Despite getting a great new game on Saturday (see: Last game you bought? - #4335 by pillbox), I got something even more exciting!
I was lamenting to my dad a few weeks ago about how I regretted not buying a laser etcher/engraver/cutter back a few years ago when they were ~$200 on sale, fairly regularly, because now they are all $500+, it seems. This was while I was showing him some of the things on my Amazon wishlist, and the laser etcher/engraver/cutter was right next to a Cricut machine on the same list, and I was talking about how that was my “stop gap” idea for doing some of the same things for half the cost.
Well, sure enough, he bought me a Cricut machine; I think it’s the one I had on my wishlist, but when I put it on there, I didn’t even realize, or at least appreciate, there was more than one model. Fortunately, he bought me
Which is fairly capable among the models, though apparently already-outdated. I think when I put that one on my list, the Cricut Maker series must have been showing out of stock everywhere. If the machine pays off like I think it might, I might eventually upgrade to a Cricut Maker 3 (or whatever is available at that time) because of the extra capabilities.
I anticipate 3d-printing a pen adapter for my Explore Air 2 rather than buying the Cricut-branded pens – I just need to do a LOT more research to figure out what all it takes to get the settings to work right for a 3rd party pen.
I’ve already done a prototype of some of the things I’m thinking about doing with the Cricut – namely a (printable) vinyl-wrapped 2-piece chipboard box. It’s a weird situation I find myself in… I want to build up a scripting toolkit for doing parametric boxes, but I need to do some more experimentation with cutting patterns and assembly sequence before I can really hone in on what the automation should be outputting.
I also need to look into a wide-format printer (looking specifically at the A3 and/or 11x17 format) to be able to maximize the capabilities of the Cricut format (I already bought the 12x24" cutting mats)