8 ms·

Building road signs at home using a Cricut Machine

48 points by annanay 10mo ago

zeckalpha 10mo ago
Might want to try this font https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Gothic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Gothic
- annanay 10mo ago
  sweet, will use this the next time :)
downboots 10mo ago
would cricut work for photoresist chemical etching as in the recent post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020561 ? there's a4 size rolls of vynil or even kapton
- Karliss 10mo ago
  Do you mean as an optical mask for photo step of the process or directly as resist for chemical etching skipping the photo part? I have done both some home photochemical PCB etching and some vinyl cutting but not that specific combination. As photo mask it makes little sense in most cases. Just buying a transparency which can be used in an inkjet printer will likely be faster, easier and produce better resolution. These used to be widely available due to use in overhead projectors in schools and offices, but still shouldn't be too hard to get due to use when screen printing custom t-shirts. As a direct physical resist it makes a bit more sense since it would allow skipping one chemical bath and the photo transfer process. I have seen some people online having very good results of it for decorative etches with moderate size details on thicker metal parts and glass. But I am somewhat skeptical about it withstanding full depth cutting of very fine grids with high pressure circulation like the one demonstrated in Applied Science video. It will likely come down to etching depth (is it a metal sheet 0.2-1mm or the copper layer on PCB 0.035mm or decorative surface etch), how aggressive your liquid circulation is, type of vinyl and it's adhesive (ones designed for outdoor use might be more resistant to liquid for longer), size of details. With concentrated enough etching liquid allowing fast etches, mild agitation and wide enough lines (>1mm) the vinyl should hold up. In the worst case if adhesion during etching turns out to be a problem it should still be possible to use the vinyl as stencil while painting on whatever paint to be used as resist. This should still be much faster than doing photo step. One of the good parts of photochemical manufacturing is that you can make something like a mesh with hundreds of tiny holes that would be impractical with any other approach. It doesn't matter how complex the pattern is. While you might be able to cut such patterns on vinyl cutter worst case by leaving machine to work for few hours, weeding it might be a big problem. After cutting you need to manually peel half of image you don't want (called weeding). For simple large shapes it's not a big deal but for complex cuts that have a lot of holes or maze like structure it can be quite time consuming. There are industrial cutters that can do the weeding automatically, but I don't think any hobby level machines like Cricut have this feature. If you have something like a mesh and you are removing mesh part leaving only the tiny dots or pattern with thin long unsupported lines (like a PCB), you need to be very careful to avoid accidentally nudging and separating the small details. This can happen during weeding, transfer to target material and even cutting (for some types of materials). The last one was major problem when I tried cutting copper tape directly, original backing tape was just too slippery, less of a problem for suitable vinyl. None of that gives you hard answer, but I hope my experience was of some use to you.
  - butvacuum 10mo ago
    I honestly expect transparency film to survive as a product long past when people have forgotten why it's A4 or Letter sized. People are already forgetting why it's called "transparency." Always a demand for the occasional stack of identical, thin, flexible, transparent sheets of plastic.
  - downboots 10mo ago
    Thanks for sharing
Mountain_Skies 10mo ago
Used to live near the highway department's sign shop for the area. When they had a job opening, they'd make up a road sign and put it up next to the street outside the shop. Which made complete sense but did seem like overkill. Guess you go with the resources you have and know.
- annanay 10mo ago
  Overkill but clever :) reminds me of https://www.pinterest.com/pin/we-are-looking-for-graphic-designer-funny--496099715204809967/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/we-are-looking-for-graphic-des...
charlie-83 10mo ago
These are cool. For anyone in the market for a vinyl cutter I would recommend against Cricut though. Very cloud-subscription-user-hostile software that tried to limit the number of times you could use the machine you bought unless you had a subscription. I have a silhouette and control it with a plugin for inkscape and its great.
- awinter-py 10mo ago
  what's good? have been shopping for something to cut medium EVA sheets. seems like brother scan N cut is most likely to work with SVGs + linux, but can't handle anything past 2mm. siser juliet + silhouette get recommended too but I think both rely on proprietary software laser cutters seem better on the software side, but more expensive, less safe? (and also not safe at all for vinyl)
  - charlie-83 10mo ago
    The silhouette software is proprietary but I am using Linux + inkscape + https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette which works perfectly (except I can't get the Bluetooth to work but that's probably a me issue). It's less user-friendly (but more power-user friendly) than the official software and doesn't have all the templates and ready-made designs but that isn't a problem for me. I would like to get a laser cutter at some point but that's a completely different beast. Don't get a cheap ali-express one that is not enclosed if you value your eyes. You will also need ventilation for a lot of materials if you value your lungs. In comparison, my silhouette is a simple thing I can move around easily. It's also able to plotting, engraving, embossing and foiling with the right add-ons
    - awinter-py 10mo ago
      whoa thanks for the link to inkscape-silhouette, didn't know about this
    - timhh 10mo ago
      There's also this thing that I wrote. I've been meaning to update it for a long time but life... http://robocut.org/ http://robocut.org/
teeray 10mo ago
Interesting, but I was hoping for applying vinyl to actual retroreflective sign blanks for private road use.
- jonah 10mo ago
  Yup. First thing I did was search for "reflective" in the article. These just look like signs. (But cool nonetheless.)
  - annanay 10mo ago
    Ah yeah, I should have mentioned that in the post somewhere, but reflective would definitely be a nice next step. I have seen TheSignGuy use reflective material in his videos, I'll have to find the equivalent on the Cricut store.
JKCalhoun 10mo ago
"Bear Crossing" needs rounded corners—the black outline and the cutout shape of the sign itself. Otherwise, super cool.
- annanay 10mo ago
  Yeah I just used off the shelf base material and didn't have the eight equipment to make rounded corners, hence the current diamond shape :(
FractalParadigm 10mo ago
It's pretty easy to accomplish the same using virtually any 3D printer, even something as simple as an Ender 3 can be set to pause at a set layer in GCODE where the filament can manually be changed to the next desired colour. Realistically, this is only practical for things like signage, where you start with the base colour (such as yellow or green) then switch to the next for text and details, and if done properly with compatible materials, can look incredibly well-done.
- amelius 10mo ago
  Yes. I'm looking for a Linux program that can turn SVG into signs like that (STL). Because doing it manually is a lot of work. (Maybe it is easy to do in OpenSCAD?)
  - fragmede 10mo ago
    Hueforge has an AppImage. I'm on mac so I don't know how well that runs, but it's what you're looking for.
  - dv35z 10mo ago
    Check out Kiri:Moto (open source tool which can convert SVG into 3D shapes, and export to G-code appropriate for 3D printers, CNC routers) https://grid.space/kiri/ https://grid.space/kiri/
    - amelius 10mo ago
      Thanks, but Freecad can also do it. The point is that it is a lot of work to import, extrude, etc. I would prefer a commandline tool that takes the name of an SVG (or DXF) file, and outputs an STL file that I can directly send to my printer (slicer, actually).
- annanay 10mo ago
  Do you have sample images of what this would look like? I imagine the texture and finish won't be as smooth as vinyl but curious nevertheless.
netsharc 10mo ago
It's not this story then? https://thelandmag.com/richard-ankrom-guerrilla-public-service-los-angeles-free/ https://thelandmag.com/richard-ankrom-guerrilla-public-servi...

48 points by annanay 10mo ago

zeckalpha 10mo ago

Might want to try this font https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Gothic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Gothic

annanay 10mo ago
sweet, will use this the next time :)

downboots 10mo ago

would cricut work for photoresist chemical etching as in the recent post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020561 ? there's a4 size rolls of vynil or even kapton

Karliss 10mo ago
Do you mean as an optical mask for photo step of the process or directly as resist for chemical etching skipping the photo part? I have done both some home photochemical PCB etching and some vinyl cutting but not that specific combination. As photo mask it makes little sense in most cases. Just buying a transparency which can be used in an inkjet printer will likely be faster, easier and produce better resolution. These used to be widely available due to use in overhead projectors in schools and offices, but still shouldn't be too hard to get due to use when screen printing custom t-shirts. As a direct physical resist it makes a bit more sense since it would allow skipping one chemical bath and the photo transfer process. I have seen some people online having very good results of it for decorative etches with moderate size details on thicker metal parts and glass. But I am somewhat skeptical about it withstanding full depth cutting of very fine grids with high pressure circulation like the one demonstrated in Applied Science video. It will likely come down to etching depth (is it a metal sheet 0.2-1mm or the copper layer on PCB 0.035mm or decorative surface etch), how aggressive your liquid circulation is, type of vinyl and it's adhesive (ones designed for outdoor use might be more resistant to liquid for longer), size of details. With concentrated enough etching liquid allowing fast etches, mild agitation and wide enough lines (>1mm) the vinyl should hold up. In the worst case if adhesion during etching turns out to be a problem it should still be possible to use the vinyl as stencil while painting on whatever paint to be used as resist. This should still be much faster than doing photo step. One of the good parts of photochemical manufacturing is that you can make something like a mesh with hundreds of tiny holes that would be impractical with any other approach. It doesn't matter how complex the pattern is. While you might be able to cut such patterns on vinyl cutter worst case by leaving machine to work for few hours, weeding it might be a big problem. After cutting you need to manually peel half of image you don't want (called weeding). For simple large shapes it's not a big deal but for complex cuts that have a lot of holes or maze like structure it can be quite time consuming. There are industrial cutters that can do the weeding automatically, but I don't think any hobby level machines like Cricut have this feature. If you have something like a mesh and you are removing mesh part leaving only the tiny dots or pattern with thin long unsupported lines (like a PCB), you need to be very careful to avoid accidentally nudging and separating the small details. This can happen during weeding, transfer to target material and even cutting (for some types of materials). The last one was major problem when I tried cutting copper tape directly, original backing tape was just too slippery, less of a problem for suitable vinyl. None of that gives you hard answer, but I hope my experience was of some use to you.
- butvacuum 10mo ago
  I honestly expect transparency film to survive as a product long past when people have forgotten why it's A4 or Letter sized. People are already forgetting why it's called "transparency." Always a demand for the occasional stack of identical, thin, flexible, transparent sheets of plastic.
- downboots 10mo ago
  Thanks for sharing

Mountain_Skies 10mo ago

Used to live near the highway department's sign shop for the area. When they had a job opening, they'd make up a road sign and put it up next to the street outside the shop. Which made complete sense but did seem like overkill. Guess you go with the resources you have and know.

annanay 10mo ago
Overkill but clever :) reminds me of https://www.pinterest.com/pin/we-are-looking-for-graphic-designer-funny--496099715204809967/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/we-are-looking-for-graphic-des...

charlie-83 10mo ago

These are cool. For anyone in the market for a vinyl cutter I would recommend against Cricut though. Very cloud-subscription-user-hostile software that tried to limit the number of times you could use the machine you bought unless you had a subscription. I have a silhouette and control it with a plugin for inkscape and its great.

awinter-py 10mo ago
what's good? have been shopping for something to cut medium EVA sheets. seems like brother scan N cut is most likely to work with SVGs + linux, but can't handle anything past 2mm. siser juliet + silhouette get recommended too but I think both rely on proprietary software laser cutters seem better on the software side, but more expensive, less safe? (and also not safe at all for vinyl)
- charlie-83 10mo ago
  The silhouette software is proprietary but I am using Linux + inkscape + https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette which works perfectly (except I can't get the Bluetooth to work but that's probably a me issue). It's less user-friendly (but more power-user friendly) than the official software and doesn't have all the templates and ready-made designs but that isn't a problem for me. I would like to get a laser cutter at some point but that's a completely different beast. Don't get a cheap ali-express one that is not enclosed if you value your eyes. You will also need ventilation for a lot of materials if you value your lungs. In comparison, my silhouette is a simple thing I can move around easily. It's also able to plotting, engraving, embossing and foiling with the right add-ons
  - awinter-py 10mo ago
    whoa thanks for the link to inkscape-silhouette, didn't know about this
  - timhh 10mo ago
    There's also this thing that I wrote. I've been meaning to update it for a long time but life... http://robocut.org/ http://robocut.org/

teeray 10mo ago

Interesting, but I was hoping for applying vinyl to actual retroreflective sign blanks for private road use.

jonah 10mo ago
Yup. First thing I did was search for "reflective" in the article. These just look like signs. (But cool nonetheless.)
- annanay 10mo ago
  Ah yeah, I should have mentioned that in the post somewhere, but reflective would definitely be a nice next step. I have seen TheSignGuy use reflective material in his videos, I'll have to find the equivalent on the Cricut store.

JKCalhoun 10mo ago

"Bear Crossing" needs rounded corners—the black outline and the cutout shape of the sign itself. Otherwise, super cool.

annanay 10mo ago
Yeah I just used off the shelf base material and didn't have the eight equipment to make rounded corners, hence the current diamond shape :(

FractalParadigm 10mo ago

It's pretty easy to accomplish the same using virtually any 3D printer, even something as simple as an Ender 3 can be set to pause at a set layer in GCODE where the filament can manually be changed to the next desired colour. Realistically, this is only practical for things like signage, where you start with the base colour (such as yellow or green) then switch to the next for text and details, and if done properly with compatible materials, can look incredibly well-done.

amelius 10mo ago
Yes. I'm looking for a Linux program that can turn SVG into signs like that (STL). Because doing it manually is a lot of work. (Maybe it is easy to do in OpenSCAD?)
- fragmede 10mo ago
  Hueforge has an AppImage. I'm on mac so I don't know how well that runs, but it's what you're looking for.
- dv35z 10mo ago
  Check out Kiri:Moto (open source tool which can convert SVG into 3D shapes, and export to G-code appropriate for 3D printers, CNC routers) https://grid.space/kiri/ https://grid.space/kiri/
  - amelius 10mo ago
    Thanks, but Freecad can also do it. The point is that it is a lot of work to import, extrude, etc. I would prefer a commandline tool that takes the name of an SVG (or DXF) file, and outputs an STL file that I can directly send to my printer (slicer, actually).
annanay 10mo ago
Do you have sample images of what this would look like? I imagine the texture and finish won't be as smooth as vinyl but curious nevertheless.

netsharc 10mo ago

It's not this story then? https://thelandmag.com/richard-ankrom-guerrilla-public-service-los-angeles-free/ https://thelandmag.com/richard-ankrom-guerrilla-public-servi...