I have an older craft cutter/plotter (cricut style) The software CD is lost and Pazzles doesn’t support it anymore. Current state is effectively dead in the water.
How difficult would it be to swap out the factory board for something like a WEMOS as a controller and just put GRBL on it so it works again?
Thetazzbot did some interesting work with cricut cutters some years ago.
http://www.thetazzbot.com/2015/02/19/repurposing-the-cricut-expression/
Don’t know if he’s still into that scene, though…
What model is the cutter/plotter? Sometimes they use a graphic language like HPGL or similar and other programs can generate the code for cutting. If it is a priority controller then you might have to gut the thing and you really need to decide if it is worth it, but those haven’t been around for years. I picked up an old HP 7550 plotter and with some tinkering, taught it to cut t-shirt vinyl. I had to find a program to generate the HPGL but that was all I needed. Anyway, if all it needs is software code, that might be a simple solution. Just depends on the cutter/plotter.
I’d suggest posting photo’s of the make model serial etc. Perhaps the disc can be found in dimly lit corners of the net.
I’ve spoken with Pazzles and they no longer support the software for the model. They moved onto the Vue and discontinued it in 2015. I was able to replace it with a new cricut, but now I have an idle determination to hack it as a learning experience in my robotics journey