Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It makes two sizes of ice "bullets", small and large. It produced the first ice pieces in about 8 minutes. I found the small size pieces melt too quickly, so I prefer the "large" size. The instruction booklet is brief, but written in fairly good English. There was not much explanation of the cleaning cycle, which I ran first. It seems to run the clean cycle forever. I finally shut the power off to stop it. I decided to purchase this ice maker so I would not have to hire a plumber to run a line for a built in ice maker. Also, built in icemakers have a heater so the ice will separate from the freezing coils. After starting it up it did not need much time to fill a large bowl with ice to put in the freezer, but the bullets tend to freeze together into a solid clump in the freezer. I suppose if you put them in an ice bucket for a party or gathering they would be fine. You could take the icemaker with you to a gathering, but the instruction manual says to let is sit upright for 24 hours before using it. Apparently if this is not done the refrigerant in the small compressor may not be properly settled in its reservoir and the compressor could possibly be damaged as a result. So you would need to keep the icemaker in an upright position if you transport it or wait again 24 hours before using it. But I have no plans to be hauling it around. It will stay in operating position on a kitchen counter top. The main irritant is that the drain plug is on the bottom of the device and not as conveniently located as I would like, but that is not a deal breaker. The icemaker uses Isobutane as the refrigerant. Isobutane is flammable, but unless you do something idiotic and pierce the coolant lines that should never be a problem. This is very clearly disclosed in the instructions. It is fairly common for small chest type freezers or portable icemakers to use isobutane or some other flammable hydrocarbon as the refrigerant. Overall, it appears to be of good quality, well made, works as claimed, and suits my needs.