[Lab] Cricut & other cutters (was Re: Lab Digest, Vol 39, Issue 29)

[Darcy Whyte]

What about those cheap machines you find in ebay under vinyl cutter?



--
Darcy Whyte

Art+ inventorArtist.com | Aviation rubber-power.com | Software Since '88
siteware.com | Contact: darcy at siteware.com | 613-563-3634 by appointment |
Canada N 45° 25'03.1" W 75° 42'21.4"




On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Paul & Andrea Mumby <themumbys at gmail.com>wrote:

> Yes the Cricut is VERY vendor locked. A few third parties even released
> software which allowed cutting of generic SVG files on it via it's USB
> interface. And Provocraft (the manufacturer) sued those companies over it.
> Limiting your options to only their cartridges which are rediculously
> expensive.
>
> We had a Cricut for a couple years, and used it with the third party
> software, but once they shut that down we had to look at alternatives. (by
> the way I still have a 24" Cricut that I'll be putting up for sale soon, if
> anyone's interested lol)
>
> My Wife has the Silhouette machine now, and it's quite nice. The software
> for it is free, and works with an online store with a wide selection of
> designs. And also lets you create your own designs with drawing tools, or
> by importing images and "tracing" them and so on. But for an extra $50 you
> can buy the "Pro" software which lets you import generic SVG art from
> hundreds of sources on the net.
>
> Also one nice feature the Silhouette has is "print and cut" which lets you
> print on an inkjet, and it has an optical sensor that lets it detect
> registration marks, and accurately cut out the printed image.
>
> Considering the Silhouette is in the same approximate price as the Cricut,
> I'd say it's far more value for a hobbyist.
>
> (the one we have is the 24" model, and yes it will work with vinyl as well
> as other materials).
>
>
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Andrew Plumb <andrew at plumb.org> wrote:
>
>> On 2013-05-28, at 1:47 PM, John Nicol wrote:
>>
>>  Hi,
>>
>> Have you looked at the Cricut?  http://www.cricut.com/home/
>>
>> This is a hobby machine that cuts stencils and I believe has a large
>> format version as well.  I also saw a machine in a hobby shop in the US
>> that was for fabric stencil creation for screen printing.  Can't remember
>> what it was called, sorry.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>> Maybe it was one of the (older) CraftROBO or (newer) Silhouette machines
>> by Graphtec that you saw?
>>
>> http://www.graphteccorp.com/craftrobo/
>> http://www.silhouetteamerica.com/
>>
>> They tend not to be as vendor locked-in as the Cricut system with its
>> proprietary cartridges.
>>
>> Andrew.
>>
>> --
>>
>> "The future is already here.  It's just not very evenly distributed" --
>> William Gibson
>>
>> Me: http://clothbot.com/wiki/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lab mailing list
>> 1. subscribe http://artengine.ca/mailman/listinfo/lab
>> 2. then email Lab at artengine.ca
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lab mailing list
> 1. subscribe http://artengine.ca/mailman/listinfo/lab
> 2. then email Lab at artengine.ca
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artengine.ca/pipermail/lab/attachments/20130528/b4302149/attachment.html>