The under cabinet Dometic ice maker has never worked correctly in our 1991 Barth. The timing and electronic gears were badly corroded. We have cleaned everything up, the unit gets cold, it will dump ice, refil and then that is it. Either the timing is off from being cleaned or it doesn't get cold enough after the first batch of ice. Looking for suggestions of what to trouble shoot or what new automatic icemakers are on the market to fit in the same space. It is a Dometic Model DN 1070...as always help and advice are appreciated.

LonnieG,

I had a similar problem with my Dometic ice maker (late 91 model). The gears were also corroded and the fan blade wobbled. I had to take the whole thing apart and clean everything. I found a new fan blade online and replaced it as well. I hade to coax it to run initially, but once it got going, I let it run for a month and just kept dumping the ice. It works great now. Dometic doesn't make icemakers any more and the other units on the market are too tall for the opening in the cabinet for the Dometic. I hope you can get yours working.

Bill G

re: replacement ice maker. We recently bought a Magic Chef ice maker at Home Depot for under two hunnert.

Being curious about its suitability for boondocking, I just did some measuring of a Magic Chef countertop icemaker using a Kill A Watt meter.

Plugged in to 120V in a 67 deg room, in one hour it used 177 watts to make about 1 ½ lbs of ice. I made several baskets, and the results were close each time. On an inverter, more power will probably be used, but due to the short increases in current draw during the dump cycle, it will be harder to get an exact measurement. Maybe I will have to study the manual for my TriMetric. I suspect YRMV, depending on the particular inverter.

It looks like my 165 watts of solar won't quite keep up with it during the sunniest part of the day.

It has a reservoir that holds one gallon, but requires refilling after 3 quarts are used. It makes two trays before shutting down for refilling, taking 3 hrs 40 min or so.

After it has made a basket of ice, it shuts off, and the ice slowly deteriorates, becoming softer and smaller. Unlike a U Line, it does not keep the cubes frozen. So, it is best to plan your ice-making to be around to empty a freshly made full basket into your cooler.

The cubes are not as good as either tray ice or U Line ice, but my wife thinks they might be better than store-bought ice. Certainly handier.

We also have a U Line, but it is larger, and uses too much power for boondocking. However, if 120 volts is available, the U Line is so much better. It makes perfect ice so frozen it rings, and keeps it that way forever, and has a 12 lb basket that takes half a day to fill.