Silonn Countertop Ice Maker (SLIM21)

What Silonn publishes

The budget brand that actually publishes numbers

Three of the budget machines on this site — Euhomy, ecozy and KBice — have manuals with no specification section at all. Every numeric field on those pages reads Not published, and that is a fact about the documentation rather than a gap in our research.

Silonn is the exception, and it is not a close one. Page 11 of its manual prints voltage and frequency, working power, ice-making current, ice-harvesting current, rate, reservoir volume, basket capacity, ice shape, ice size, material, net weight and product size in a single table. That is more fields than GE publishes for the Opal 2.0.

Two of those fields are unusual enough to be worth naming. Separating the ice-making current from the ice-harvesting current tells you the machine draws more during harvest than during freeze, which is true of all of them and printed by almost none of them. And stating the ice shape in the specification table, rather than leaving it to the marketing copy, is exactly the disclosure this category is worst at.

The 160 W figure is a ceiling, and the manual says so

The table prints working power as "<=160W". That less-than-or-equal sign is doing real work: it is a maximum, not a consumption measurement, so it belongs in the same class as GE's nameplate rather than in the same class as Frigidaire's published 185 W.

So this site does not treat it as a published consumption figure. The cost on this page is derived the same way the Opal's is, from volts times amps: 1.5 A at 115 V is 172.5 VA, which at four running hours a day and 18 cents per kWh gives about $3.73 a month as an upper bound. The whole calculation, and how to substitute your own electricity rate, is on the running-cost page.

Worth noting either way: 172.5 VA is less than half the Opal 2.0's 360 VA ceiling. Small machines cost less to run, and this is the smallest one here.

The line on page seven, and why it matters

This is the specification that should change somebody's purchase, and it is not in the specification table. The First Use section says to use the machine in locations between 50F and 90F.

Publishing that at all puts Silonn ahead of almost everyone here. Only one other machine on this site prints an operating range: the first-generation GE Opal, at 55F to 90F. Frigidaire, NewAir and the current Opal manuals we read do not print one, so for those machines there is nothing to check.

What the range says still matters, because this machine is sold for camping and RV use in its own listing title. An unheated garage in January, a screened porch in spring or a camper parked overnight in the mountains sits under 50F, and a refrigeration cycle in a cold room does not simply run slower — low ambient temperature changes the pressures the compressor works against, which is why manufacturers print a range in the first place. If the machine is going somewhere seasonally cold, read this line before the ice rate.

1.32 pounds is the real limit

Rated daily output is close to irrelevant on a countertop ice maker, because basket capacity is what stops you. This machine holds 1.32 lbs (0.6kg) against the 3.0 to 3.3 lbs that every full-size machine here holds.

A tall glass of ice is roughly half a pound. So a full basket on this machine is about two and a half glasses, against six or seven on an Opal or a NewAir. For one person at a desk that is a non-issue, because the machine refills while you drink. For four people making drinks at once it is the whole story. The sizing arithmetic is on how much ice you actually need.

The flip side is genuinely useful: 13.7 lbs and roughly 8.7 by 11.4 by 11.6 inches makes this the only machine covered here that one person moves with one hand, and the manual's own title calls out the carry handle. Nothing else in this category is portable in that sense.

The clean cycle, and what it is not

Silonn documents its cleaning better than either GE or Frigidaire documents theirs. Page 9 says to remove the basket, fill to the MAX line, hold the ON/OFF/CLEAN button for five seconds, run the 30-minute self-cleaning cycle, then drain the excess water over a sink — and it recommends doing that once a week.

Thirty minutes plus a stated weekly interval is more specific than anything GE or Frigidaire commits to for their own machines. It is still a circulation cycle on plain water, which means it rinses the pump and the water lines and does nothing at all to mineral scale. Which machines have a cycle like this, and what each one actually does, is compared on the self-cleaning roundup, and the chemistry is on descaling.

It makes bullet ice, and that is a decision

Most people who arrive at this site are looking for nugget ice. This machine does not make it. Its specification table states the ice shape as Bullet, with a small or large size selected by the SELECT button on the panel.

Bullet ice is water frozen onto chilled metal prongs and released as hard hollow cylinders. It is quick to make, which is why the small machines use the mechanism, and it is hard rather than chewable. If the appeal of a countertop ice maker for you is the soft pellet ice from a drive-through, this is the wrong machine and no setting fixes it. The mechanical difference is set out on nugget ice versus bullet ice.

Setting it up

Two instructions from the First Use section are worth following exactly, because both are commonly skipped and both produce symptoms that look like a fault. Stand the unit upright for 24 hours before switching it on, which lets refrigerant and oil settle after shipping. And discard the first four cycles of ice, on a new machine and again after any long period of disuse.

The panel itself is four indicators and two controls, per page 6 of the manual: a POWER light, an ADD WATER light that turns red when the reservoir is low, an ICE FULL light that turns red when the basket is full, and S and L lights that flash green to show which ice size is selected. The ON/OFF button also carries the clean function on a five-second hold. There is no display and no timer.

What Silonn does not publish

• Refrigerant. Absent from the specification table. Every other documented machine here prints R600a.
• A tested noise figure. Silonn advertises a "35db low-noise design" on its product page with no test standard and no measuring distance, so this site records it as marketing and leaves the noise field reading Not published — the same treatment every other machine here gets.
• Cycle time, as a specification. "9 cubes in 6 minutes" appears in the retail listing title and on Silonn's product page, not in the manual's table. It is a manufacturer claim rather than a published specification, and this page does not treat the two as equivalent.
• Which figure is which dimension. The table prints 8.7 x 11.4 x 11.6 inches without labeling width, depth or height, so the spec sheet above repeats it unlabeled rather than guessing.

Who should buy this

• Buy it if the machine has to move — desk to kitchen, house to camper, or into a cupboard between uses. At 13.7 lbs with a handle, nothing else here competes.
• Buy it if one or two people are drinking the ice. A 1.32 lb basket refills faster than one person empties it.
• Buy it if you want the lowest running-cost ceiling on this site and can live with 26 lbs a day.
• Skip it if you want nugget ice. It makes hard bullet cubes, and the nugget roundup is the page you want instead.
• Skip it if it is going somewhere that drops below 50F. The manual's own operating range rules that out, which is worth weighing against a listing that markets it for camping.
• Skip it if you serve several people at once. Two and a half glasses of basket capacity is the constraint you will hit on day one.