Homemade ice maker! SAVE thousands over a commercial ice maker 

I'm a commercial refrigeration mechanic, I don't know how it popped up on my you tube feed, but I think this is really clever. Well done.

I’m a refrigeration tech, and it seems you got everything right, just be sure to seal up around were your wires and tube meet the gasket or it frost up around the top edge if there are any air leaks. Otherwise I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Seems like a great idea.

I was just talking to some guys at work about buying a ice maker. This may be the one time I’m happy that the phone listens to conversations….. great video!

Industry standard on lamp cord is the ridged wire is the neutral and the smooth wire is the hot. You could’ve used a flat 4 wire instead of the lamp cord but this is a great video you did and I’m going to do this because I’m tired of paying over $5 a day for ice at the store.

I'm an actual Ice Machine Technician. I'm a representative of all 5 major commercial ice machine manufacturers. Manitowoc, Iceomatic, Scotsman, Hoshizaki and Ice Tro. Been doing ice machines for a long time.......all I can say is Bravo!! Commercial ice machine quality has declined. They're are expensive to maintain, and getting more expensive every year. So kudos to you for figuring this out! Pure genius.

I remember when I was a kid my mom used to fill 1 gallon milk jugs with water and freeze them prior to our big fishing trip. We used them in portable coolers to keep the fish fresh until we got home.

just so you know..... on a lamp cord or appliance cord that has those ridges... the ridges is the neutral(white), and the smooth is the black(hot). If you hook a lamp up the opposite way then you increase, by a lot, the chances of getting shocked because the outer part of the socket(the part that a bulb screws into) becomes the hot and it is very likely that you will touch it while trying to screw the bulb in.

Not only was it educational and fun to watch…. I’m planning to move next door ! Love this workshop

I’d mount the I/M on the left side and have a tall plastic trash can or similar directly under it. The ice would fall directly into the can. This would allow you to use the rest of the freezer for freezing food room without it coming in contact with the ice. The only concern might be getting a good seal where the water line enters, this would cause the fill tube to freeze and frost to form. Mullion heaters are often used to prevent water lines from freezing. Great video. I have nothing but respect for anyone who has an idea and goes for it. The world needs more do-ers. Kudos to you!

Hey I had a similar idea a long time ago but never had a need to put it in motion but to see you placing both of our ideals in motion was very satisfying and I was excited to see you come up with the ideal of a second ice maker because I was saying to myself that you should do that... and you did ...good job

Back in my boating days I thought about doing this, but I never did. Now that I'm older and my boating days are behind me, I don't have a need any longer. Still, I regret not doing it. Nice job!

Nice job. I like the way you avoided drilling and installing into the side walls. I installed 2 icemakers into the sidewalls of a freezer (same one from Sams) 5+ years back. Had to be very careful working around those copper refrigeration lines. Worked great until finally one got stuck in the fill cycle and I got a solid block of ice the inside dimensions of the freezer. No worries, cleaned it all out and reinstalled 1 maker this time. All still going good.

when heating up and bending plastic tubes or even pvc, you can fill the piece with sand then bend and it helps keep tube or pipe from kinking. great job on the project

The convenience factor alone, including just using ice for back yard use is huge. Nice work.

Well done! I appreciate backyard engineering.

Mans the build was awsome. What really blew my mind was I never realized I was using ice at different temperatures. My fridge ice does last alot longer than bagged ice. Super educational keep, it up creators.

Thank You so much , iI have been running this idea thru my head for about 2 years now & this video helps me decide to go ahead with the project.

Kick in the freezer with the lid open and look for the condensation to become visible where the freon lines are. It will frost in stripes within minutes usually

Free ice with this one simple trick, ice companies hate him. Thank you RU-vid algorithm

You have to appreciate this guy's intelligence. Good design and thought process.

You did great! Catch the ice in a new plastic trash can then bag it as it gets full. You are right, the commercial ice makers depend on the ice itself to cool the ice bin, however, using the entire freezer as the maker and storage you don't have to worry about a drain constantly dripping water to the outside or a floor drain.

I just used an old side by side fridge, took out all the shelves on the freezer side and put a 5 gallon bucket at the bottom for the ice to fall into

I’m hypnotized by the genius of ingenuity

Excellent idea. Great production. I thought about this years ago. Can’t believe you executed on it so well. Cheers! Whipple

Thank you so very much. I’ve been looking for an affordable ice solution for weeks. Sincerely appreciate your hard work and clever problem solving. Best Wishes!

Fill one gallon jugs with water and line the bottom of the freezer to get the thermal mass and you can use the jugs in your coolers too. Great build!

I've had this exact idea for years, but life happened and never got around to it. Several helpful tips that I didn't think of on the mounting and water routing. Thanks a bunch.

Absolutely badass, love your technique at going at this!

Be careful drilling and/or cutting around the edge where the door seal contacts - most refrigerators and freezers have a loop of tubing that is off the hot side of the compressor to keep this edge warm. This is to keep ice from forming where the seal is and freezing the gasket down to the unit body.

Just thought I'd share an idea. You could also find where the copper tubes are running in the walls if you turned it on and kept the top open and/or put a bucket of water inside then you'd see where the water froze on the wall corresponding with where the copper tubing is

People like you make the world go around!! Bravo to you man!! Much respect+!

This came on my recommendations, I have no idea why but thank you RU-vid. This was a joy to watch from start to finish! Excellent job

Nice! Maybe throw a couple bags of store bought ice to prime her up/down to temp.

Was so glad to hear that you were already aware that the freon lines were run in the walls of the freezer! I'm sure more than one person has ruined a great project by drilling into the side of a planned Kegorator!!! haha Great project Andrew!

I made myself an ice maker following your design, very simple and a single ice maker is enough for what I need, thank you.

I love it when a guy is not afraid to modify new equipment to build a project. You are spot on with your assessment comparing like the Nugget ice commercial ice maker to a home type half moon ice maker. We have both. The only issue with the half moon cube is it has a tendency to melt and fuse together into a big chunk in a ice chest. The commercial Nugget ice has air in it and melts very fast and is not a good choice for ice chests. Good job and thanks for posting!

Great ingenuity! Almost makes me want to try this. I need about 20 lbs. of ice on our camping trips, but we don’t go enough to justify. Thanks for sharing this

A idea I was thinking is measure the hinges where the freezer lid mounts on the back and use some metal to make the lid sit higher. Then get some expandable weather seal and line the top of the freezer and run hoses or wires through seal instead of notching the freezer. If it don’t work. Just remount the lid back and remove the weather seal. Keep your factory warranty 😂

Just came upon your site. I sure enjoyed the video. Been wanting an ice maker. This is awesome. I also enjoyed reading all the comments from others. Lots of smart people with great suggestions! I have nothing but praise and gratitude to offer. I did subscribe and hit the thumbs up.

Love how your tools are so organized! Nice video.

Good work. That type of icemaker is usually 120 volts. They usually wait 24 hours and throw away the first batch of 'cubes'. The needle clamp is usually called a saddle valve, but I like what you called it better. Some people make refrigerators out of those freezers and they are way more efficient and cost less. Usually the only thing stopping the ones who want to try that is their significant other who likes a French-door fridge. :)

Great idea. An old trick I learned from building kegerators and keezers for homebrew... Turn the chest freezer on and let it run a while completely shut. Then get a spray bottle mixed with vodka and cornstarch where it looks like milky water. Spray the outside. You'll see it haze along the lines where the chiller coils are after about 15 minutes because the alcohol will be evaporated by the hot coils and should give you a really good idea where you can drill for lines. I've seen people do it with water on the inside too but this one seems to be a bit more definitive.

I like the idea as DIY project. The cost and simplicity of the design are pluses. Thanks for sharing this video.

My brother! thank you, you have done an excellent job! I can’t wait until the second video. Looking forward to it. God blessed you, and thank you for taking the initiative. 🙏

I worked in the ice business in the 80s they did have a refrigerent called Supercool, that doubled our ice output. If your system can handle it, I’d find a technician that was willing to try it.

The one with ridges is your neutral, power is smooth as per electrical codes.

Ingenious. Fun to watch you work. Smart play to blow through that tube while bending.

Well done sir. Such a great idea and really great video!! I will have to make one soon!

Totally brilliant! You earned my sub just for being that genius! I’ve been looking at countertop ice makers but, like you said, they just continually produce and recycle melting ice!

fill the tube with sand and use a hair dryer to bend the tube works great.

Excellent video! Great Design! That is great bang for the buck!!!

Cool build man!! Once you get that second ice maker it’s going to be a perfect set up

I've done this 5 years ago. It worked well when I had it running, was great for camping trips. Sadly, Last year when I moved, I dismantled the system and put the ice maker in my garage freezer/fridge. So now I have the ice maker in the kitchen and the garage. both of those combined will give me ~10-8 lb of ice in 24 hrs.

Genius!! Your gonna piss off lots of corporate people!!

That is definitely a good use of and a worthy use of thinking inside the box, especially when you need just so much of an increase in production, rather than the increase in production on steroids, meaning an output that would be so high even the population of your city would be over supplied if one were go the route of the commercial size, both in cost and amount produced. I love the video so I subbed, smacked the like button and rang the bell and I look forward to watching your other videos!!!

Genius! Well done video. No BS, just the pertinent info

Nice video! Many freezers have the "extra ice" function. If this selection is available, it basically just sets the freezer temperature to a colder temperature for 24 hours. The rate of ice production is determined by how fast the water, which enters the ice cube mold, gets to a temperature below freezing. Only when the temperature of the ice cube molding tray gets to that temperature, will the ice-maker cycle to the next step in the sequence. The next step is to briefly turn on the electric heater in the mold to melt the edges of the cubes and allow the ejection fingers to sweep through the mold and release the cubes. Most ice makers are placed at the top of the freezer compartment. Since "hot air rises" this is not the most productive environment , but most freezers have a circulation fan which forces the cold evaporator (also called the freezer coil) air to the top of the freezer compartment and across the ice maker. If the incoming temperature of the water was 90° F , it would take 32 calories to take a gram of water to the freezing temperature, but it takes an additional 80 calories to convert that 32° F water to 32° ice. It is this "phase change" of water to ice that requires the most energy. That would mean that it would take a total of 112 calories to convert a gram of 90° water to 32° ice. If the water entering the ice-maker could be prechilled to 32° F then a total of only 80 calories would be needed and would only result in about a 30% increase in production. It would be an interesting experiment to take a circulation fan to pull air from the bottom of the freezer and duct it into the ice maker to see how much this improves production.

Pro tip: get a silicone cake pan from the thrift store. Make big blocks of ice to keep your coolers cold longer. Bonus pro tip: keep the ice blocks in a cooler in your freezer. That keeps your ice and cooler ready to go

That is thinking outside the box! I have wanted an icemaker forever. I am going to do this. I think I'll put two in there to keep up with the demand. Thank you Einstein! Thanks for fixing the icemaker problem for me.

You are a kindred spirit! Hell yeah!

You can fill the pvc with sand before heating will let you bend without crimping.... courtesy of Iraqi "plumbing" expert I learned it from.....

This is the sweetest RU-vid project I’ve seen in a long time. Nice job!

That right there deserves a doctorate in southern engineering brother! Whew! Nicely done and thanks for sharing.

Absolutely awesome job my friend! This is one of the very reasons I'm proud to be a country boy.......we know how to improvise, build, repair, and survive. May God continue to bless you and yours Andrew.

To bend pvc or other rigid plastic tubing cap one end, fill your tube with HOT sand (400 degrees heated in the oven) cap the other end, wait a few minutes for the platic to heat up make your bends, and dump the sand

It’s easy to find out where the coils are at. Turn on spray the walls with water in a mist spray bottle. It will show right away where the coils run. Not exactly but it will show where they run. The cable and hose location although not a huge escape of cold air it will affect the efficiency of the freezer a lot. It will run here and possibly ruin it or shorten the life of it. Cut lower into the freezer lip and silicone the are really good. No coils in that area for sure.

Cool idea! You explained the economics really well too, thanks for the vid!

Ok this is a great idea. I am watching your videos in order so can’t wait to see how this project progresses

i just freeze 1 gallon pails of water, that block last 4x as long or put whole cooler in freezer 1/4 full of water and that will last 4 x as long. then you only need a min of ice to go in between

My wife and I fish avidly. We use a LOT of ice. I've been trying to figure out a way to get ice cheaper. Thanks for the video.

THANK YOU!!! this is what I need, but I need it to run only from 11pm to 7am when I only pay 1cent/kwh, but hopefully not melt during the rest of the 16 hours/day. I can use a $5 smartplug with a smartspeaker routine to easily do that.

Love this job! Going to build me one now... Just subscribe to your channel. Love it when people save money and build their own idea that work!!! Thanks for posting. Many blessings to you and your family fishing...

I've been trying to figure out a icemaker for my Landscaping Company for a few years now. Thanks for video. The only alteration I made was to install two of those refrig. ice makers on each side to double up the ice being made since the one doesn't make enough daily. . Thanks again for the Video.

I know you labeled them so you remember. But, the ribbed wire(identified) is the neutral. You just remember that. Looking at the plug(on an extension cord) you'll see the neutral is wider blade and the thinner blade is the hot.

I’m thinking seriously about trying this!

I LOVE THIS! I dont even need one and i want one haha. Going to look for the update video right now. Awesome work

Great idea, my only recommendation is adding foam insulation around and on top of your freezer. That will make a big difference in the energy you use and make your ice that much cheaper. We live off grid and it's a big difference on our batteries with the foam added to our freezer.

Tip. Lamp wire has a stripped side meaning its for neutral and the smooth its hot

Thank you for your great idea. This idea of yours became useful for my family needs. Thank you again.

This video randomly popped up. I've been wanting to add an ice maker to my deep freezer. You're video told me just what I needed to know. Thank you

Fill the unused part of the freezer with something that takes up space and remove some of it as the ice fillies the chest. We bought a huge chest freezer put the styrofoam packing in the freezer chest and it was down to zero in a couple hours. You just add and remove the styrofoam as needed. Great idea.👍

This guy has a WHOLE BOAT in his garage and still has more space than my house🥺

Friend, awesome idea and great video. You earned my subscribe when you made the plastic elbow tube from straight stock. 🙌

Awesome! I watched it all. Thank you. Great job.

Randomly started watching this video because I like the idea of building your own, then ended up looking on marketplace for used Manitowoc ice machines. I thought “no way a twenty year old used ice machine is $2000+” and boy was I wrong. I think if I used that much ice I’d go this route too.

Great video, I just love the idea. The unit in our Fridge/Freezer makes 6 ounces of ice per cycle and it takes about an hour and 35 minutes for each cycle so it cycles about 15 times per day for a total of about 5 pounds 10 ounces of ice per day. There is usually some adjustability of the size of the ice cubes (how high the water fills in the tray) so you may be able to increase the output a bit. Also keep in mind that there is a thermostat inside the ice maker that measures the temperature of the water/ice to determine when the batch of ice is done and ready to cycle. The colder it is inside the freezer, and importantly, the colder the water is, the quicker it will cycle.

This is an awesome way to convert a deep freezer ice maker... Thumbs up

Amazing idea! You nailed it….well done!

To avoid Locate your coils is to simply turn it on and you'll be able to feel where they're at sometimes you can even see the pattern as it forms condensation in the coils pattern

Cool project! Nice job. One idea, I think you could use a thermal imaging camera to identify the coils and drill through the walls of the freezer to have a cleaner build. Camera might show coils better when unit is first turned on, b/c the temp difference of coils vs. walls/sides of freezer.

Absolutely what i need! Thank you for going to the trouble to record and post.

my man!!!! absolutely genius ....i love it!!!

All you had to do was use a high end adhesive to attach to the wall of the cabinet interior and mount the tray. Those plastic water lines are notorious for splitting plus use those puncture tube water connectors is asking for trouble. The idea is great just upgrade the materials used for your own protection from unwanted potential water damage.

That’s a genius idea there man! Can’t wait to see how it does over the next few weeks.

I was watching a video on chisels and the different kinds, how use them and your RU-vid video was at the end along with other project and I have spent the last several hours watching the different stages you have gone through and loved every minute of them and the many comments on them. I am eighty three and have the time and will subscribe so I can see your finished project. As for the comments I think you do a great job of handling them. Keep up the excellent work you are doing and look forward to your next project.

The refrigerant in your “freezemaker” is most likely R-290, which is high grade non-scented liquid propane. When manufacturing they keep the amount of refrigerant charge very low with R-290,so that if there is a catastrophic incident, it is small. Very cool stuff man, great ingenuity!

Wow it's cool how workable aluminum looks with a vise!

Stumbled across this. Nice work!! Love this hack.

This is hella smart and crafty

The wire with the ridges is your common on most any application, the smooth is line..