Product review (5 stars): Heed the advice of others who've succeeded with repairs
Nov 2009: bought the red Nostalgia ice maker similar to this one, despite some negative reviews on Amazon. Result: beautiful ice, reliably, for 2 months! Then it stopped working. Maybe I should have bought a warranty, but who can schlepp 50 pounds to the UPS, let alone resurrect a box to fit.
Jan 2010: nostalgic for the Nostalgia (and still unwilling to haul more bags of ice from the store), I bought this lovely red machine. All who come to visit say, first, "What is it?" and then, with either envy or incomprehension that anyone could want a constant supply of ice, "It's very attractive!"
Aug 2010: Attractive is as attractive does. Who needs an attractive red box that does absolutely nothing taking up kitchen counter space? That's right: the second machine just stopped working too, all by itself. Granted its 7-month record beat the other by almost half a year. Small comfort.
Aug 5: I'm gonna buy a third ice machine of some similar kind. They're easy to set up, use very little energy, offer ice all the time as long as you keep the water reservoir filled, and comfort you in the night with the small sound of ice cubes dropping into the plastic basket. There will be ice tomorrow, you say to yourself and turn over and drop off to sleep.
Aug 7 (2 days later): before replacing this red box, I read as many Amazon buyers' reviews of ice machines as I could find that had been consistently in use for 12 months or more. It paid off. Since these ice machines seem given to easily breaking down, I found half a dozen folks here who'd been brave enough to fix theirs and to say how. Rather than lay out another couple hundred bucks, I took their advice: from one owner's experience, I emptied the water chamber and filled it again with tap water (not distilled or spring as I'd been using), and from another's, I did the silly thing of pounding on the machine's sides with the flat of my hand. (Another had cleaned out a small filter he'd taken from inside the machine's guts, but I didn't want to disassemble mine.) Lo, the tap water and hand-pounding worked. As I walked out of the room, within 2 minutes I heard ice being made again. Ran back and sure enough: beautiful ice! The machine's been working fine again ever since (another half week later now). As I say, pay attention to what experienced owners say!