Public Lab Research note


This is an upgrade for foldable-spec. Try building it and report back how it goes.

Silhouette Cameo desktop paper cutter for prototyping

by warren | July 30, 2015 18:49 30 Jul 18:49 | #12107 | #12107

What I want to do

I've been wanting to do more laser cutting to prototype things like the Oil Testing Kit, but it's a pain to go all the way over to the llocal shop at Danger Awesome for small parts. And laser cutting leaves ash and smells bad.

I've had my eye on these craft oriented cutting machines for a while but after not looking at then for a couple years I was surprised to learn how cheap they are. The Silhouette Cameo is only $240 on Amazon! So, I ordered one. It arrived today.

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My attempt and results

I need scoring as well as cutting, and the Cameo does that by cutting a dashed line at partial depth. Here's a good tutorial.

Getting the cut depth and blade settings took a few tries but it works really well! The free software reads .dxf files, and a $50 upgrade gets you .svg import.

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Questions and next steps

It couldn't cut through very heavy cardstock, but maybe I didn't set the cut depth properly; I'll try again. Size was also not well preserved in dxf import, but re-entering the dimensions was easy if annoying. Once you set up the cut settings (by color, like a laser cutter), you can save the file with those settings. You can also save the file to a USB stick and drive the printer directly with that -- no computer needed!

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Why I'm interested

This machine is fast and cheap enough that I think we could use it for small runs of manufacturing. Running it from a USB stick means you could drive several at the same time and switch jobs quickly. It does consume blades and cutting mats, but they're not too expensive.

Interestingly, it also holds pens, and ships with a set of silver, gold, and white gel pens. I've also seen DIY pen holders posted on Thingiverse. Cut size is 12" x 10 feet! And there's a more expensive version called the Curio which can cut much thicker material, etch metal, and hold two cutting tools at once.


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4 Comments

More cuts!

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Tried cutting plastic - the kind that folders are sometimes made of (turns white when creased) and it works ok-- I think three cuts instead of two would be best, though, as the piece ripped while i was trying to remove it from the sheet. Scored folds work great, however:

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Cuvette holder! Learning that it's much easier if no parts are left behind on the cutting mat. It makes for much faster turnaround of multiple cuts. Leave cutouts attached to flap out of the way!

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the cutter works great! I went through similar initial issues, setting the blade lower and not seeing it cut all the way through. I settled on the "coverstock" setting which does a double cut, and have the blade set down to 5 for the 100lb paper.

for long objects i'm seeing some registration issues when cutting them perpendicular to the cutter, they need to be loaded parallel.

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