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dasherboard22 karma

Hi Max, ice tech here. What's the most common pet peeve for you when it comes to the ice/arena? How often does the ice condition meet your standards?

dasherboard5 karma

Thanks for speaking up in this thread! Great explanation. Just one thing, hot water can freeze faster than cold water. It's called the Mpemba effect, but no one can come to a consensus as to why it occurs.

Source: Also a Zamboni driver.

dasherboard3 karma

Zamboni company says that max speed is 9 mph/14.5kph. This doesn't really matter because a speedometer would be a useless gauge.

dasherboard2 karma

Which model?

dasherboard2 karma

Large, open space arenas will tend to use propane models. This has several advantages such as eliminating down time for charging and also sharing tanks with other machines such as forklifts.

The biggest factor driving the purchase of electric machines is air quality. After a number of incidents at rinks where customers were poisoned by the byproducts of the internal combustion engines, air quality became a major concern. In states where strict rink air quality laws exist such as Massachusetts, nearly every rink operates the Zamboni 552, an electric model.

Many rinks still use internal combustion engines and should be performing air quality checks to keep the rinks safe. Replacing these machines is a huge capital cost, so dropping six figures on a new electric machine may not be feasible for some rinks.