Ice blasting machine with dual-mode operation for water ice and dry ice

An ice blasting machine comprising:

• a hatch through which water ice or dry ice is loaded into a single hopper of the ice blasting machine;
• a crusher for crushing the water ice;
• a crusher-activation mechanism to activate or deactivate the crusher to crush the water ice when the ice blasting machine is blasting only the water ice, wherein the crusher is activated to operate when the ice blasting machine is blasting only the water ice particles and wherein the crusher is deactivated when the ice blasting machine is blasting only the dry ice such that the dry ice is not crushed by the crusher;
• an air pump or compressed air tank for producing a high-speed stream of pressurized air;
• an outlet hose for outputting the water ice or the dry ice that has been entrained into the high-speed stream of pressurized air from the air pump or the compressed air tank;
• and
• a switch to switch between blasting only the water ice and blasting only the dry ice, wherein the switch causes the crusher-activation mechanism to activate or deactivate the crusher.