where it gets made into the bucket. 2.4 amps x 120 volts means it uses about .290 kilowatts. If you figure it runs about 4 hours per day, that's about 1.152 kilowatt hours per day, about 12 cents per day or $3.60 per month.

A child can operate it. Once it's set up, you just fill the tank with water (about 10 cups max), push a power button and it will run all day by itself, stopping and starting as needed to make more ice until you shut it off or it runs out of water. They give you a shovel to scoop ice out of the basket, and the basket has handles s that you can lift the whole thing out and dump it into another container.

The interior is made out of the same stuff any cooler is made out of and is easy to clean.

We're happy with it. If it breaks, I'll be back to report it and I'll also report whether the extended warranty was worth it or not.

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Never out of ice again!, December 29, 2009

By 

Barry (FORT LAUDERDALE, FL, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunpentown IM-101S Portable Ice Maker with LCD with Stainless Steel Body (Kitchen)

I recently moved into a small but wonderful apartment. The refridgerator with freezer is sufficient but quite small. Buying that 10 lb bag of ice at the supermarket as usual is no longer viable. It takes up too much space in the freezer.

I use a lot of ice in a huge mug for water and such and it must be filtered as is my water. Well, I must say that this particular Ice Maker continues to be a pleasant surprise.

It's sturdy and attractive and makes ice continually. It doesn't have to be connected to anything other than one electric socket. I pour in a gallon of fresh filtered water and within minutes ice is formed.

It's quite ingenious. As the stored ice very slowly melts in the basket the water goes right back into the system to be made into ice again.

It makes a basket full of ice then stops until the ice is taken and the basket needs to be topped off keeping the basket full to the brim with ice.

The freezing compressor only runs for a few minutes to freeze the ice than turns itself off until needed. It's so quiet that we don't even know that it's there at all.

I followed the instructions on set up and ran vinegar and lemon juice through to clean any machine taste out, and it truly is as advertised.

Go ahead and feel good about this purchase. Few things we buy in this world will serve us as long or as well as this Sunpentown Ice Maker. Enjoy!

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Won't work long, March 28, 2010

By 

Edward Greff - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sunpentown IM-101S Portable Ice Maker with LCD with Stainless Steel Body (Kitchen)

This ice maker was rated at 5 stars so, we bought two - one for the office and one for home. The one at home worked well for 10 months and then the ice shovel broke. A piece of plastic that conected the shovel to the motor that rotated the shovel broke off. The shovel won't work so, no more ice. The part can not be bought so, as a result I am out the cost of the machine for a cheap piece of plastic. Remember, I said we bought 2 machines. The ice machine at the office made it 6 months before the exact same thing happened. This is the worst investment I have made in a long time. I have read the reviews of the other ice makers and there are others with the same complaint about other brands as well. My advice is don't buy this type of ice maker no matter who makes it.