Walmart has Ionchill tabletop ice maker that they advertise makes 26lbs of ice in 24 hours (9 cubes every 9 minutes) It says in specifications and on the dataplate on the unit that it draws 95 watts, however Kil-a-watt meter says it uses 175 watts continuously, with an 818 watt spike when it starts. It would not run on a 400/800 watt inverter.
That was a fun test. Maybe you wouldn't want to drain your battery for ice, but it would be convenient on a camping trip. You can never have enough ice when trying to keep things cool for a weekend. Great video! Thank you!
Lots of good info from your work video. I have made an indirect evaporative cooler using DesertSun02 design but it won't work when my humidty gets too high. But with the work you have done, I am now considering using an ice maker for those high humidity times with my recirculating ice cold water inside my room in a chest. His indirect evaporative cooler is really low wattage but your video allows me to have a switch over when needed for room cooling at still less wattage than a window unit mini split. Great work and thank you sir.
There is a momentary power spike that you would only see on a Oscilloscope. All motors and heat pumps do it at start up. Nothing wrong with your machine or equipment.
@@OffGridBasement You'd need something that can measure inrush current, those tend to be quite a bit more expensive! If you want an ice maker that does not exhibit this behavior, look for one with an inverter compressor. They have their own 3-phase low voltage inverter and avoid using a big capacitor and PTC relay to hard start the compressor. They also tend to be available with a straight 12V DC input, search for "12V ice maker", they can be more efficient too! Long version: A/C motors only make torque when the magnetic field is slightly at an angle with the rotor, but single phase A/C cannot do this at start-up, when the rotor is "stalled". Any refrigeration equipment usually comes with a continuous rating (say, 900W for our 9000btu mini-split at home), but also with an "LRA" (Locked Rotor Amperage) that is often 5-10 times the continuous rating and is briefly pulled at start-up! This is what trips your smaller inverter. A capacitor is used to provide a phase-shift in the A/C waveform and a PTC relay briefly connects a "start winding" straight to input power, jolting the rotor in motion. Once the rotor is rotating, the PTC relay warms up removing the start winding from the circuit and the capacitor is sufficient to keep the motor spinning, with a magnetic field staying slightly out of phase relative to the rotor's position. The reason 3-phase motors don't need this contraption, is because the magnetic field rotates between 3 poles that are 120° apart and can make torque at 0rpm. 12V inverter-driven motors (BLDC) have 3 couples of transistors making up a crude square-wave inverter that pulses current in each phase 120° apart.
Great stuff.Thank you soooo much.Been looking at different options for my rv, pelletier cooler etc.With my intended lipo battery/solar setup this will be perfect for me.Great job!!
Good job, interesting little experiment, it gives us some real info. The startup current (Surge current) of a compressor can be anything up to 7 times it’s normal run current draw, so this could be a factor why the 500w inverter could not start it properly, along with many other reasons. Always get a bigger inverter than you think you need for this type of project (&generally), while they may draw more at idle it is always better to have more than enough power than not enough. It would be good if you could record a bit more data, like surge current when compressor starts, ambient temp, water temp, and leave it to go one full battery cycle without interruptions until inverter drops out from low battery voltage, see how many amps & watts were really used & delivered from ur battery, then weigh your total ice harvest & give us Aussies a metric weight, so we can understand too. Good vid mate. Cheers
interesting video, much more ice made than those coolers with the ice maker. i have the igloo one of these, they are pretty nice until that tray starts binding up. as for the 500 watt inverter not working here is my opinion, LRA. "Locked Rotor Amps" kind of like surge watts for AC motors/compressors (max amps to get the motor from 0 to moving RPM). from what i found these ice makers take around 5 amps, so at 110-115 volts is 550-575 watts, the 500 watt inverter couldnt handle the surge, but since it was such a quick surge the inverter never tripped and the ice maker reset by dumping he tray and starting over. mine does this when the tray binds, it trys resetting a few times and then shuts off. there was a question a few videos back about someone asking about an inverter to run a 220v mini split ac system with around 15A running load and what inverter they needed. ended up being about 3500 watts (220v x 15a), i recommended 6-8k inverter and you recommended a 4000 watt one. neither of us knew the LRA of that system but this video demonstrated that need to up upsize the inverter. i would have thought the 500 watt would have run it as well until i looked up more info.
Thank you for the great info and insight. I didn't know anything about LRA until recently. That's what I like about doing this. Always learning. Thanks for the comment.
Great video! I was wondering the same thing, how much would I be able to produce with my solar generator. Love making ice but it does take some power to do it. Also how warm your area is where you are producing the ice affects the energy used and how much ice is produced. Plus if you have your ice maker in a warm environment, when the ice comes out it wil melt faster. Now you can tell people you have a solar ice maker 🤔
Thanks for the comment! I was in my basement so the condition was perfect. Probably about 68⁰F. If you tried to do it on a picnic table at 90⁰F things would be much different.
I read on here that those ice makers spike to like 800 watts. I saw the video where the guy ran an igloo one on a Jackery 500 but my Oupes 600 shut down mine similar to this one with an overload error. I did watch your entire video. Interesting info. I have trouble digesting almost $700 for this setup to make 5.5 lbs of ice in 5 hrs using almost half your battery life. I would love to see if this one will error out on a 600 or does it require a 1000? Mine was a 120v & stated 98wh where most don't say watt hours. I did just look up an Oupes 1200w & it was $519. Gr8 video!
I do have a 600w power station that I could try out. I'm also going to find out what the spike is using a clamp meter on the AC side. Probably make a short video for it. Thanks for the info and the comment.
I wonder if you upsized the wiring on that 500 watt inverter would make it work? I have an inverter that I swear knows what size wire I use, it never trips off it just refuses to power larger devices unless I use big enough wire.
@@OffGridBasementcables definitely need to be able to conduct enough current to run ur inverter properly, but if you add a capacitor bank to the input of ur inverter, this can give it a lot better motor starting surge capacity also.
Does that Ice maker use a compressor? may be that is why it says to use large gauge wire. Do you know what the startup surge of that ice maker is? If you have peak hold clamp-on Amps meter then you can figure out what the surge is.
It does have a compressor. I never thought about using an amp clamp to find the max. I need to wire up a small extension cord with some exposed wiring to use as a measuring tool. Thanks for the comment.
Very cool test, thanks! Plus there are so many different brands of 100ah batteries out there that are all pretty much the same. REDODO lost me as a customer very recently after a bunch of BS spin double talk lies from customer service so will never buy from them again.
Some motors dont like anything but a pure sign wave. Im not sure how this experiment would be equaled to a real off gird scenario? No one with any common sense would want to drain a battery without putting power back into the battery. If you have a low or dead battery you wont have the power for other appliances you need to run. If you have solar running into your battery, all your calculations will be way different and this experiment will be pretty much useless. I'm just not sure what you are trying to accomplish here other than just playing with the battery?
Suppose you're at the beach and needed to make some ice and all you have is a 100Ah battery, an inverter and a countertop ice maker... it's just for fun.
It was basically to show what you can get with 12v 100ah. Now you can calculate your own devices with these numbers. I also did want to play with the battery.... :-)
You are running experiments seen nowhere else on RUclips. Great video.
Thank you! If one person finds it useful I'll be happy. Thanks for the comment.
Ice maker oscillating fans and large Insulated Cups will work nicely.
Yes it would! Thank you for the comment.
Great video. Exactly what I needed to see before I take my ice maker on a camping trip.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for the comment.
Walmart has Ionchill tabletop ice maker that they advertise makes 26lbs of ice in 24 hours (9 cubes every 9 minutes) It says in specifications and on the dataplate on the unit that it draws 95 watts, however Kil-a-watt meter says it uses 175 watts continuously, with an 818 watt spike when it starts. It would not run on a 400/800 watt inverter.
Thanks for the comment and info.
Thank you for taking the time out to make this video. It really helped me alot. ❤️
I'm glad it helped. Thank you for the comment!
That was a fun test. Maybe you wouldn't want to drain your battery for ice, but it would be convenient on a camping trip. You can never have enough ice when trying to keep things cool for a weekend. Great video! Thank you!
You're welcome! It was really just to give people an idea. Thanks for the comment!
Lots of good info from your work video.
I have made an indirect evaporative cooler using DesertSun02 design but it won't work when my humidty gets too high. But with the work you have done, I am now considering using an ice maker for those high humidity times with my recirculating ice cold water inside my room in a chest. His indirect evaporative cooler is really low wattage but your video allows me to have a switch over when needed for room cooling at still less wattage than a window unit mini split. Great work and thank you sir.
You're welcome! Hope everything works out for you! Thanks for the comment.
Awesome Video .
I have Learned So Many Things Watching Your Detailed Instructions.
Keep Up The Good Work 👍
Glad to hear that! Thanks for the comment.
Would be interesting to see if it’s converting ac to dc inside the unit
That's a good question. Thanks for the comment.
There is a momentary power spike that you would only see on a Oscilloscope. All motors and heat pumps do it at start up. Nothing wrong with your machine or equipment.
Thank you! Would an Amp Clamp meter set to Max amp catch it as well? I was thinking about trying that. Thanks for the comment.
@@OffGridBasement
You'd need something that can measure inrush current, those tend to be quite a bit more expensive!
If you want an ice maker that does not exhibit this behavior, look for one with an inverter compressor. They have their own 3-phase low voltage inverter and avoid using a big capacitor and PTC relay to hard start the compressor. They also tend to be available with a straight 12V DC input, search for "12V ice maker", they can be more efficient too!
Long version: A/C motors only make torque when the magnetic field is slightly at an angle with the rotor, but single phase A/C cannot do this at start-up, when the rotor is "stalled". Any refrigeration equipment usually comes with a continuous rating (say, 900W for our 9000btu mini-split at home), but also with an "LRA" (Locked Rotor Amperage) that is often 5-10 times the continuous rating and is briefly pulled at start-up! This is what trips your smaller inverter. A capacitor is used to provide a phase-shift in the A/C waveform and a PTC relay briefly connects a "start winding" straight to input power, jolting the rotor in motion. Once the rotor is rotating, the PTC relay warms up removing the start winding from the circuit and the capacitor is sufficient to keep the motor spinning, with a magnetic field staying slightly out of phase relative to the rotor's position.
The reason 3-phase motors don't need this contraption, is because the magnetic field rotates between 3 poles that are 120° apart and can make torque at 0rpm.
12V inverter-driven motors (BLDC) have 3 couples of transistors making up a crude square-wave inverter that pulses current in each phase 120° apart.
i love this channel.. keep up the great work
Thanks, will do! Thank you the comment!
Great stuff.Thank you soooo much.Been looking at different options for my rv, pelletier cooler etc.With my intended lipo battery/solar setup this will be perfect for me.Great job!!
Thank you for the compliments and comment!
Awesome video because I own that same ice maker and wondered how much it would take to power it offgrid. Thank you!
You're welcome! I figured it would be fun just to see how much ice I could get. Definitely enough for a family picnic. Thanks for the comment.
Good job, interesting little experiment, it gives us some real info. The startup current (Surge current) of a compressor can be anything up to 7 times it’s normal run current draw, so this could be a factor why the 500w inverter could not start it properly, along with many other reasons. Always get a bigger inverter than you think you need for this type of project (&generally), while they may draw more at idle it is always better to have more than enough power than not enough. It would be good if you could record a bit more data, like surge current when compressor starts, ambient temp, water temp, and leave it to go one full battery cycle without interruptions until inverter drops out from low battery voltage, see how many amps & watts were really used & delivered from ur battery, then weigh your total ice harvest & give us Aussies a metric weight, so we can understand too. Good vid mate. Cheers
Thank you for the great information and recommendation! I'll work on being more informative. Thanks for the comment.
Nice test.
Thank you for the comment!
interesting video, much more ice made than those coolers with the ice maker. i have the igloo one of these, they are pretty nice until that tray starts binding up. as for the 500 watt inverter not working here is my opinion, LRA. "Locked Rotor Amps" kind of like surge watts for AC motors/compressors (max amps to get the motor from 0 to moving RPM). from what i found these ice makers take around 5 amps, so at 110-115 volts is 550-575 watts, the 500 watt inverter couldnt handle the surge, but since it was such a quick surge the inverter never tripped and the ice maker reset by dumping he tray and starting over. mine does this when the tray binds, it trys resetting a few times and then shuts off. there was a question a few videos back about someone asking about an inverter to run a 220v mini split ac system with around 15A running load and what inverter they needed. ended up being about 3500 watts (220v x 15a), i recommended 6-8k inverter and you recommended a 4000 watt one. neither of us knew the LRA of that system but this video demonstrated that need to up upsize the inverter. i would have thought the 500 watt would have run it as well until i looked up more info.
Thank you for the great info and insight. I didn't know anything about LRA until recently. That's what I like about doing this. Always learning. Thanks for the comment.
Thank you! Was looking for this information
Glad it was helpful!
Great video! I was wondering the same thing, how much would I be able to produce with my solar generator. Love making ice but it does take some power to do it. Also how warm your area is where you are producing the ice affects the energy used and how much ice is produced. Plus if you have your ice maker in a warm environment, when the ice comes out it wil melt faster. Now you can tell people you have a solar ice maker 🤔
Thanks for the comment! I was in my basement so the condition was perfect. Probably about 68⁰F. If you tried to do it on a picnic table at 90⁰F things would be much different.
Great video but why are you setting on the floor? There is a freezer right there use the top of it to film.
It was because I was continuously opening the freezer to put in the ice. I just didn't want to move things once it started. Thanks for the comment.
@@OffGridBasement I saw that later in the video sorry
Very cool
Thanks for the comment.
I read on here that those ice makers spike to like 800 watts. I saw the video where the guy ran an igloo one on a Jackery 500 but my Oupes 600 shut down mine similar to this one with an overload error. I did watch your entire video. Interesting info. I have trouble digesting almost $700 for this setup to make 5.5 lbs of ice in 5 hrs using almost half your battery life. I would love to see if this one will error out on a 600 or does it require a 1000? Mine was a 120v & stated 98wh where most don't say watt hours. I did just look up an Oupes 1200w & it was $519. Gr8 video!
I do have a 600w power station that I could try out. I'm also going to find out what the spike is using a clamp meter on the AC side. Probably make a short video for it. Thanks for the info and the comment.
I have a similar/same ice maker that @OffGridBasement is using and a Bluetti EB3A which has a 600w inverter. It trips the Bluetti at startup.
Bough rv did make a 12/24vdc model but it seems out of stock or discontinued
Thanks for the info.
Nice video. Expecting answer to my query
Thanks for the comment.
Legend 🥃
I wonder if you upsized the wiring on that 500 watt inverter would make it work? I have an inverter that I swear knows what size wire I use, it never trips off it just refuses to power larger devices unless I use big enough wire.
Good to know. I think I have some xt90 connectors. I should give it a go. Thanks for the comment.
@@OffGridBasementcables definitely need to be able to conduct enough current to run ur inverter properly, but if you add a capacitor bank to the input of ur inverter, this can give it a lot better motor starting surge capacity also.
Does that Ice maker use a compressor? may be that is why it says to use large gauge wire. Do you know what the startup surge of that ice maker is? If you have peak hold clamp-on Amps meter then you can figure out what the surge is.
It does have a compressor. I never thought about using an amp clamp to find the max. I need to wire up a small extension cord with some exposed wiring to use as a measuring tool. Thanks for the comment.
@@OffGridBasement You need to get one that can do peak hold capture.
is it possible your first inverter wasn't a pure sine wave inverter?
The first inverter had a blown capacitor. Thanks for the comment.
Do you ever have an issue with the compressor of a full size refrigerator starting when you're running an inverter?
Only with the small 500w inverter. Anything 1500w and over I never have a problem. Thanks for the comment.
@@OffGridBasement thanks
Too much startup surge for the 500 Watt inverter
I believe you are right. I need to put a clamp meter to capture the max amp draw on the AC side. Thanks for the comment.
Very cool test, thanks! Plus there are so many different brands of 100ah batteries out there that are all pretty much the same. REDODO lost me as a customer very recently after a bunch of BS spin double talk lies from customer service so will never buy from them again.
That's a bummer! There are lots of choices now, so pick what's best for you. Thanks for the comment.
Some motors dont like anything but a pure sign wave. Im not sure how this experiment would be equaled to a real off gird scenario? No one with any common sense would want to drain a battery without putting power back into the battery. If you have a low or dead battery you wont have the power for other appliances you need to run. If you have solar running into your battery, all your calculations will be way different and this experiment will be pretty much useless. I'm just not sure what you are trying to accomplish here other than just playing with the battery?
Suppose you're at the beach and needed to make some ice and all you have is a 100Ah battery, an inverter and a countertop ice maker... it's just for fun.
@@MikeGentry you bring a solar generator with you? I dont know many people who would bring a battery to the beach LOL
It was basically to show what you can get with 12v 100ah. Now you can calculate your own devices with these numbers. I also did want to play with the battery.... :-)
@@mannyfragoza9652 You never know, I have a battery on my Kayak.... now because of this video I basically have a floating, fishing ice machine. lol
@@OffGridBasement its fun to play with batteries until you reverse polarity 💹