You should also consider an ice maker. Walmart has one on sale right now for $58.


My cabin is off-grid and before I got my fridge/freezer (that I burned up by leaving it on and the door open for…. A month…..) we always had to tote food and drinks up in a cooler with ice. Now we are stuck doing that again until I get the fridge repaired…. Just before my house fire in 2022, we bought a small ice maker to take up there so that we would have cold drinks sooner than the 8 hours or so it would take for the DC fridge to get down to temperature-it proved to be a godsend in the hot summer as we would get up to the cabin and find ourselves without a way to enjoy a cool beverage until the next day. The ice maker fixed that.

My wife caught an ad for Walmart this week, so we marched off and picked one up-it appears to be the same unit we had before with different labeling. In a nutshell, you just keep it full of water and it will keep pumping out ice “cubes”. The cubes are kinda like thimbles in order to pop our of their cavities, but the machine is fairly efficient and runs well enough that you could easily keep a cooler full of ice if you were suffering a disaster like a hurricane.

So, both practical and a luxury when ‘roughing’ it. Takes about 9 minutes to have enough ice for two drinks.

been wanting one of those.  it and the induction cook top are prob 2 months out on my project list for the off grid cabin.   tbh i mostly just drink water and room temp is fine for me, occasionally with some flavor in it.  so it wouldn't be a "survival" "prep", but...  i'm rather fond of an occasional old fashioned.   so i don't need ice enough that i would take up a lot of freezer space.  if i can make a few cubes of ice in 10 min, that would be ideal.  i hate the smell of ice that's been stored a while too.

Thanks OP!

Any readings on kw/hr??

I did see a Frigidaire Model for $59.00 that had a 4.6 after over 3,000 reviews. I'd trust that model.

Ours works good, just remember to drain and clean it.

I have bought a couple of counter top icemakers for my work.  I would suggest one of the best practices is to filter the water before putting it into the icemaker.  It helps keep the freezer area cleaner longer.  This is what i have used that works very well, comes apart for cleaning and filters a large amount fairly fast.





This is the unit we have now that seems to be more $$ but better ice than the nugget type.

I have 2x counter top ice makers and ice cube trays. I am set up to run them with my inverter generator but not solar yet.

At least the first week of the end of days will have cold drinks here.

I can’t remember a time when I required ice, but many times refrigeration on the go have been handy. I picked one of these on kickstarter for less than the sale is now. Many companies make them, but few with the internal removable battery. Takes passive solar and with a tiny foldable 100w panel I’ve kept this thing going for over a week uninterrupted. Also takes ac, cig plug, or add it to a solar generator which I routinely keep around for such things.

This works great for a day at the beach with family, save money on road trips (no McDonald’s), camping, overlanding, cabin, you name it. Another company, I think ecoflow or Bluetooth makes one with an ice maker also. I got this bigger one so I could use half as a freezer and the other for a fridge, but generally both are used as a fridge. It’s wisper quite, sips power and I’m not wasting half the capacity with the formwntioned ice. Ymmmv. Sorry not sorry for the hijack.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/anker-everfrost-dual-zone-portable-cooler-50-wtih-299-wh-plug-in-batterynewrefrigerator-freezerpowered-by-ac-dc-or-solar-gray/6569335.p?skuId=6569335

Not as bad as I thought-it pulls 95W at 110VAC, so figure 12-13A at 12VDC.

That removable battery would be a BIG plus for me-I’m pretty suspicious of proprietary batteries built into devices, essentially making them throwaway when the battery shits the bed. Any idea what the voltage is?

How fast does that get down to temperature once turned on and loaded up? For someone that doesn’t have something like this, a couple of folding solar panels and a decent MPPT charge controller (or does it have one built in?) could be a pretty awesome capability.

12v, xt60 adapter plugs right in. That’s the only adapter it didn’t come with. Takes like 15-30 min plugged into the wall to get to freezer temps. If your doin it on the battery it does hurt a bit.

Our fridges built in ice maker bit the dust a couple years ago.  We have been using a tabletop ice maker that we got as a gift since and while its fine for "drink" ice it's not very efficient cooler ice.  I have even tried loading up bags and putting them in the chest freezer to really freeze them then use in the cooler.  Melts quick.

I run it on the weekends and fill up our freezers ice dispenser bin for drinks.  

If I need a few scoops of ice in a smaller cooler for an afternoon I will use it, but if I need to fill a cooler with ice for camping, I just go buy a bag at the gas station.

The one we have is a newair and makes small, medium or large hollow cubes.

All my power banks are smaller and probably wouldn't power it very long.  A smaller unit would probably be better for off grid use.

The battery the Anker comes with is only 299 wh and will run the large fridge for over a day easily without any inputs.

I have two no name brand 155wh I got on amazon.

150w max on the 42000mAH battery.  

I got them to supplement my numerous battery banks if I need to use my portable panels.  

They can charge a laptop or run my internet & wifi router during a quick outage.  If its anything lengthy I have to break out the gas 240V because I am on a well.

I have other batteries and standalone inverters should it come to that but most of my self-contained banks and solar stuff is small/ portable.  Nice freshwater creek is only a couple hundred feet from my house so not reliant long term on gas 240V.

GE Opal runs about 300 watts.  We have one, got on sale, and it runs great, makes ice pretty fast.  24 lbs a day per the specs, but it will hold about 3 lbs before you have to empty.  We use it a lot.  I could see hooking it up to solar and battery if you needed to have ice.

Mosquito Coast?

Ran my little ice maker this weekend, no issues and no big drain on the battery bank-in fact, it ran yesterday for a few hours on solar alone because the batteries were full and stayed that way while it ran.

Friday night it supported 3 adults while I had company amd Sunday it was two all day. Until I ran it out of water and just didn’t need any more ice.