I would add that I have had limited success getting SCAL2 to work
reliably on a MAC. I think it is something at the hardware level
with the USB port on the MAC side. I worked with their tech support
guys forever, but we never got it working. You get connection errors
and it hangs without cutting.
I tried two different circuit machines, two USB cables and both my
IMac and MacBook. I upgraded firmware and even tried it with the PC
version of SCAL2 running under Windows 7 by dual booting the
MacBook. Is anyone else using SCAL2 with a MAC?
You HAVE to run SCAL2 with the Cricut if you are trying to do
anything original or creative. without the SCAL2 software you are
locked into the images that are on your cartridges. If I were going
to be using a MAC to drive the Cricut, I’d want some assurance it
was going to work before making the purchase. I don’t know if this
issue is unique to me… Seems like if they sell a MAC version it
must be working for some. Their tech support is very responsive, we
just could not get it work reliably.
You can pick up a new Cricut off EBay for less than $200, but be
careful not to buy the ones that do not come with a cartridge as the
Cricut will not operate without a cartridge in place. You also have
to buy the SCAL2 software.
Sometimes I can get the thing to work and it is interesting to play
with ideas using copper to see what the results will look like before
doing the final roll printing on silver or gold. You can cut as many
identical stencils as you wish - so you don’t have to worry about
destroying your stencil playing on copper. I am going to play with
cutting stencils to use as templates for cutting keum boo foil and
custom cabochon templates. Just remember this is a little different
than traditional roll printing in that you use a “pusher” to force
the metal into the stencil. You get a raised image of the stencil
rather than an indented image as you would see in traditional roll
printing. I would highly recommend reading the aforementioned article
if you are going to try this.
Using SCAL2 you can cut stencils based on hand drawn designs by
scanning the design and converting to a SVG file and importing it
into SCAL2 for editing, resizing, duplicating etc. Wish I could get
this thing working so I could experiment.
Brent