Frigidaire Compact Ice Maker (EFIC189)

What Frigidaire publishes

105 W, the lowest number on the site

The manual prints a power rating of 105W at 120V/60Hz. At four running hours a day and 18 cents per kWh that is about $2.27 a month — the lowest monthly figure anywhere on this site.

Two comparisons put it in context. Among bullet machines, Igloo's 26 lb model publishes 120 W, about $2.59. Among the clear-cube machines, the Frigidaire EFIC452 publishes 90 to 120 W, and this site uses the top of that range, so the EFIC189 edges it on a single published figure.

The honest caveat is the one this site applies to every bullet machine: low draw is partly the mechanism, not the engineering. A bullet machine freezes cylinders on chilled prongs and has no auger turning inside a refrigerated cylinder, which is where a nugget machine spends its power. Per daily pound, 105 W for a 26.5 lb rating is about 4.0 W, which is respectable rather than remarkable — the Frigidaire EFIC255 manages 4.2 W per daily pound while making nugget ice. The full arithmetic is on the running-cost page.

A table that answers questions most do not

Frigidaire is the most consistent documenter in this category, and this is the cheapest machine that benefits from it.

Two of those rows are unusual enough to name. The water input temperature of 46F to 82F is a figure only Gevi otherwise publishes, and it matters because water that arrives warm has to be chilled before it can freeze. The 23 g refrigerant charge is one of only three charges published in this category, alongside NewAir's 20 g and Gevi's 24 g.

The published 50F to 90F range also puts this machine on the short list for a cool room. It is not as wide as Igloo's 45F floor, but it is documented, which most of this category is not — the whole published field is on what temperature an ice maker needs.

The climate class, and what 9 cubes in 8 minutes implies

Two rows in that table reward a second look.

The climate class of ST/SN/N/T is the appliance-industry shorthand for the ambient conditions a refrigeration product is rated across, and covering all four bands is a broad rating rather than a narrow one. Only Gevi otherwise prints a climate class in this category, and the pair of them are the only makers here treating a countertop ice maker like a refrigeration appliance with a standards-based rating rather than a kitchen gadget.

The cycle figures are worth arithmetic. Nine pieces of ice every 8 minutes is 7.5 cycles an hour, or roughly 67 cycles to reach the stated 12 kg in 24 hours — which means the daily rating assumes the machine runs essentially without pause, with the bin emptied as it fills. That is true of every daily rating in this category and almost never stated; Frigidaire at least gives you the cycle time to work it out. The same reasoning, applied across the category, is on how long these machines take and how much ice you actually need.

What the table leaves out

One omission is significant and it is the same one Frigidaire makes on the EFIC255: there is no ice basket capacity and no reservoir volume. Daily output is almost never the constraint in a household; bin capacity is, and on this machine it is simply not published.

There is also no clearance figure, so assume the 3 to 6 inches the documented machines in this category ask for, and no noise figure, which is normal here — only VEVOR publishes one, as a ceiling with no test method.

R600a, 23 grams

Only three manuals in this category publish a refrigerant charge as well as a type: NewAir's 20 g, Gevi's 24 g and this machine's R600a / 23g. It is a small thing that says something about the document: a charge figure is what a service technician needs and a marketing page never carries.

R600a is isobutane, which is why every manual in this category that uses it carries a flammable-refrigerant warning — and why the one machine here that runs on R134a, Igloo's 26 lb model, carries no such warning. Twenty-three grams is a very small charge, which is normal for a machine this size and is the reason these appliances are treated as household rather than commercial equipment.

One manual, many badges

The document this page is built on covers the EFIC108, EFIC117, EFIC123 and EFIC189-SILVER families together. That is common practice and mostly harmless, but it has a consequence worth stating: the figures above describe a family of compact machines rather than one badge, and Frigidaire compacts are sold in a bewildering number of color and retailer variants.

The buy row on this page points at the EFIC189-SILVER listing we verified on sale new on 27 September 2026, whose title names the model exactly. If you buy a different Frigidaire compact, check its rating plate against the table above.

Bullet ice, and who that suits

This machine makes hollow cylinders in two selectable sizes, not soft chewable pellets. If you came to this site for nugget ice, that is the whole decision — no setting changes the mechanism, and the difference is set out on nugget ice versus bullet ice.

Where bullet ice wins is cost, speed and melt: it is cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, quicker per cycle and it lasts longer in a glass because it is denser with less surface area. For a cooler, a soda or a workshop fridge, that is the better ice. For chewing, it is not.

Who should buy this

• Buy it if you want the cheapest documented machine on this site and you do not care about ice shape. 105 W published, R600a with a charge, and a temperature range.
• Buy it if the machine has to move or store. 17 lbs is the second-lightest body here, after the Silonn SLIM21.
• Buy it if it is going somewhere cool. A published 50F floor beats every GE Opal.
• Skip it if you want nugget ice. Start with the nugget roundup instead.
• Skip it if you need to know the bin size before buying. Frigidaire does not publish one for this machine.
• Skip it if you want the widest documented temperature window — that is Igloo's 26 lb machine at 45F to 90F, for a similar price.