FRIGIDAIRE EFIC452 SS 40 Lbs

 The ice maker holds 2.3 litres in its reservoir, and will shut off automatically once the basket of ice is full OR the water reservoir empties. Empty the ice basket or add water to the reservoir and it will start up again automatically. You’ll need to empty the ice about every hour or add water every couple of hours or so. (but you’ll quickly end up with more ice than you’ll know what to do with!) I only make my ice using bottled or filtered water. The ice will be clearer, taste better, and won’t clog up the machine with minerals and deposits.

I originally purchased a less expensive 29lb per day Frigidaire Ice maker but took it back after only a few days. Problem for me was the cloudy and very soft ice that it produced. I was hesitant to spend too much more just to get clear ice, but both my wife and I are really glad we spent the extra $$ to get what we really wanted. With commercially produced ice selling for $3.00 and up per bag, it won’t take long to pay for itself.

Be aware that the ice maker does require regular cleaning (pretty easy to do with the right stuff) so you may want to order some Ice Machine Cleaner and De-scaler that is safer than bleach. (also from Amazon)

A family member recommended this one. I had been researching for a while. Works great. Only negative, makes large “trays” or blocks of ice. Needs to be put into a zip lock bag and broken up. Overall I’m very happy with it.

Review is for the Frigidaire EFIC452-SSRED XL Maker, Makes 40 Lbs. of Clear Square Ice Cubes A Day
So I just received this today….we have been using a Frigidaire brand “bullet” style ice maker and it just can’t keep up with our ice consumption, this….despite a fridge/freezer with two ice makers….go figure. Got this, Red one….rinsed it out, cleaned everything, and filled all the way with water. I figured, since I had to wait at least one hour for the oil in the compressor to settle, I would give it a good cleaning, and run water through it. Put the end over the sink, removed the drain plug and … NOTHING. No water is draining. NOTHING AT ALL, despite the reservoir being completely full of water. Must be clogged, or the tube from the reservoir must be blocked or pinched. Checked the manual. Nothing to do except take out the drain plug. (there is a screw on cap, then a silicone “plug”…yep I removed it) So, what to do. I figured it must be a twisted or blocked tube, SO I TOOK THE WHOLE BACK METAL COVER OFF, so I could take a look at the tubes and see if there was a block. Its not hard to take off the metal cover….10 screws and then shimmy it off. Be careful. The metal is thin and sharp. Looked around….NO water in any of the tubes, despite it being full. Checked the drain “filter” in the reservoir and took it out, just in case. Nope, no water coming out. Checked all the tubes. Not blocked. GUESS WHAT IT WAS?? I plugged in the ice maker, just in case….NOTHING is said in the manual. The pump started working right away, and VOILA! water started running out the back drain, which was still open. Apparently to fully drain this, you must have it plugged in…(I didn’t turn it on, just plugged it in) I believe the pump will close the lines so it can’t drain, once it is shut off. NOTHING IN THE MANUAL TELLS YOU THIS!!..So if this happens to you, don’t return it because it won’t drain. Just plug it in, and it will start draining after the plug is taken out. Hope this little trick helps you. Now onto the ICE. First batch set on +4 took like over 20 minutes, and it makes pretty thick ice at this setting. Changed it to 0 and it took about 15 minutes. We use chilled, filtered water in our fridge, since using cold water makes ice faster, so the machine doesn’t need to chill it down as much. The way this ice machine works is the water from the reservoir is constantly dripped over the square metal grid, which is chilled by the ice maker. This means that the all the water in the machine is constantly “cycled” over this grid, bringing the temp down on all the water. Might as well start with chilled water to help the process. Even on a setting of 0 the ice coming out of this machine is thick and clear for the most part. Love it so far. Its not “loud” but its constant “on” like a mini fridge, until it cycles when the ice is ready. Because of the thickness of the sheet of ice that dumps out, its quite loud when it dumps. I love that it dumps in a sheet. This makes it super easy to bag it up in sheets for storage to use later. This ice is SOLID, and since its clear, it doesn’t have hardly any air in it, unlike the bullet style ice makers. This thing is going to get a lot of use, so will see how long it lasts. The price is about double what you would pay for the bullet ones, but so far I think its worth it. Time will tell.
*Update* 10/6/22 – well…its been a few days of almost constant use. The ice that this makes is almost clear….for the most part it is, and its SOLID ice, not full of air and cloudy. The bullet style ice makers, make ice with a lot of air in the ice, so that ice doesn’t last too long, melts fast. This ice makers ice lasts a good long time, probably double the amount of time for the same “amount” of ice than the bullet ones. The only down sides I can see with this ice maker is…1. that loud noise when the ice “drops” out of the grids. Its pretty loud when it lands in the “bucket” when there is little to no ice in there. Once you get a couple of drops of ice in there, then its almost silent when it drops. 2. You could view this as a negative and or positive. The ice drops most times in a sheet, that you then need to break up. I don’t mind this….makes for easy storage. To break it up, we put it in a zip lock bag and then just bash it. It breaks right away, and I don’t mind doing this extra step, since the ice lasts so long, and you can get long strands of ice too that fit nicely in your flask or large cup etc. This machine is a little larger than the bullet type, so keep that in mind. I tried +4, 0 and -4 for ice settings, and didn’t notice any difference in the ice made, so now just leave it on a default setting of 0. Plug it in, fill with chilled water, and hit the power button and thats it. You don’t need to use chilled water, and often times I will put some ice in the water, just to keep it colder in the beginning, to speed up the first batch, which seems to take the longest. Recommended. We have lots of ice now, and with this running, can stock up.
*UPDATE* – Love this ice maker. First batch takes a while to chill down the water, but the amount of solid ice you get out of this is a big WIN. Solid ice “cube sheets”, but very easy to break up.The ice lasts a good long time in drinks, since the ice doesn’t contain much air, since its clear. Just get this. I don’t think you will be disappointed!! I still get startled when the ice drops….LOL!
*UPDATE 12/12/22* Have had this a while now, and use this almost daily. This ice maker is a WIN! The ice lasts a good long time, and even if you let it run until the bin is full, not that much ice melts in the bin. We do this and then bag it, check the water – add whats needed and continue on making ice. Couple of TIPS- While the ice maker cycles all the water in the machine from the top reservoir where you add fresh water, drips over the grid, then drops into the bottom holding bin to be sucked up and cycled over the grid again, this ice maker will not pull water and empty the bottom holding bin. If you forget to empty the ice from the bottom, and all that ice melts into the bottom holding bin, I have found that it will stay full of water. So don’t panic, just start scooping the water from the bottom bin, into the top bin manually to lower the level to under the Ice bin, then continue to make ice. Haven’t had any issues with this ice maker yet.

Frigidaire EFIC452-SSBLACK XL Maker, Makes 40 Lbs. of Clear Square Ice Cubes A Day, Black Stainless

The 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.