Ice maker

An icemaker, ice generator, or ice machine may refer to either a consumer device for making ice, found inside a home freezer; a stand-alone appliance for making ice, or an industrial machine for making ice on a large scale. The term "ice machine" usually refers to the stand-alone appliance.

The ice generator is the part of the ice machine that actually produces the ice. This would include the evaporator and any associated drives/controls/subframe that are directly involved with making and ejecting the ice into storage. When most people refer to an ice generator, they mean this ice-making subsystem alone, minus refrigeration.

An ice machine, however, particularly if described as 'packaged', would typically be a complete machine including refrigeration, controls, and dispenser, requiring only connection to power and water supplies.

The term icemaker is more ambiguous, with some manufacturers describing their packaged ice machine as an icemaker, while others describe their generators in this way.

In 1748, the first known artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow.

In 1844, an American physician, John Gorrie, built a refrigerator based on Oliver Evans' design to make ice to cool the air for his yellow fever patients.

In 1851, John Gorrie was awarded US Patent 8080 for an ice machine.

In 1853, Alexander Twining was awarded US Patent 10221 for an icemaker. In 1855, James Harrison received a similar patent for an icemaker in Australia.

In 1867, Andrew Muhl built an ice-making machine in San Antonio, Texas, to help service the expanding beef industry before moving it to Waco in 1871. In 1873, the patent for this machine was contracted by the Columbus Iron Works, which produced the world's first commercial icemakers. William Riley Brown served as its president and George Jasper Golden served as its superintendent. In 1902, the Teague family of Montgomery purchased control of the firm. Their last advertisement in Ice and Refrigeration appeared in March 1904. In 1925, controlling interest in the Columbus Iron Works passed from the Teague family to W.C. Bradely of W.C. Bradley, Co.

All refrigeration equipments are made of four key components; the evaporator, the condenser, the compressor and the throttle valve. Ice machines all work the same way. The function of compressor is to compress low-pressure refrigerant vapor to high-pressure vapor, and deliver it to the condenser. Here, the high-pressure vapor is condensed into high-pressure liquid, and drained out through the throttle valve to become low-pressure liquid. At this point, the liquid is conducted to the evaporator, where heat exchanging occurs, and ice is created. This is one complete refrigeration cycle.

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