Cutting/Engraving?

I have a Cricut machine.  It cuts vinyl fine, still working out setting thickness for cutting styrene.  It works okay, but my CAD needs to be a bit better- better accuracy for corners.  I originally got it to make paint masks, but when I found it would also cut thicker materials like sheet vinyl and sheet wood I started planning to make actual model parts.

Problem now is that the version of the CAD I was using won't work on my Windows 10 machine and they raised the price so high I can't afford the latest version.  All the cheaper CADs I find are hard to use and I have to learn a new one.

There are several cutters similar to Cricut, some used by people on this forum.  Google "vinyl cutters."

Don Stauffer

I have a Cricut machine.  It cuts vinyl fine, still working out setting thickness for cutting styrene.  It works okay, but my CAD needs to be a bit better- better accuracy for corners.  I originally got it to make paint masks, but when I found it would also cut thicker materials like sheet vinyl and sheet wood I started planning to make actual model parts.

Problem now is that the version of the CAD I was using won't work on my Windows 10 machine and they raised the price so high I can't afford the latest version.  All the cheaper CADs I find are hard to use and I have to learn a new one.

There are several cutters similar to Cricut, some used by people on this forum.  Google "vinyl cutters."

 

Ok, so I've been doing a little more research and I came across this product called the Silhouette CAMEO 3. It appears to be a little more robust.

Does anyone have any experience with this product?

STOVK

 

 

Don Stauffer

I have a Cricut machine.  It cuts vinyl fine, still working out setting thickness for cutting styrene.  It works okay, but my CAD needs to be a bit better- better accuracy for corners.  I originally got it to make paint masks, but when I found it would also cut thicker materials like sheet vinyl and sheet wood I started planning to make actual model parts.

Problem now is that the version of the CAD I was using won't work on my Windows 10 machine and they raised the price so high I can't afford the latest version.  All the cheaper CADs I find are hard to use and I have to learn a new one.

There are several cutters similar to Cricut, some used by people on this forum.  Google "vinyl cutters."

 

 

 

 

Cricut, huh? I'll check into it. What is the maximum thickness for the wood which produced good results? Have you tried cutting wood veneer?

 

How clean are the cuts on the wood products?

 

Thanks again.

 

p.s. Just curious. I never used CAD. Why would that make a difference in your final cuts? I use CorelDRAW and I was figuring on creating a design and exporting the file in SVG or EPS format.

 

The upload to the online translater requires jpeg.  My problem is that not all of my corners meet, and difficulty of getting lines parallel and square like I wanted.  This is due to lack of options on the cheap cads I have been trying.  The machine is a robot. It will not fix errors in drawings.

Hi,

I only have the Silhouette Potrait, but I have been very happy with it.  It imports CAD type DXF files, though there is a default parameter that you have to reset to tell it to not rescale the file to fit.  The first couple times I tried to cut something I couldn't figure out why they were the wrong size, but once I found out about the import paramter (by searching the internet), everything else seems fine.

Pat