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Unless things have changed with Cricut, I've always found their machines to be a huge ripoff – even more so than inkjet printers because at least those will all

Unless things have changed with Cricut, I've always found their machines to be a huge ripoff – even more so than inkjet printers because at least those will allow you to print whatever you want. I remember looking into Cricut and realizing it was made to force you into buying designs from their store rather than giving you the ability to provide an SVG(or even gcode?) of your own. It's possible to use your own designs, but the support for it is terrible since they clearly want a percentage of whatever designs you end up buying. In other words, it's not a useful device to own. If you think you're going to use a Cricut to make things you can sell on Etsy or the like, you will be sorely disappointed.

mgarfias 6y ago
Wish I’d know these things before I bought a circuit for the wife last year
542458 6y ago
> looking into Cricut and realizing it was made to force you into buying designs from their store rather than giving you the ability to provide an SVG(or even gcode?) of your own In ye old days that was the case, then the explore line came out (with them advertising that you could bring your own SVGs), and it worked okay for a while... But now we're back to locked down.
curryst 6y ago
I'm not super surprised by that. They're almost the only company competing at this low of a price range. I looked at laser cutters that could cut acrylic, and I don't think I found a single one cheaper than $2k or maybe $1.4k and that was for offbrand Chinese stuff. These cutters live in a weird market segment of people that want to work with a complicated device, but who don't want working with it to be complicated. It's, in some ways, an inverse of 3D printing, which has a lot of people who revel in the complexity of the device. I love my 3D printers, and putting them together from scratch so I kind of know how it functions. I can't imagine my girlfriend buying something like a Cricut that she has to assemble herself. > If you think you're going to use a Cricut to make things you can sell on Etsy or the like, you will be sorely disappointed. Do people really do that? I always presumed that Cricut's were for one offs or prototypes, and that by the time you had an Etsy store, you would just order printed and cut stickers from China. I may well be wrong, I just figured there would be huge cost savings for doing so because of the factory's economy of scale.

mgarfias 6y ago

Wish I’d know these things before I bought a circuit for the wife last year

542458 6y ago

> looking into Cricut and realizing it was made to force you into buying designs from their store rather than giving you the ability to provide an SVG(or even gcode?) of your own In ye old days that was the case, then the explore line came out (with them advertising that you could bring your own SVGs), and it worked okay for a while... But now we're back to locked down.

curryst 6y ago

I'm not super surprised by that. They're almost the only company competing at this low of a price range. I looked at laser cutters that could cut acrylic, and I don't think I found a single one cheaper than $2k or maybe $1.4k and that was for offbrand Chinese stuff. These cutters live in a weird market segment of people that want to work with a complicated device, but who don't want working with it to be complicated. It's, in some ways, an inverse of 3D printing, which has a lot of people who revel in the complexity of the device. I love my 3D printers, and putting them together from scratch so I kind of know how it functions. I can't imagine my girlfriend buying something like a Cricut that she has to assemble herself. > If you think you're going to use a Cricut to make things you can sell on Etsy or the like, you will be sorely disappointed. Do people really do that? I always presumed that Cricut's were for one offs or prototypes, and that by the time you had an Etsy store, you would just order printed and cut stickers from China. I may well be wrong, I just figured there would be huge cost savings for doing so because of the factory's economy of scale.