OT: Friends! Please Help Me!

[Your_Friend!]

I Am Having Serious Troubles

With Making Good Ice Cubes!

They Are Far Too Brittle!

And Explode Like Glass

When I Try To Remove Them!

Not Good Cubes For Cool Drinks!

It Makes Me Sad!

That I Cannot Make Good

Ice Cubes!


Love,
Your_Friend!

[ti_boi]

Your water does not have enough petrochemicals in it, come to NJ, here you;ll find water do thick with the goodness of chemical runoff that ice cubes bounce on tile floors like super balls. :rolleyes:

[Your_Friend!]

Your water does not have enough petrochemicals in it, come to NJ, here you;ll find water do thick with the goodness of chemical runoff that ice cubes bounce on tile floors like super balls. :rolleyes:

ti_boi!


Could It Be That It

Is It Because I Use

A Water Filter?!


Love,
Your_Friend!

[csm]

could the temp of the freezer be too high?

[spincoast]

Sorry Friend but some people can do it and some people can't, its just one of those things. You will need to by a new fridge with an ice maker, sorry.

[1centaur]

I am guessing the temperature in the freezer is too high or too low (too low would be my better guess) because only the speed to freezing could make ice unusually brittle.

When we used to have those metal ice trays with the device/lever to break them into cubes sometimes they would be too brittle. Rarely experienced that after changing to the plastic trays that you twist to dislodge the cubes.

Perhaps leaving the tray out for ten minutes before extracting cubes (if that's what we're talking about) would help too.

[cadence231]

ti_boi!


Could It Be That It

Is It Because I Use

A Water Filter?!


Love,
Your_Friend!

I knew a guy that had a ice factory here in town and he said they had to filter the water before making the cubes! In fact he said they had to filter the water because the ice machines' reliability counted on it!

[mike p]

Butter up your ice cube trays before adding water. They'll pop right out.

Mike

[spincoast]

The tensile strength of ice is 1MPa, compressive strength 6MPa and fracture toughness as 0.12MPam1/2. However you should appreciate that these properties will vary from one piece of ice to another depending upon its microstructure. This will depend itself upon how it was frozen, storage conditions and possibly water purity.

As ice is a brittle solid at the strain rates you are likely to be using, you could treat this as a brittle fracture problem. Under the imposed load from the cutter the ice should fracture due to tensile stresses generated by the load (even though the input load is compressive). The actual fracture mode and hence the load will be sensitive to the cutter geometry (thickness and tip angle) and the microstructure of the ice.

In practice it seems likely that the cutter would indent the cube then act as a wedge to fail the cube in tension by fast fracture. Actually calculating the cutter load to fracture the ice gets a bit complex as you need to know quite a few details of contact geometry and make assumptions about ice cube flatness.

[rasterdogs]

You can more fully understand your predicament with this tool (http://www.nenastran.com/) .

-JimD

[eddief]

they come in a long beam-shaped bottle, you know with a rectangular cross section. each compartment has a small, thin plastic separator to keep the unfrozen cube water from merging with the adjacent section.

buy as water at the store, place in freezer, let freeze, take out of freezer, remove cap, and dump out 10 perfect cubes every time. don't eat the plastic separators.

[Fixed]

my friend this may help add a little gin before freezin
cheers :beer:

[Your_Friend!]

could the temp of the freezer be too high?


csm!


Do You Mean _Too_ Cold?!


Love,
Your_Friend!

[Steve Hampsten]

And how are you with the whole water-boiling thing?

We're here for you, Friend!

[Your_Friend!]

And how are you with the whole water-boiling thing?

We're here for you, Friend!



Thank You Steve!


I Am Quite Good

At Boiling The Water!

Over A Campfire!

Or At Home!

Love,
Your_Friend!

[Ahneida Ride]

You can more fully understand your predicament with this tool (http://www.nenastran.com/) .

-JimD


My Friend ......

It's far more fun to design and program your own finite element code! :D

First go on Double Secret Probation ..... Gives ya plenty of time.

Yea Right ...... :rolleyes:

Your Friend

[stevep]

ice, funny subject
in the 1800s ice was the biggest export from the us to china. it was the foundation of the china trade.
the sea captains here brought ice insulated with sawdust to china in exchange for spices and chinese porcelin, etc.

they got ice, we got spice and porcelin.

hmmm.

[e-RICHIE]

ice, funny subject
in the 1800s ice was the biggest export from the us to china. it was the foundation of the china trade.
the sea captains here brought ice insulated with sawdust to china in exchange for spices and chinese porcelin, etc.

they got ice, we got spice and porcelin.

hmmm.
how do you remember so much atmo?

[pdxmech13]

Your Friend

Try boiling the water in the Microwave.

This can save precious time !

[stevep]

how do you remember so much atmo?

atmo,
i dropped the ice off at yr house a couple of days ago.
wheres my frame?

[Your_Friend!]

Friends!


Now I Am _So_ Confused!

I Made My Freezer Warmer!

So As To Get Ice Cubes

With Greater Integrity!

And When They Froze!

They Had Stalagmites!

One Was Over _Two_ Centimeters!

All I Want Are Normal Ice Cubes!



Love,
Your_Friend!

[1centaur]

If your ice tray is growing stalagmites, that's not water in there. Be afraid, be very afraid.

[gt6267a]

i am guessing it works like steel. if you heat up a steel blade very hot the molecules flow and get directional. Drop it in water and you freeze the molecules leaving a hard and brittle piece of metal. let it cool over time and it will be stronger, able to handle flexing better, but much less hard.

using that thinking ...

the unfiltered water will have little bits and pieces that will be the nucleus for crystals. lots of particles will be mean lots of crystals. the water freezes slowly. as long as we are not talking about seriously crappy water, this means there will be a lot of strength in the tension of the crystals. like with the slowly cooled steel.

the filtered water has few if any particules to form a nucleus. it is very likely the water will even supercool. when a crystal finally forms, the rest of the water is more likely to 'snap' freeze which results in crystals with shear edges. the ice will be very brittle and break with flat surfaces.

i say take out the water filter. your cubes will be less brittle.

i have no evidence to back this up. i stayed at a holiday inn last night and pulled this out of my @#$.

[Karin Kirk]

Hello My_Friend,

You may also try filling your ice cube trays with warm water. Warm water will have less dissolved oxygen than cold water and will result in less of those tiny air bubbles in the ice. This may make them stronger.

Have you tried different ice cube trays?

Good luck!

[link]

Icehole - someone who takes the last cube and puts the tray back in the freezer empty.

Friend - someone you know really, really well - and you like them anyway.

sorry 'bout the brittle ice. kinda like shaved ice? some like it like that.

[shinomaster]

ice, funny subject
in the 1800s ice was the biggest export from the us to china. it was the foundation of the china trade.
the sea captains here brought ice insulated with sawdust to china in exchange for spices and chinese porcelin, etc.

they got ice, we got spice and porcelin.

hmmm.


Wow stevep...you ARE old. Were you shanghaied from Portland?
Hey friend, cut the water with some Greygoose.

[davids]

ice, funny subject
in the 1800s ice was the biggest export from the us to china. it was the foundation of the china trade.
the sea captains here brought ice insulated with sawdust to china in exchange for spices and chinese porcelin, etc.

they got ice, we got spice and porcelin.

hmmm.
That was funny! Thanks for the laugh.

[Fixed]

bro get on bike take bucket
ride fast to the top of mountain
fill with ice ride down really fast
put bucket in ice box
enjoy cheers i 'm no expert cos :beer: doesn't need ice

[Michael Maddox]

Do you, friend, HAVE to write like Dr. Bronner?

[Fixed]

bro he made really good soap good for lots of things ...imho
cheers

[dancinkozmo]

Hey Friend !

Stop messing around with ice cubes!

drink your scotch out of the bottle!

like the rest of us!

[Archibald]

I'm so cool I piss ice cubes. Wanna' try some?

[Karin Kirk]

Oh no! I thought those were frozen lemonade...

[dirtdigger88]

Actually removing calcium and magnesium from the water has little effect on the quality of ice prepared in the home. Here again, the reason is that softening the water does not reduce the total mineral concentration. To the extent that a softener removes sediment iron and manganese, for example, from water, this would help to produce at least cleaner ice. Filters, of course, can be helpful in removing iron, turbidity, tastes and odors from water used for ice making. De-mineralized water such as from reverse osmosis, distillation, or deionization is most ideal for ice making for all types. The use of polyphosphates is an economical method of treating water used in typical restaurant ice making units. The polyphosphates keep the minerals in the water dispersed and, in this way, minimize the cloudy appearance of ice cubes.

If fed in proper concentrations, polyphosphates also control scale formations and corrosion in the ice cube machine. Approximately 5 ppm are recommended for scale prevention and 10 ppm for both scale prevention and corrosion control.

Note: Total minerals must be below 10 grains per gallon for first quality ice. Large commercial ice producers have found that water containing more than 20 gpg of minerals causes difficulties in the freezing process. Further, water with such a mineral content may make a brittle ice of poor quality. Large commercial ice plants use such processes as osmosis, lime softening, alkalinity reduction, filtration and/or deaeration to produce the high quality of water needed for quickly freezing quality ice with a minimum of labor and expense. Reverse osmosis filter units are available in sizes small enough to be used in restaurants, homes, and other small installations, but the other processes are too large for these applications.

http://www.wrintl.com/faqs.asp

Jason

[chuckroast]

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=57773-46-ECKMF94&lpage=none


Friend!

Perfect Ice Every Time!

It's only $55!

Less than new tires!

[Your_Friend!]

Actually removing calcium and magnesium from the water has little effect on the quality of ice prepared in the home. Here again, the reason is that softening the water does not reduce the total mineral concentration. To the extent that a softener removes sediment iron and manganese, for example, from water, this would help to produce at least cleaner ice. Filters, of course, can be helpful in removing iron, turbidity, tastes and odors from water used for ice making. De-mineralized water such as from reverse osmosis, distillation, or deionization is most ideal for ice making for all types. The use of polyphosphates is an economical method of treating water used in typical restaurant ice making units. The polyphosphates keep the minerals in the water dispersed and, in this way, minimize the cloudy appearance of ice cubes.

If fed in proper concentrations, polyphosphates also control scale formations and corrosion in the ice cube machine. Approximately 5 ppm are recommended for scale prevention and 10 ppm for both scale prevention and corrosion control.

Note: Total minerals must be below 10 grains per gallon for first quality ice. Large commercial ice producers have found that water containing more than 20 gpg of minerals causes difficulties in the freezing process. Further, water with such a mineral content may make a brittle ice of poor quality. Large commercial ice plants use such processes as osmosis, lime softening, alkalinity reduction, filtration and/or deaeration to produce the high quality of water needed for quickly freezing quality ice with a minimum of labor and expense. Reverse osmosis filter units are available in sizes small enough to be used in restaurants, homes, and other small installations, but the other processes are too large for these applications.

http://www.wrintl.com/faqs.asp

Jason



Dirtdigger!

Thank You For Your Response!

Now I Will Try To Figure Out

What You Wrote!

I Think That Must Be

The Right Track!


Love,
Your_Friend!

[Your_Friend!]

Friends!

Thank You For All

Of Your Help!

My Ice Cubes

Are _Much_ Better Now!

They Do Not Explode

And They Are Of The Finest Quality!

I Did Follow The Suggestion To

Make My Freezer _Warmer_!

I Am _So_ Happy Now!

Thank You All So Much!



Love,
Your_Friend!