Just a PSA to anybody considering buying a new cricut:

They are cool machines mechanically, but the software is an absolute nightmare, DO NOT BUY.

Source: i bought one. Regret sunk in the moment i tried to do anything even slightly interesting. This isn’t a bambulabs situation where it’s mostly a philosophical objection to a closed ecosystem. It’s bad software that makes it hard or impossible to use the machine except in a very narrow set of ways.

I’ve not firsthand used any of the competing machines (silhoutte, et al) but i hear they are a bit better - and i don’t know how they could be worse.

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c0nsumer an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe it's just me and I haven't used it much, but my fairly non-technical wife has a Cricut and the few times I've wanted to use it I had absolutely no problem creating a vector in whatever program (Illustrator or Affinity Designer, IIRC) and getting it to separate the color layers and cut at the desired size.

The Electron app felt a bit weird, but I was able to accomplish the goal of cutting out my design at a desired size, so I didn't think any more about it. <shrug>

It seemed more to me that their app leans hard into getting people to buy vector designs through them, and making it easy for those who might not even understand what a "vector" graphic is, but it didn't seem to preclude me from cutting out my own stuff.

	▲	dylan604 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> but my fairly non-technical wife has a Cricut and the few times I've wanted to use it I had absolutely no problem This is this is one of those situations of knowing their audience. The machine is nice and does some impressive things for the price. Their software works fine for the people that the hardware was designed. I too have designed things in Illustrator and imported them into their software. It took a bit of getting used to, but I've designed retail packaging with cuts and scores so I can create custom boxes that I was not able to find premade and having the custom design made was too expensive. Could the design software be better? Of course, but that software would be out of reach for their target audience. So instead, I've stopped holding it wrong, and work within its constraints.

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post_break an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Siser machines are as consumer as you can get but still get control over them. They are more like the commercial grade ones. I have a Juliet and love it.

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cellular 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Could you just hook new motor controllers to the motors / puncher and add an Arduino to control it?

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tdeck 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is a very Hacker News usage of the word "just".

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ssl-3 21 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It is, but I mean: Many of us do just exactly that with 3D printers.

We get a new 3D-printing machine and install our own build of Marlin on it, or move it all over to Klipper. Sometimes that involves replacing the entirety of the brain-box controls and that's just par for the course.

At its root, it's only some stepper motors, fans (more motors), sensors, and heaters that are used in very particular ways.

That's pretty similar to a Cricut machine, isn't it?

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dylan604 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Only if done over a weekend

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CamperBob2 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The modern equivalent is "Just" use Fable or Sol to reverse-engineer the protocol, then write new control software that works locally the way you want to work, using the file formats you want to use.

There is no longer any reason to put up with hardware like Cricut that doesn't do what you want, or that includes artificial dependencies on remote servers. If worst comes to worst, then yes, have the clanker write a new controller.

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zardo 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

Proposing cost to reverse engineer a cricut and cut out some pelican art as a new llm benchmark.

	▲	throwway120385 a few seconds ago \| parent [-]
		As long as there's a bicycle under that pelican I think we're good.

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kennywinker 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Possibly. But i wanted a machine to play with, not to tinker with. At that point it’d be wayyy cheaper and easier to just convert an old CR-10 printer into a vinyl cutter

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Junk_Collector an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Can you build a CNC machine out of nothing but a computer and a CNC machine?

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bluGill an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

silhouette has a much better open source reputation if you want this type of machine. Everybody in the crafting world seems to have the circut though, and you can buy their machines (parts, supplies) all over, while I've never seen silhouette in a local store.

	▲	nightfly 7 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I have a silhouette cameo 4 I'm pretty happy with. Silhouette studio works, it doesn't handle svgs very well so when importing I tend to render svgs as a black bitmap and then trace that in silhouette studio. Being able to print registration marks and have the cutter align itself against those is invaluable. I've done clones of paper craft kits, perfectly cut out iron on transfers forct shirts, 3d trading card art, and trading card proxies on mine
	▲	kotaKat 17 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		yep, today's reminder silhouette is (quietly) a division of the larger Graphtec, and you can move up from the baby machines thru to a Graphtec cutter! drive 'em with inkscape, drive 'em with the silhouette studio, hell, there's a bridge graphtec model that can also take silhouette studio jobs...