Inventables launch fear
The fear is that easel will be going subscription based
And that is was always the plan from day 1
Whenever cheap cnc’s are discussed, x- carve is always lorded for its community.
But what if you got a x-carve from the beginning then was unable to pay a monthly fee, would all the help and contributions you have made be cut off for you in the future.
Many people run their X-Carves with Gcode senders like GRBL and don’t run them off of Easel. If Easel were to go away or price some out of use, they could still run their machines with GRBL.
Many (like me) don’t even have an X-Carve, but Easel still exports perfectly good G-Code which runs just fine on my machine.
It’s hard to be Inventables. Once the X-Carve has been sold, there is little more profit to be made unless the user pays for Easel Pro or buys consumables. Meanwhile, Cricut is doing pretty well with its subscription service. If you don’t pay Cricut, you own a brick.
That would be a weird thing to hype up.
I’m thinking about buying an xcarve. I make guitars as a hobby and it would definitely allow me to make bodies and necks a lot more easily.
The question I have is about the easel software. Do you need an internet connection for it to work? Cause yeah, no internet in my shop.
(and in response to the original poster, it says the license is only for 3 years. Then you gotta renew I guess).
That’s not true. I own three circuit machines and do not pay for their subscription service.
I occasionally pay for a font or an image, but certainly do not have Cricut Bricks.
You are probably going to want to invest and learn how to use 3D software, as that is where the benefit is with cnc routers in instrument making. I don’t use Easel at all. I self taught myself cad and then used Cambam to create the gcode with 2.5 D work. Once you know how to manipulate a DXF file, there are more options to create gcode.
Have you seen the plans for building one from scratch that Highline Guitars has? I bought a set and was thinking about that, I came here because this looked like it might be an easier route to go (because I’ve never used a CNC router, so there will be a big learning curve ahead of me if I do this).
But right now I’m not sure if this machine it the way I wish to proceed if I have to modify it out of the box to do the things I wish to do.
I haven’t seen the highline guitars plan. I did build a couple cnc’s from scratch back before anything like the Shapeoko or Xcarve was available. We’re talking about 15 years ago. Knowing what I know now, I’d investigate frame rigidity, linear guides, and ball screws, as well as beefy controllers. Their new x carve pro looks pretty nice and the pre order price is pretty reasonable for what you are getting.
Looking at the highline plan, He has round supported linear bearings which are fine. Not sure what the other components are made from. Check out vxb.com as they have inexpensive linear guides.
The x carve is certainly instrument capable. I added a cnc4newbies z axis, along with TBD Riser plates and Y axis stiffeners, and lastly 9mm pulleys and belts. It boils down to how much accuracy you will be happy with. An X carve out of the box is capable of making Fender style stuff with a certain allowable tolerances. I wanted more accuracy and decided up upgrade those particular items to get it.
Flex in the Z axis is pretty noticeable on guitar body routs so a quality Z is important. My other cnc is a desktop sized K2, which is now Veloxcnc.
Check this out if you have the interest:
ahh well i was wrong
(although a small step in that direction)
"Once Cricut Craft Room is unavailable, the Cricut Mini will be unusable as it is not a standalone machine. "
Ahhh, my poor Mother in law. Oh well, the mini had a good 6 months of use for her but it’s time for Cricut to push on and make new profits from a new line of products and drop Cricut Design Space support for 8 of their existing products; Cricut Personal, Create, Expression, Expression 2, Mini, Cake, Cake Mini, and Imagine. Of course they could have created a stand alone piece of software to string the Mini along but where’s the financial gain in that.
Still, my wife likes her Cricut Maker. Hopefully it will stand the test of time like my 35 year old Roland Camm-1 vinyl cutter that still works just fine.
