subject: Vinyl Cutters For Use At Home [print this page] One of the key pieces of equipment in a commercial sign shop is the vinyl cutter. Recently craft supply companies have sacled these machines down in size and price to make them available to the home user. These smaller machines are just as capable as their larger counterparts, but much more storable and affordable.
These machines use digital information to guide them to produce accurate and beautiful cuttings time after time. These machines make it easy to produce custom die cut shapes quickly and affordably. The initial cost of a portable cutter may be much higher than buying a small set of dies and a press, but once you have a digital cutter you don't need to purchase more dies.
These digital cutters are available from several manufacturers, but the Cricut by Provo Craft and the Silhouette are by far the most popular machines. These two machines ultimately do the same thing, but they each work a little bit differently.
The Cricut machine is designed to be a stand alone product. The Cricut just needs plugged in and your ready to start cutting. Provo Craft makes different cartridges for different shapes and alphabet fonts. This sort makes it not any better than a traditional die cut. However there is a way to connect the Cricut to a computer and make a much more powerful and versatile machine.
The Silhouette machine cuts material in the same fashion as the Cricut, but has no cartridges. Like a printer the Silhouette machine must connect to a computer. These out of the box features really make the Silhouette more powerful. You now have the ability to cut any font from your computer as well as manipulate images into shapes and so on.
As I mentioned before the Cricut does have this capability, but requires third party software in order to achieve this level of functionality. All of this does not make the Silhouette the better machine. In my personal opinion they are both very good and both have their drawbacks. Each one has its own unique features that are great. It may cost a bit more to get into a Cricut machine with the software and functionality, but currently the accessories for the Cricut are more readily available.
These machines can cut a wide variety of materials, including paper, chipboard, thin plastics, and vinyl. Vinyl is however one of the best materials to cut. The large commercial machines are rarely used to cut anyhting but vinyl. Vinyl has even become so affordable and popular that many people are using these portable cutters in small home-based businesses. People are willing to pay for cutouts because they do not want to purchase the ewuipment or take the time. This makes for a perfect opportunity for those with the equipment to make a few bucks.
