Tmo writes – “This is a simple XY style paper cutting tool marketed to scrapbookers. It seems ripe for hacking to rapid prototyping of parts or circuit etching.” – Link.
12 thoughts on “XYRONÂ smart cutting – rapid prototyping?”
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Interesting. Too bad it’s pink. That’d have to be the first mod. Can of spray paint.
You might be better off using a CraftRobo. It is more expensive ($350 vs $200) but the CraftRobo connects to a PC already and there is an Illustrator Bridge between CS2 and the CraftRobo software.
Unless of course the modding and hacking is your primary interest. The interface for the Xyron gadget comes in the form of a book where the spine of the book has the connector and the pages lay across buttons on the cutter. Basically it is like the Leap Pad devices… depending which book you plug in, the buttons represent different commands. They are all cut on a 4×4″ surface and you cannot alter where on the paper they cut.
CraftRobo uses a letter-sized cutting table and registration marks to determine the location of the cuts. I would be very interested to see what people can do to the Xyron machine though. a friend just loaned me hers and I am only a wannabe modder.
You might be better off using a CraftRobo. It is more expensive ($350 vs $200) but the CraftRobo connects to a PC already and there is an Illustrator Bridge between CS2 and the CraftRobo software.
Unless of course the modding and hacking is your primary interest. The interface for the Xyron gadget comes in the form of a book where the spine of the book has the connector and the pages lay across buttons on the cutter. Basically it is like the Leap Pad devices… depending which book you plug in, the buttons represent different commands. They are all cut on a 4×4″ surface and you cannot alter where on the paper they cut.
CraftRobo uses a letter-sized cutting table and registration marks to determine the location of the cuts. I would be very interested to see what people can do to the Xyron machine though. a friend just loaned me hers and I am only a wannabe modder.
Note that Xyron personal cutter has a secret usb port in the back.
http://community.xyron.com/forums/189/ShowPost.aspx
http://community.xyron.com/forums/189/ShowPost.aspx
“the company rumor is that it will work with fonts and more on the computer begining in the fall (much like a wishblade).”
Well, I’ve managed to pick one up for £25 UKP (about $40 USD) so it’s ripe for hacking rather than pulling apart something more than double that price.
Very simple inside, ATMega64, couple of motor drivers, FET (I guess for blade up/down), and 7805 regulator, plus a few discretes. Designers were even thoughtful enough to put pin headers for ISP and JTAG.
Regarding external interfacing, there is a USB socket on there, but as the ATMega64 has no native USB support, it looks like they were planning on using bit bang USB, but never implemented it. There are also pads for a serial port and level shifter chip, but these are unpopulated, and seem to share the same data lines with the USB, depending on which jumpers are ‘blobbed’. I shall have to try fitting an external level shifter and poke it with some serial data and see what it does.
I guess that as this is such a simple design, it would make an ideal experimentation platform, I’d even go as far as to say, one could probably wipe Xyron’s code off the chip and implement one’s own software, based on an open source CNC/fabbing machine (seems to be quite a few out there).
But first, it’s going to need a paint job :)
6 years later but worth a shot…
I found one of these in a thrift and have the same look of the board. Mine is titled the Xyron Personal Cutting System. This patent application> looks like the same device and the booklets I got bundled with it.
Before I put a USB-TTL cable to the pins, I was wondering if you (or anyone else) had any success in talking to the bugger.
Someone wrote replacement firmware for a Cricut machine’s board, which is based on an Atmel128. I figure a port of that to the Xyron may be possible if commanding it via serial proves futile.