Well, I have used it a couple of times now and yes, it works.
That said, it takes quite a long time to be at a temperature around 800 degrees and even at that temperature it is not able to really melt aluminium. 900-950 seems to be the temperature needed to be set on the machine and that takes almost 2 hours. And so, there is no second batch to be done in the max. 3 hours of the machine to be on. So, that is a bit minimal it seems.
I guess with better insulation it would get on temperature faster?
Before using it, I preaheated the crusible well and long, slowly in steps but even that, after 3 poors, it broke. I bought a new crusable and hope to get more out of it.
Not reallly easy to remove the old one by the way, needed to remove many screws and carefully take it out.
How many poors can the machine itself make? Still have to find out.