BELLA VIN60009 Hot Air Popcorn Dispenser, Freestanding

Replacement machine working (first one didn't), but it is missing a very helpful piece/tool in the box. =(

Purchased this online at new years and took 10 days to arrive. There was very little information on line about the machine, so I took a chance.First off in the picture the machine looks like it is made of metal of some sort, well it is all plastic. This does help to explain the price. Having said that I still think the machine looks great in my home theatre room, looks wise exactly what I was looking for. Installation of the machine is fairly quick, all you have to do is assemble the base, the top section is pre-built. Now one downside to the machine being plastic, is the base is not strong enough to hold the popper section. The company recognizes this in the instructions and includes a canvas bag with instructions to put 20lbs of sand in the bag and set it in the base. I had to laugh when I read that and then I re-read figuring I had it wrong. In my case I did not use sand, I just placed a 20lbs weight that I was not using and this did the trick.The top section easily attaches to the base with two thumb turn screws. This is great if you want to move the machine around or simply use the popper in another area of the house . I do outdoor movies in summer and thought this was a great feature.On the side of the machine there is a light switch and popper button. When you light it up it looks great, again exactly what I was looking for. The other side had a small compartment. I found the door did not work very well on mine. If I pulled the handle the plastic would bulge on the other side and get caught. So to open the door, I ad to use two hands, one to pull the handle the the other to old the opposite side in to prevent the bulge. Again a bit of a pain, but not the worse thing.Then I proceeded to make first batch of popcorn and that's when things went south. There was nothing special to do in the instructions for first batch and I proceeded as normal. Most of it did not pop (maybe 15 kernels). So I cleaned out the popper, which is a bit of a pain. You can't tilt the machine and have to use this plastic tool to get the unpopped kernels out of the machine. It works but thats the best I can say. My next few batches went better with more kernels popped, but I quickly learned not to fill the measuring cup that came with the machine to the Max line, it appeared to much for the popper to handle. Using less worked better and I got more popped, but still not a tone. Problem was ever time a kernel popped and flew out 7-10 unpopped kernel with it. So it would soon finish and you had maybe one small bucked filled, the popper had few kernels left, but the popcorn area was full of unpopped kernels. Now the true problem with the machine. You have to wait 5 minutes between batches or you will burn out the machine. So to make popcorn for a family of 4 took just over 30 minutes. Way to much effort. I thought about trying other brands of kernels, but the problem was not that they did not pop, but rather the fact so many flew out with every popped kernel. The other problem I found is you place a small included bucket on a shelf at the bottom and opened a trap door to fill. Maybe it was just me, but the kernels came out on each side and all over the floor. So complete mess to clean up. Then after filling one bucket, the popcorn in the machine did not slid down to fill the next bucket. So between each bucket you had to open the top and stick your hand down to move the popcorn to the trap door.So in conclusion I still move the look of the machine, but it just does not function correctly and given the price I can't justify keeping it. Nice try guys, but you need to work on this a bit more.

About 3.5 stars. As everyone pointed out cleaning it is a pain. I had resorted to tipping it to shake the old popcorn out. I had this one for about 2 years. The plastic started cracking about a year ago. The machine still worked but the plastic gave up the ghost. The trick to getting the kernels to all pop was about the oil for me. I had to use quite a bit. I used it 3-4 times a week and almost daily during the lockdown.

I love it.

I got this and loved it at first. Then about 10 uses it stoped working. I would love to fix it but i can not find replacement parts any where. Dont buy it. Take your money and try to feed bums on the street! It would be more satisfying than dealing with this hunk of garbage!

We didn't buy this on Amazon, but you should be aware that not only did the popper only work once, but you can not get a replacement. We tried to get it replaced on our warranty but could never reach anyone at the company. When we did finally reach them (after the warranty was out, they were apathetic and not even a little helpful. We love the candy machine like this, but the popcorn machine is now useless.

Mine went out after about 8 uses. No reason for it at all just quit working. The light come's on but nothing else. What a waste.

only worked for a few months. bad motor