Cricut cutter

[RonDB]

Has anyone used a Cricut Smart Cutting Machine to cut out their own building designs.
I have seen them in Hobbycraft  and the other half would like to get one to do some material cutting and was wondering if it would be any use to me as well.

[ScottishModeller]

Has anyone used a Cricut Smart Cutting Machine to cut out their own building designs.
I have seen them in Hobbycraft  and the other half would like to get one to do some material cutting and was wondering if it would be any use to me as well.

Hi Ron,

It all depends on which Cricut you buy.

I have a cheap one and it has limitations.

Yes, you can import a photo using the supplied software, but the results are not great, not good enough for modelling.

The more expensive machines are more capable but they are more expensive than the equivalent Cameo cutter.

If I had the money I would get a Cameo over any Cricut.

Thanks
Phil H

[RonDB]

Thanks Phil it a expensive one we were looking at but I will have a look at the Cameo one.

Ron

[red_death]

I have the even cheaper Silhouette Portrait and I find it is pretty useful for all sorts of things.  The latest version of Silhouette's Studio software is not as capable as previous versions and kind of pushes you towards paying for their pro licence - that way you can use different/better drawing programmes for the design and then import the artwork into Silhouette Studio for cutting.

I think they are useful if you are doing any sort of repetition of standard sizes. If everything is a one off then it probably isn't as worth drawing up artwork unless you want the precision of the cutting.

Cheers Mike

[ScottishModeller]

Hi Ron,

The main problem with my Cricut is the tolerances it works to.

For example?

I have drawings and cut files for a 4mm scale BR Crewbus and they work fine in that scale.

Resizing the drawings for 2mm should work but doesn't produce accurate output.

So, the tolerance on the machine is quoted as 0.5mm and this stays the same regardless of scale but gets worse as the machine gets older and or produces more output.

Thanks
Phil H

[RonDB]

Thanks for the comments,I think its going to take a bit of more research before  committing to one.
I have found a couple of reports, The most useful being on the RMweb it does seem scaling down to 2mm is a bit of a problem.

Ron