Product review (5 stars): THREE YEARS OF CONTINUOUS SERVICE - Highly Recommended!
NOTE: I actually purchased the Sunpentown IM-101S, but it is the identical machine inside.

PLEASE DO NOT LET OTHER POOR REVIEWS TURN YOU AWAY FROM AN EXELLENT MACHINE!

I purchased my IM-101S Sunpentown Ice Maker through Amazon on August 26, 2011. I wonder why several people have reported machines with marginal reliability and broken parts after only a few months? Hard water? Maybe that's the key, I use soft water. It's easier on the parts. :)

But seriously, I have had the Sunpentown IM-101S for just over THREE YEARS now. During that time it has not just sat around doing nothing. We have a family of five who use it 24/7. Our ice maker is never unplugged and never turned off. I originally bought it to fill in when the ice maker in our refrigerator broke. Although I knew I'd fix that one eventually, I wanted a spare ice maker since our family hates being without ice. After repairing the ice maker in our refrigerator, we decided to make THAT ice maker the backup for the Sunpentown. There are two reasons for that: ONE, the Sunpentown makes more ice than the refrigerator ice maker. TWO, the refrigerator ice maker can be turned off for long periods of time without getting dusty or smelling funny.

The ice maker in the refrigerator only gets turned on once-in-a-while when we have company or when it's a really hot summer and we need extra ice. Other than that, the Sunpentown is our ice maker of choice.

FINALLY - Just last week (October 5, 2014), after THREE YEARS of use, there was a failure. Yes folks, the machine broke. But this is a story with a good ending! The failure was easy to diagnose, easy to fix and very inexpensive. What failed? The plastic rotator pin on one end of the water tray that goes into the motor broke off. That meant the water tray would not rotate. The digital screen gave an error message saying that the "ICE SHOVEL CANNOT ROTATE". Although an accurate statement, it's not really the problem. The shovel is just the floppy plastic scraper attached to the front of the water tray. The reason the shovel cannot rotate is because THE WATER TRAY CANNOT ROTATE. Therefore, the part to order when you get this error is the WATER TRAY, not the ice shovel. Sunpentown sells the water tray for only $20 plus shipping (and tax if you are in California). I ordered two just to have a spare.  They arrived just three days after I placed the order.

Here is the website for the Ice Maker parts:
http://www.sunpentown.com/paacforicema.html

Here are instructions for replacing the water tray complete with step-by-step pictures:
http://site.sunpentown.com/IM-100.101_watertray.pdf

Using those instructions, it took just a Phillips screwdriver and 15 minutes to disassemble the machine. While I had it apart, I took the opportunity to clean the dust bunnies out and look over the inner workings of the machine. I am an aerospace manufacturing engineer, so I understand machines. Except for the plastic water tray, this is a pretty robust machine. Like a refrigerator, the cooling system should last for many long years. Keep in mind that even very expensive refrigerators use generic plastic ice makers that tend to need repair or replacement every two or three years. That puts this Sunpentown ice maker right on part with your expensive refrigerator.

I reassembled my Sunpentown IM-101S ice maker in about 20 minutes (I took time to Loctite some of the sheet metal screws because they are pretty loose). My ice maker is now back up and running just fine and once again has become our main ice maker. I turned off the refrigerator ice maker to save for future emergencies.