Hacker News

I'm just imagining the amount of damage some determined people can do to the Cricut ecosystem because the serial numbers are guessable...

I’d expect a certain YouTuber to pick it up in due course

Nice write-up! I was also a Suzuki fan (1980s) and always liked the stylized S logo. Now to go find a vinyl cutter.....

Thanks. I DO have an old Silhouette vinyl cutter sitting around... gathering dust! I picked it up at a thrift store many years ago and just waiting for you comment I guess!

I mostly deal with the possibility of bricking a device by not caring too much :) That said, I usually start by reverse-engineering the software at one of the ends, so I don't blindly "fuzz" the device. There's still some risk, but not that much.

I don't have a Cameo Pro 4 to test, but I have reverse engineered software to control some of their other devices. It's a little janky but if you want to help I'd appreciate it!

https://robocut.org/

I believe there is (or once was) also an Inkscape plugin somewhere but I never tried it.

As for how I reverse engineered it, I just used a USB sniffer and wireshark. I don't think there's a big risk of bricking these devices - I don't think they even have non-volatile storage, so worst case you turn it off and on again.

I would like to reverse engineer my solar power inverter too, but that is definitely brickable (the first one they shipped me came pre-bricked!) and is a lot more expensive so I've had to resist. :/

Maybe it's just me and I haven't used it much, but my fairly non-technical wife has a Cricut and the few times I've wanted to use it I had absolutely no problem creating a vector in whatever program (Illustrator or Affinity Designer, IIRC) and getting it to separate the color layers and cut at the desired size.

The Electron app felt a bit weird, but I was able to accomplish the goal of cutting out my design at a desired size, so I didn't think any more about it. <shrug>

It seemed more to me that their app leans hard into getting people to buy vector designs through them, and making it easy for those who might not even understand what a "vector" graphic is, but it didn't seem to preclude me from cutting out my own stuff.

Siser machines are as consumer as you can get but still get control over them. They are more like the commercial grade ones. I have a Juliet and love it.

Could you just hook new motor controllers to the motors / puncher and add an Arduino to control it?

silhouette has a much better open source reputation if you want this type of machine. Everybody in the crafting world seems to have the circut though, and you can buy their machines (parts, supplies) all over, while I've never seen silhouette in a local store.

The last time I checked, bambu was clawing back functionality from purchased devices, with things like timebomb lockouts and blacklisting TPU.

Sure, it's a matter of degree, but I'm perfectly happy with my Elegoo. If you live in California, I suggest buying one before Sacramento's open firmware ban goes into effect.

It's a vinyl cutter. I've used those. TechShop used to have them. Theirs seem to be repurposed large-format HP plotter designs.

Vinyl cutters are good at doing one thing - cutting out patterns in vinyl or similar materials. You can make signs, stickers, and similar stuff. Some also be used as plotters. They're rather limited devices, though. At TechShop, they were not used much.

“Provo Craft contended that in order to understand and replicate this obscured protocol, Craft Edge had disassembled the DesignStudio program, contrary to the terms of its end-user license agreement, thereby (the company asserted) breaching copyright law.”

I wonder if the wireshark USB intercepts discussed in this thread would classify as ‘disassembly’?

I am very surprised that the ceo backpaddled on the limit of cloud usage that was going to force users into subscription...

He got it working, so there’s hope.