A Scathing Review of the GE Opal 2 Nugget Ice Maker
Buying this was a mistake from the start.
It's a nice machine before you fall down the rabbit hole of maintaining, repairing, and cleaning this machine.
The GE Opal 2 has an average lifespan of about 6 months to 1 year, according to Reddit. (Yes, every single word is a different Reddit post concerning issues with this machine)
Perhaps this lifestpan would be fine for say, a water filter, or any other item that is usually consumable. But, no. This machine is 500 dollars... and it dies after a year.
Sure, sure. I got mine used. Maybe it had issues. So I returned it and got another... Same problem. Amazing.
After a while, these machines start to scream. I haven't exactly narrowed down what causes it yet, but it's awful and it doesn't stop until you unplug it.
There are a few guesses thrown around on Reddit, which some people have luck with. Bad bearings needing replacing, needing to be repacked with grease, etc.
The actual whining starts at about 1 minute. By the end of the clip, really starting at 4:20, the whining turns into a painful grinding noise.
To call this machine a biofilm farm is an understatement.
The manual for the machine calls for sanitizing the machine weekly.
If you use distilled water, you can supposedly do it monthly.
This process is 16 steps, and on a good day might take you half an hour.
However, after disinfecting and descaling the machine, I've found there is still biofilm and calcium deposits in this machine.
Shown below is what the internal water tank looks like. You can see the biofilm and other unidentifiable filth still in there, after I did TWELVE CYCLES with hot bleach.
"Oh maybe you should clean the tank more often"
No. This machine has 2 tanks. the front facing reservoir you can fill from the front. The tank shown here is the internal tank, which to get this image requires removing all of the casing of the machine, removing parts, etc. Not something covered under warranty or something GE would want you to do.
GE clearly knew this was an issue, because some revisions of the machine had a UV light inside the internal tank.
However, this was silently removed for unknown reasons in future revisions. Mine for example, does not have the internal UV light.
Even with weekly cleaning, when the machine is flushed out you will regularly find large chunks of biofilm and other filth. I followed the weekly cleaning guide, but I'm still growing biofilm??? Absolutely vile.
Oh, and the calcium build-up
If you use this machine with tap water, no matter your water's hardness you will end up having issues with calcium build up in the machine.
Again, this is a fairly frequent cleaning you have to do, using proper descaler or vinegar left in the machine overnight. Your mileage will vary.
I can only hope this is calcium build up and not literal bacteria.
again, internal parts, you can't clean them out properly without invasive disassembly.
I genuinely hate this machine, but the ice it makes is pretty good, so I guess I put up with this shit.
I'm gonna keep putting significant effort into fixing this machine to not be awful.
I try to document most my attempts at https://github.com/SomeAspy/GE-Opal-2-fixes/tree/main
