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   1.E-12C (picofarad@noagendasocial.com)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 03:42:18 JST 1.E-12C

   Are there any <$1000 nugget ice machines that don't suck? I had *two* Taotronics machines die in the exact same way - something binds in the chamber with the auger and the augur pushes the top of the chamber off and up, which causes all of the water in the chamber to leak out and breaks it forever.

   I *absolutely refuse* to buy any General Electric product, so afaik that eliminates the two main entries in this price range.

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     iced depresso (icedquinn@blob.cat)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 03:42:17 JST iced depresso

     in reply to
     @picofarad so thats what those are called
     not sure who made ours thouh
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     iced depresso (icedquinn@blob.cat)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 03:50:15 JST iced depresso

     in reply to
     @picofarad couldn't say. we use distilled and its only a month or two old, so.
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     1.E-12C (picofarad@noagendasocial.com)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 03:50:16 JST 1.E-12C

     in reply to

     • iced depresso

     @icedquinn Sonic Drive-In sells 8lb bags for $2.69, so in the interim if my partner *gotta* have it, i can get it there.

     and as i mentioned the only two companies that made them at all were GE and taotronics, (knockoffs etc have the same buttons/connections/etc). From what i can see the Taotronics are top access and there's a basket that holds the ice, and the GE ones are like a drawer, but i am not 100% on that.

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     iced depresso (icedquinn@blob.cat)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 03:57:10 JST iced depresso

     in reply to
     @picofarad eh RO should be fine. going to be in the same rough level of purity as distilled
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     1.E-12C (picofarad@noagendasocial.com)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 03:57:11 JST 1.E-12C

     in reply to

     • iced depresso

     @icedquinn yeah they recommend distilled water for the ones i had, but i was using RO water at <20ppm for nearly the entire time and just cleaning it with the bottles of citric acid cleaner. I did buy a distiller in the hopes it would last longer than ~12 months, but was only using distilled for 3 months.

     You can get sachets of citric acid on amazon, or bottles of cleaner at home depot or the like. Highly recommend you run that stuff through at least every quarter, based on my excperience!

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     iced depresso (icedquinn@blob.cat)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 04:01:37 JST iced depresso

     in reply to
     @picofarad industrial grade probably made from high quality metals and professionally serviced couple times a year
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     1.E-12C (picofarad@noagendasocial.com)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 04:01:38 JST 1.E-12C

     in reply to

     • iced depresso

     @icedquinn the first time i ran that citric acid through my machine it only had a few floaty white things in the output, but i got the bright idea to blow into the outlet tube like a child making milk bubbles and what came out can only be described as a calcium slurry. I guess they're just that sensitive.

     But this has to be "solved" for the commercial machines because i sincerely doubt every Sonic has an on-site distiller. Probably the cheap ones have aluminum chambers or something

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     iced depresso (icedquinn@blob.cat)'s status on Sunday, 28-Jan-2024 04:02:33 JST iced depresso

     in reply to

     • iced depresso
     @picofarad the reason china is cheap is suppressed wages and playing fast and loose with QC on materials.
     
     thats why sometimes their shit works great for years and other times it burns the house down. they don't really bother to check tolerances.