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.
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)
I like my Silhouette Cameo, which I use from Linux and Windows with Inkscape + the silhouette plugin. However, the maximum thickness that the latest machine can cut is 2mm, and it seems that is also the maximum thickness that the Circuit Maker 3 can handle. So, you probably do want a laser if you want thicker eva than that. In my book, the best choice is probably both.
The silhouette software is proprietary but I am using Linux + inkscape + 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
whoa thanks for the link to inkscape-silhouette, didn't know about this
Might want to try this font https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Gothic
would cricut work for photoresist chemical etching as in the recent post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46020561 ? there's a4 size rolls of vynil or even kapton
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.