Best Vinyl Cutter – Buying Guide Top-7

Do I need a vinyl cutter?

Which vinyl cutter is best suited for me?

Which is the best budget vinyl cutter?
First off, you need to have a basic idea about the terminologies and jargons related to the vinyl cutters including the speed, force, contour cutting and media width. This is necessary, in part, because it gives you an estimate about which vinyl cutter is best suited to your needs and what are you actually looking for. Ignore this fact, and you might end up getting an absolutely wrong vinyl cutter costing you a hefty amount of your hard-earned money. You surely do not want that to happen. Do you?

Taking you head on, here is a collection of our shortlisted Vinyl cutters from which you can choose the best one according to your needs.

How to choose Vinyl cutters

 

Our Recommendations:

Best All round model: Cricut Explore Air

Top vinyl cutter for big projects: Vinyl Cutter USCutter

Best Effective cutter: Silhouette America Curio

Top Work Station: Roland GS-24 Vinyl Cutter

Best Economic Vinyl cutter: Silhouette SILHOUETTE

Best Compact Vinyl cutter: Silhouette Portrait 2

Leading Smart cutting Machine: Cricut Maker

 

The Vinyl Cutter top – 7

1). Cricut Explore Air – Cricut Explore Air 2 Mint

This vinyl cutter is on top in our list of the top vinyl cutters and it has good reasons to be. The Cricut Explore Air 2 Mint can flawlessly cut about a hundred different types of materials that include faux leather, HTVs (heat transfer vinyl), adhesive foils, specialty papers, poster boards, premium vinyl, cardstock, iron-on and many more.

By using Cricut’s free design software ‘Design Space’ you can upload or create your own designs and logos and bring your imaginations to a reality. What vinyl cutter would be better than the one that gives a boost to your creativity right?

With its dual carriage housing technology, this product allows you to write, cut or score in just a single step. For starting your vinyl cutter for the first time you can visit www.cricut.com/setup and follow the easy steps to get yourself going to the amazing first-hand experience of joy and bliss brought to you by this amazing product.

Once you go on and buy a Cricut Explore Air 2 Mint, you become a part of its worldwide community of crafters, experts and DIY freaks on various social media platforms where you can get all the tricks and tips and experts’ advice on how to use these vinyl cutters like a pro and step up your game. So you need not to worry if you are just a newbie in this field and are intimidated by the thought of taking the first step.

What Comes in The Box?

• A Cricut Explore Air 2 Mint machine.
• Cricut ‘Design Space’ software and app.
• German carbide premium blade.
• Accessory adapter.
• USB cord and power cord.
• 100+ free images and 50+ free projects.
• A pen and cardstock sample.
• Cricut 12×12 inches standard grip cutting mat.

Features you should must know

• 14 pounds weight.
• 24 x 9.5 x 9.5 inches dimensions.
• 1-year warranty.
• About 2 times faster cutting than the previous models.
• Serenity blue, rose and mint colour varieties.
• Dual carriage housing technology.
• Noise level is very acceptable.
• Number of materials more then 100.
• Offer wireless connectivity.
• Cutting feature and drawing feature both available here.

 

Conclusion

Because of its fast mode ability, it works quite fast in comparison to other vinyl cutters. This machine poses the skill to cut pretty much anything you can thing about ranging from steel, cardstock leather and all other materials. It also offers the elasticity you might need to make your craft finer details and highlight details of your craft.

 

 

2). Vinyl Cutter USCutter – vinyl cutter uscutter mh 34in bundle

Next up in our list of Top vinyl cutters is the mighty Vinyl Cutter US Cutter MH-34in Bundle for all the good reasons. This vinyl cutter works with Vinyl Master and other software including Sure Cuts Alot, Flexi, Sign Blaster and Sign Cut Productivity Pro. From logo designing to sign making and T-shirt printing, the US Cutter MH-34in Bundle can help you boost you home-based business in designing and vinyl cutting.

With a maximum force of about 350 g and a maximum cutting speed of 35 inches per second, this vinyl cutter has got what it takes to make it to the list of the best available vinyl cutters.

Motor type

A stepper motor type is installed in this cutter and talking specifically it can cut materials including standard vinyl, HTV (Heat Transfer Vinyl), cardstock, paint mask, paper and craft paper. However, it has its shortcomings as well being unable to cut materials like tint, sand blast resist, laminate, low-intensity reflective, unlinered media and high-intensity reflective. So, you need to keep this in mind before you bring this masterpiece home.

This unit might not be able to cut out the most intricate of detailed decals but it would surely surpass your expectations and give you the full value for money. As a plus point, you are also offered a large amount of vinyl in this bundle that would act as a cherry on the top. If you properly get to learn how to use this awesome machine, it is going to act like a workhorse for you.

If you are just a beginner and want to jump in to get your feet wet in vinyl cutting business, this is the best option for you that goes light on your pocket and yet delivers the maximum output one can expect. Note that the prices of the vinyl cutters can go as high as ten thousand USD for the very nice ones. Bearing that in mind, Vinyl Cutter US Cutter MH-34in Bundle proves to be the most cost effective and yet a durable and efficient vinyl cutter.

What Comes in The Box?

• 1x 34 inches US Cutter MH Series Vinyl Cutter 1x stand.
• 1x Vinyl Master Cut-Design & Cut Software.
• 2 x sheets 12 x 14 inches magnetic blanks.
• 1 x hobby knife.
• 1 x squeegee.

Features you should must know

• 9 pounds weight.
• Vinyl Master Cut (Basic Edition) software.
• Maximum cutting length: 96 inches.
• Motor-type: stepper.
• Blade types: Standard blade compatible.
• Maximum speed: 39 inches per second.
• Perform excellent job creating vector and outlines.
• Offer more then 100 fonts and tools to choose from.
• Design own image by using vector graphics.
• Maximum cutting width: 30.63 inches.

 

Conclusion

USCutter MH consider as of the affordable and excellent performer vinyl cutter machine available in the market. This machine is giving quite a strong competition to the other vinyl cutter available in the market. This machine software offers its user a maximum level of competence and worth to its buyers. It considers as perfect option for the business use and surf to many other potential buyers out there.

3). Silhouette America Curio – Silhouette America

Curio is surely making its way to international markets by offering attractive features and durability in its vinyl cutters. It has rapidly gained the attention of consumers from all over the world and proven itself to be one of the best in its own way. These are the very reasons it has made its way to our lists of Top vinyl cutters. The Silhouette America Curio gives you the feelings of power by cutting its way through materials as thick as two millimetre.

This feature of course requires a thicker clearance and curio offers a five millimeters clearance to make the feeding of thicker materials easy. The Silhouette America Curio is backed up by Silhouette Studio and Silhouette Design Store software.

If you are wondering whether this machine can replace your previously owned Cameo machine or not, it cannot. It actually complements your Cameo machine which boasts a cutting width of 12 inches. The Silhouette American Curio also does not allow matless cutting and you also cannot cut rolled materials like vinyl. You might be wondering by now what makes the Curio so good as to be placed in the list of top vinyl cutters despite its shortcomings. Well, do not be too quick to judge. Here’s what this machine can do.

Deep Cutting

It can perform deep cutting, metal and foil stippling, embossing, metal etching, scoring and embossing and printing and embossing. Think about all the wonderful projects you can complete using all these marvelous features and your creativity will know no bounds. Just like the Cricut Explore Air 2 Mint, the Silhouette America Curio also has dual carriage technology.

If you use a fabric stabilizer, this machine can also cut fabric. With its feature of stippling, you can create various patterns of dots and really step up your game. However, the maximum cutting force of this machine is about 210g under normal operating conditions.

All in all, if you have some money that you want to invest, you might want to consider buying both Silhouette America Curio and Silhouette America Cameo for an altogether heavenly experience in vinyl cutting business.

What Comes in The Box?

• 1 x Silhouette America Cario cutting machine.
• Standard blade with ratchet cap.
• A fine embossing tip.
• A wide embossing tip.
• An 8.5 inches base with 3 platforms.
• 1 embossing mat.
• 1 cutting mat.
• Material fasteners.
• Print and emboss squares.
• Silhouette software.
• USB cable and power cord.

Features you should must know

• 5 pounds weight.
• Silhouette studio and silhouette design store software.
• Maximum clearance: 5 millimetres.
• Embossing feature enabled.
• Stippling feature enabled.
• Up to 2 millimetres deep cutting.
• 5 mm clearance.
• Offer built-in storage.
• You can use full throttle to discover creativity.
• Software works without internet connection.

 

Conclusion

This machine provides its user such a versatile feature like emboss, sketch, stipple and much more. Silhouette curio machine take over the entire crafting world by storm with offering such features for its user. This machine also come with a double carriage letting you to emboss and perform other numerous tasks like cutting and outlining both at the same time. This model does have a learning curve.

 

4). Roland GS-24 Vinyl Cutter – Roland Vinyl Cutter

On number four in our list of Top vinyl cutters is the renowned Vinyl Cutter by the name of Roland GS-24 . This is unarguably the most reliable and versatile vinyl cutter. In this machine, Roland has completely redesigned the cutting carriage and blade holder making it Roland’s best desktop cutter.

It also offers a 40% increased downforce and greater stability to help you complete unique projects and give boost to your home-based or industrial setup business. With a maximum force of 350g, you can easily cut through denser substrates.

Well, this Vinyl Cutter knows no bounds when it comes to designing magnetic applications for your refrigerators or vehicle ornaments. It can cut through a number of thick materials including HTV (heat transfer vinyl), card stock, vinyl and many more. With its feature of overlap cutting you can bring great ideas in your mind to life by just a few customization.

Not only this, Roland GS-24 Vinyl cutter also offers you perforated cutting and cutting by line colour making the once complicated projects much easier. What else would you ask of a vinyl cutter apart from being able to help you see your imaginations turn into reality.

T-shirt Business

If you are into T-shirt designing business, this vinyl cutter might prove to be the best choice for you as there are thousands of satisfied users of this product booming into this field with the help of this machine. The included Roland Cut Studio software has been designed to ease your way to customization and designing of various projects which eventually leads to higher productivity and profits. Position, resize, mirror and rotate images are a few features that are offered to you by this software.

Think about all the possibilities and new horizons presented before you by this machine and its included software. You can also cut true type fonts without having to outline them.

If you are someone that does not give ample time to maintenance and care of the machine, you can rely completely on this machine as it has proved to be a very robust machine and delivers maximum output even if you ignore it’s time to time care.

What Comes in The Box?

• 1 x Roland GS-24 Vinyl cutter.
• User’s manual.
• Power cord.
• 1 x USB cable.
• Material fasteners.
• Roland Cut Studio software.

Features you should must know

• Excellent for the purpose of cutting vinyl, sandblast material, flock.
• Ability to cut through materials like magnetic and card stock.
• 51 pounds weight.
• Cuts up to 20 inches per second.
• Roland Cut Studio software.
• 3 years warranty.
• Overlap cutting.
• Increased stability.
• Plugins available for adobe and illustrator.
• Cut studio software included with it.

 

Conclusion

Roland GS-24 is best choice for those who are looking to make small sticker/labels and large signs. This model had a feature of overlap cutting instrument with mainly improves workflow and make it easy to make the expert cuts. The machine optimal speed of 20 inches per second and the GS-24 software these are some main features this machine is offering.

 

5). Silhouette SILHOUETTE – Silhouette CAMEO-3

Here we have another product from Silhouette America and it is the Silhouette Cameo 3-4T. It goes side by side with its counter-part; America Curio. It is a wireless cutting machine that presents feature like auto blade, dual carriage and studio software. If you already own a Cameo 2, this might be a good choice to upgrade your machine. Initially, there were reported a few bugs in the software, but they, however have been resolved. The reasons it is preferred over a Cameo 2 include;

Bluetooth technology, which works flawlessly and without a lag

Auto blade, which prevents you ruin your cut strip if you forget to set the blade and cut vinyl with the blade still being set to cardstock.

Dual carriage, which makes it easy to carry on with your projects without having to stop the machine and replace the blades with a pen.

Touchscreen. which has also been improved as compared to the Cameo 2.

Cutting mats

The Silhouette Cameo 3 can also cut up to 100 materials including vinyl, paper, cardstock and fabric measuring up to 12 inches in width. It also cuts 2 millimetre thick materials and has good clearance. If you do not own cutting mats, you need not to worry because this product has got you covered by its matless cutting feature.

You will no longer worry to lose your accessories including your blades because this product also offers an additional storage in the form of various compartments to keep your precious belongings.

You still want more of this product?

Well the Silhouette America Cameo 3 brings you the latest PixScan technology in its cutting system by which you can cut along an already printed design and you can even use your mobile phone or tab for this purpose. As a plus point over all the already mentioned machines. this one is also MAC compatible.

What Comes in The Box?

• 1 x Silhouette Cameo 3 wireless cutting machine.
• Silhouette Studio software.
• Power cable.
• USB cable (MAC compatible).
• 12 x 12 inch cutting mat.
• Auto blade (self-adjusting blade).
• Vinyl crosscutter.
• Blade Adjustment tool.
• Cutting blade.

Features you should must know

• 51 exclusive designs.
• MAC compatible.
• Bluetooth technology.
• PixScan technology.
• Up to 100 materials cutting ability.
• 2 millimetres clearance.
• Matless cutting ability.
• Auto blade.
• Dual carriage.
• Increased storage in compartments.
• 6 pounds weight.
• Silhouette Studio software.

 

Conclusion

Silhouette-SILHOUETTE machine has a boast automatic blade setting complete with a double bearing. This machine is capable of handling cutting and the writing parts in just one step. With the purchase of the machine you are going to get the community support which is most treasured wisdom of the people already using this machine and the access of readymade design form their store.

 

6).Silhouette Portrait 2 – Electronic Cutting Tool 

Silhouette is a perfect for the beginners to start their journey into the world of vinyl crafting. Smooth easy to carry this machine is required a litter space to put on and perform crafting. But with it benefits the drawbacks of this machine are there to this machine will limit you project size. This machine support cutting 8-niche wide sheets this the best machine for the making decals and labels.

This machine is one of the most long-lasting and inexpensive this machine is going to be on your side for at least years to come. It has an 8- inch cutting mat and auto blade which perform its work cleanly and well in the small complicated design. With silhouette deep cut blade, you can cut through thr materials up to the 2 millimetre thick and it sold separately too.

In adding to a Bluetooth connector, the cutter comes with the silhouette studio software and with 50 different high-class designs to choose from. The maker of this machine also offers one-month subscription for design store. With the features like print and cut Silhouette allows you to create a design with Silhouette software and print it on the sheet.

Pixscan technology

And further you can feed the printer design into cutter which scan the design and cut it out. Pixscan technology allows to scan and cut your own images too. Silhouette ranked as 2 with in the top five vinyl cutters and 5^th and top 10 in different surveys conducted by the forum.

What’s in the box?

• 1 x 8″ (A4) Standard Tack Cutting Mat.
• Silhouette Studio Software (Basic Edition).
• Free One-Month Subscription To The Silhouette Design Store.
• 50 Free Digital Designs.
• Power Cable , USB Cable , 3 Pin UK Plug.
• Full UK Technical Support.
• 2 Year UK Warranty.
• Bluetooth adapter.
• 1 x Silhouette Auto Blade

Features You should must know

• Perfect choice for small or limited work spaces.
• Compatible with windows and Mac both operating system.
• Wireless Bluetooth connectivity available.
• Lightweight portable digital cutting instrument.
• Makes die cut shapes a lot easier.
• Auto blade adjustment.
• PixScan compatibility for print and cut jobs.
• Convenient enough for the home office and classroom use.
• Connect to computer via USB cable or Bluetooth.
• Ability to cut through materials up to 8-inch-wide and 10 feet long.

 

Conclusion

Silhouette Portrait 2 is a best choice of the newbies. This machine is an excellent choice for the individual use. It’s just works like a home printer and compatible with PC or Mac Computers too. An Outstanding instrument for the DIY aficionados this machine come with an auto adjustable blades and have the capacity to cut through more than 100 materials.

 

7). Cricut Maker – Vinyl Cutter

The Circuit maker comes with expansible collection of tools and with rotary knife blades. This vinyl cutter is manufactured in way that it can cut range of different materials from paper to fabric and leather. This vinyl cutter offers you choice to navigate into a wide range of projects which includes vinyl labels, paper crafting, irons-ons, leather crafts and sewing projects.

The powerful knife blade mostly sold separately able to slide through the heavier materials and makes it easy for the user to tackle sewing quilting many other projects. The adaptive tool system controls blade course of action automatically for the better and improved precision while cutting the materials.

Professional Cutter

Circuit maker considers the professional cutter which gives the top-quality performance in all the areas of this cutter. This machine is also perfect in making the razor-sharp creases of the materials. The other products for this machine also included washable fabric pen for creating design on pieces knife blade for cutting requirement this machine offers up to 2.4 mm cutting range. This machine comes with its own application, in this way you can lay out the project on your computer (PC), laptop and mobile and also provide the feature of importing design from the outside.

The circuit maker supported all the common media format. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner or an expert in this field. A Cloud storage is available so in any situation you are not going to run out of storage in this machine. For the working of this machine a high-speed internet is required to-do so. And if you don’t have any internet or might facing some internet issues then this machine also performs offline with the use of IOS design space application. It is easy to choose the proper settings with just couple of touches and your machine is ready go.

What’s in the box?

• Rotary Blade & Drive Housing
• Premium Fine Point Blade + Housing
• Cricut Maker Smart Cutting Machine
• 25 Sewing Patterns & Materials
• Design Apps (Windows, Mac, IOS, Android)
• Two 12” x 12” Cutting Mats
• Fine Point Pen
• USB Cable and Power Adapter
• 50 Free Ready-to-Make Projects

Features You should must know

• Design space application for PC and Mac iOS devices.
• Comes with a German carbide first-class blade.
• Almost 50 ready to make projects and 25 sewing machine packed up.
• With the help of 4 unique pens you can create your own font.
• One of those machines which is great on precision.
• Build-in rotary blade.
• Time saver get job done in 15 minutes or less than that.
• Can slice up to 2.4 mm thick material.
• Tool system that controls the direction of blade.
• First-class fine point blade and housing.

 

Conclusion

The Cricut maker is toughest machine currently available in the market. That is way this machine is best all-around vinyl cutter. On internet there are Nemours sites and feedback customers mentioned it how easy the process of program this machine. And people seemed to be very satisfied and happy with the gliding and rolling action and with the improved rotary blade of this machine.

 

 

Final Thought

Before buying Vinyl cutter machine you first need to observe search and try to find your requirements your need before making the decision of buying or choosing any Vinyl cutter. We have tried to cover 7 different Vinyl cutter machines through our article available in the market for the purchasing purpose. And each of these machines are good or bad respectively because of features and options each machine offers its customer. You need to identify you need and then go for that machine which suits your need and requirements

Through this article you are going to get the insight of each of the machine which we have cover in this article. Read this article carefully the mentioned features and things these each of these machines are different from other and offer different features to cater the customers.

I am going to give you a little insight of which machine is perfect for you under such circumstance but still you need to see your requirements and needs and then go for the purchasing decision. According to our judgement the Circuit Explore Air 2 this machine is a perfect machine in the top Vinyl cutter machines available in market. The capability to deliver its customer extraordinary cutting power and still remain debauched and precise is the main reason this machine able to attract a lot of eyes over the period of time since its launch.

There is another machine which we really liked during our review on vinyl cutter machine. And that machine is The Circuit maker this is honestly a good machine due to its cutting power extensive pattern library and revolutionary rotary blade among the reason that’s machine attract to much audience since its launch.

 

How to Practice a Vinyl Cutter?

In this section, We am going to tell you to step by step guidelines for using the vinyl cutting machine and much more. Here we are going to divide the section 4 main point for the convince of yours.

1. First, you need to choose the design on which you are going to work on. Here you have two options in this regard. Some cutters have integrated software that helps you to choose a design on the or handsome cutters that provides you a feature to upload design into the machine. And in selecting the fonts you have a similar choice to select it from the machine otherwise upload it.
2. Second, you need to choose your design font/border and the outline of your design. Select these according to your choice and preference
3. In the third step, you need to load the sheet and set cartridge and load the material on which you want to print your design. The pressure and depth of the machine based upon the properties of the material you are using. And in the automatic machine, this feature is built-in and the machine is going to set automatically and deal with these settings.
4. By doing all of these steps mention up there. Then you are ready to go and print your design. For this purpose, you just need to start your machine and sit back and see the work getting done. And this the sheet bearing your design come out of the machine and you can collect your sheet by using a spatula or other pick up tools.

This is the whole process of using vinyl cutter a step by step guide to help you make your vinyl experience more wonderful and excellent.

We hope this helps…!!!

 

How to clean a Vinyl cutting machines?

In most of the cases the Vinyl cutter machines don’t required any great effort of maintenance or in fact on a regular base. But still depending upon the environment in which you using the Vinyl cutter or on place where you put your Vinyl or on which type of materials you are using on it might need a cleaning of cartridge. And after a certain number of cutter usage you have to clean the cutting mat on the consistent bases.

First Cartridge Cleaning and second Mat Cleaning there are two important parts which need cleaning depending upon the usage of the machine cleaning can be performed on regular bases or on the weekly bases. First of all, I would like to take about the Cartridge cleaning there is a gap between the cartridge nose and blade of the machine. Its need to clean depending upon the usage of the machines and the materials usage too. Second is Mat cleaning You use verity of different things to clean it such: as wash it with soap and dry the mat before using it, Use alcohol or bleach for cleaning purpose.

There are some glue/paste elimination fluids available in the market like Googone and many other for cleaning purpose of the mat. With the help of blower you can also clean the inner surface of the vinyl in very five to seven months depending upon the machine usage.

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

 

Q. What is Cricut access?

A This is a paid service which is monthly or yearly subscription to the image library which offer over 30,000 non licensed images for the Cricut. And some other additional features it offers is 1000 project and more then 400 fonts to choose from. It offers in three different plans available for the customers to choose from. In come case you can get the saving on the product and its designs and shipping too.

 

Q. How does Vinyl Cutter work?

A Vinyl cutter machine mostly uses small knifes able to cut exactly outline figures into s sheet or piece of vinyl. But not issue liner knifes program in a way that they move side to side while vinyl moved under the knife. The result it produces form the cut process is the image cut into material.

 

Q. Do you need a computer to use a Cricut?

A You don’t need to purchase a whole new computer to Cricut machines. For the proper working of circuit on your computer there has mainly three minimum system requirements. Such as for circuit maker or circuit explore air 2 machine they can work on Windows MAC computer and also android or IOS devices as well.

 

Q. Can the Cricut explore AIR 2 cut wood?

A The Cricut Explore family of machine which has drag blade technology system that can move up down and even cuts side to side too. It is also quite difficult to cut through thick materials just like balsa, wood, basswood and leather.

 

Q. How long do Cricut blades last?

A Off course that is highly depend upon the way you use the blades that’s vary from person to person if you use blade roughly then surely its going to reduce the life of the blade. On the other side if someone using different blade for different materials then this thing will surly increase the life of your blade. On an average minimum of 6 to 8 months a blade long last.

 

Q. Which is better Cricut maker or air 2?

A If you only want to use machine to mainly cut out vinyl and paper Cricut Explore Air 2 is perfect fit. If you are looking to use wide variety of materials and you might love to sew and make complicated paper crafts and through this you have even more creative abilities then I’d recommend you to upgrading to the Cricut maker.

 

Q. What cricut blade cuts vinyl?

A Deep point blade is recommended for the cutting magnet, stamp materials, chipboard, foam sheets and wide range of different materials.

 

Best Vinyl Cutters