Cricut Explore Air 2: Worth it?

Off Topic Maker Matters
#1

This one is for the Cricut usersšŸ˜

I was thinking about purchasing the Cricut Explore Air 2. Iā€™ve never owned a Cricut, nor any other cutting machine like it.

If you own one, what do you think?? Is there anything you love making on it? Is there anything you thought youā€™d love making it but actually canā€™t stand? Do you have pictures of cool stuff youā€™ve made? Have you experienced the red light of death?

Iā€™ve read the blogs and reviews, but Iā€™d love to hear what some local makers have to say about it!

Thanks!

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#2

Already been burned twice by that corporation. Cannot recommend buying their hardware.
My wife has several hundred dollars worth on designs purchased from their store that she cannot use anymore, because they decided to kill their flash app, bascially ruining thousands and thousands of cutters (she could in theory still use the tiny little touch screen, but it is a joke).

We now have a cameo 4 and like it far better. USCutter makes some awesome larger format cutters, but if you are into papercrafts, the cameo is much easier.

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#3

We have a cricut maker which has the benefit of tangential tools like a rotary wheel and stuff. Iā€™d say like Doug said, the software is great while they want it to work, youā€™re at the mercy of Cricut. Itā€™s a perfectly good vinyl and papercraft cutter though, it is about as easy to use as you can get.

I have an interesting issue where the two rubber wheels on the mat roller walk out of their grooves and misfeed the mat. I havenā€™t found a good solution to fix it yet.

If someone hacks the cricut firmware to use other software (lightburn would be a great choice) it would revolutionize the crafting world.

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#4

Oh thatā€™s good to know. I had looked at the lower end (*the Portrait) but not the cameo yet. Off to YouTube I go!

Would you say the cameo is good for a newbie? I want to do things with fusible inks, stencil cutting, and possibly stickersā€¦

#5

Hmmm Iā€™m not loving the idea of being locked in by Cricutā€™s whims, so thatā€™s definitely good to keep in mind. I hadnā€™t heard about the roller issue either!

#6

Iā€™ve had a Maker and promptly sold it. The Cameo gets to stay in case I ever get a wild hair to use vinyl but I agree. Besides their prices are insane for the blades and specialty materials like dye sub that make them different from other plotters that cost way less.

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#7

I have a Maker. The hardware is great, and the ability to cut thicker materials like leather is a big plus.
Cricut Design Space is a hot pile of garbage. If you can design in Illustrator or Inkscape or some other product and develop a workflow to just use your Cricut for cutting, youā€™re probably ok.

Check the online Cricut groups about the fiasco earlier this year. Cricutā€™s policy had been that you could use your designs on your machine without a (paid) subscription to Cricut Access. They implemented a change that would limit ā€œfreeā€ users to 10 uploads a month. Mess up a file and have to re-upload? Youā€™ve incremented the counter again. Users revolted. Cricut tried to walk it back a bit, saying existing users would be grandfathered in, but user pressure eventually led to them walking the whole thing back.

Their IPO documents list something about ā€œmonetizing existing user baseā€ as a future revenue stream, so expect more shenanigans as soon as they think the users arenā€™t looking.

If I knew in 2019 what I know now, I wouldā€™ve bought a Silhouette Cameo.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot about the part where if you mentioned the changes to Cricut Access memberships on your Amazon review, you got banned from reviews on Amazon and all your reviews were pulled down.

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#8

Looking at a teardown on the Cricut maker, it would be fairly difficult to fix anything on it. Reverse engineering a custom controller board wouldnā€™t be super difficult (itā€™s using geared dc motors and encoders) but it wonā€™t be just a firmware mod I bet.

I will say just get a silhouette if youā€™re design software savvy and want a good vinyl papercraft machine. From my experience on the one at DMS, itā€™s pretty easy as long as the tools and mats arenā€™t abused.

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#9

There was a guy who hacked themā€¦ then the project just faded away. Not sure why.

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#10

Looks like thereā€™s a Linux program you can use with themā€¦

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#11

Dunno if you mean ā€œat DMSā€, but if so, might have been this memberā€¦

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#12

Thatā€™s the one :slight_smile:

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#13

This got way more in depth than I could have hoped for! Thanks yā€™all!! :star_struck:

#14

Thatā€™s DMS for you. Either we know More Than You Ever Wanted To Know, or we know nothing (or things that are only marginally relevant).

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#15

That is quickly becoming one of my favorite things about DMS :slight_smile:

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#16

not that you asked for another opinion but we went with the Cameo 4 and its great.

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#17

Orā€¦ We think we know more than you ever wanted to know and we know nothing :wink:

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