I hate this Silhouette Cameo 3
I bought a Silhouette Cameo 3 back in 2018 because I knew that I would need it for cutting backing cards for various products in the future. I didn’t know if I’d be making those products in 2018 or 2019, but I knew that it was coming.
In 2018, I started doing small test runs of acrylic charms and keychains and found that the double-sided ones were pretty popular, but I needed time to think about what designs to put on future charms. I knew that I wanted to produce original art on them, but still needed more data. So, in January of 2020, in preparation for a large number of events that I’d booked, I ordered PILES of charms to test. And then COVID happened…
So the machine that I would have been using to make the backing cards to hold these charms sat there, unused. But I was still excited to use it! I’ve lugged it around through 3 separate moves and have been taking good care of it, leaving it boxed and even putting a cover over it whenever it’s sitting out on a work bench.
After designing about 70 charms in early 2022, I was debating whether I even needed packaging for them. But, selling at arts markets in Florida has shown me that, to prevent pollen from getting on the products, I need them in packaging. So, in February, I started to design the packaging and backing boards.
I’ve spent somewhere around 80 hours researching what kind of paper works best and how I can get the Silhouette Cameo 3 to work best for me. I read blogs, watched videos, and went through page after page of resources that I found online - both through the Silhouette’s website and on creator blogs/vlogs. What I learned is that there would be a lot of trial and error. So, I knew that it was very important to learn about the various tools and settings before I embarked on trying to cut things.
For reference, this machine is about 17” wide, 8” deep, and 6” tall. You have to have the lid open most of the time and that makes it almost 12” tall when in use. It cost about $300 when I purchased it - which was the sale price for the starter bundle which came with a cutting matte and the autoblade.
The autoblade is exactly what it sounds like: a blade that automatically adjusts to the proper setting. But this is a little deceptive. I thought that the blade or the machine might detect the weight of the paper and then make the adjustments itself. Maybe that was a bit naïve of me. What it means by “auto” is that you do not have to open the machine, pull the blade cartridge out of the holder, and manually adjust the setting to match the setting on the software. There are other blades (like the fabric, kraft, and premium blades) that require you to do this extra step. More on those in a second.
So, in March, I received my recycled plastic packaging from Clear Bags and my 100# black cardstock from Card Stock Cuts and was ready to get started.
I designed my backing template (the card that the keychains will hang from) in Affinity Photo and then imported that to the Silhouette software. After some adjustments to the file, it automatically detected the edges and I should have been ready to go.
I wish I had known about the “test” button because I proceeded to “send” the cut job to the machine repeatedly as I tried to calibrate the blade and force, the two primary settings that require adjustment.
The software has some default settings and I relied on those as well as the blogs, vlogs, and Silhouette website. Every resource indicated that cardstock should be cut at a blade depth of 7 and a force of 33. They all recommended starting there and working upward - not downward.
If you’re unfamiliar with “blade depth” and “force”, don’t worry. I was too. Basically, “blade depth” refers to how deep the blade will cut (how much it is sticking out from the bottom of the cartridge) and “blade force” refers to how hard the printer head will push down. The goal is to balance these two settings so that the blade is not cutting into the cutting matte but is also cutting cleanly through and not tearing the paper.
This is challenging and results in a ton of material and blade waste. Every time the blade is too deep, it damages the blade almost exponentially because it’s having to use significant force (maybe more force than what you told it to use!) to get through the plastic cutting matte. And this dulls the blade. Given that Silhouette advertises that the Cameo 3 can cut balsa wood and small plastics, I did not think that the trial and error I was doing would make that big of a difference in the life of the blade.
It did.
As I tried to get the machine to properly cut the paper, it ripped it, scathed it, tore it to the point that the paper shredded, and would even pull the paper off of the matte and mess up the cut job. No matter what I did, these issues happened every fourth or fifth page I tried to cut. I thought it was an issue with the tacky surface of the matte, so I even tried cutting them without the matte underneath (as some blogs had suggested) and that resulted in damage to the machine itself. Fortunately, this damage has not perpetuated any problems from what I can tell, it’s just a small knick. Even the matte itself kept grabbing my paper and shredding it, resulting in pulp all over the cutting matte that had to be cleaned off between each cut. For a machine that is supposed to be able to cut through wood, vellum, and glitter paper… I’m shocked that the matte was destroying the paper.
Based on what I read online (and on Silhouette’s site) and the recommended settings in the Silhouette program, I did not think that dropping the blade depth below a 7 would result in a better cut. Instead, I tried increasing it because most resources suggested that I wasn’t giving it enough force or I wasn’t selecting a deep enough blade. None suggested to go the opposite direction with both settings!
So I managed to cut 200 pages of a pulpy 100# cardstock before the major problems started. For reference, I did this with a blade depth of 7 - 9 at a force of 33, 2 passes, speed 1, and cross-cut corners (which makes for easier removal). There are four backing cards per 8.5x11” cardstock with 3 “windows”, two of which are circles.
Another reason I purchased this machine was so that I could offer smaller prints. I created templates in Affinity Photo to cut out 6x6” and 5x7” prints from an 11x17” cardstock (120#) from my print vendor, Cat Print. I have yet to get a good cut on these. Maybe I need to invest in the larger Silhouette cutting matte instead of feeding them through without it. Regardless… the paper rotated, tore, ripped, shredded, and the blade still cut too deep (I think!).
So, to do the math…
Total 8.5x11” 100# Pulpy Cardstock Sheets: 50
Expected Backing Card Yield: 200 (4 per page)
Actual Backing Card Yield: 130~
Wasted Pages: 18
Cuts per card: 10 (actually 20 when using 2 passes)
Cuts per 8.5x11” 100# Pulpy Cardstock Sheets: 40 (actually 80)
Number of botched 11x17” pages (6x6” and 5x7” prints): 20
Estimated number of cuts on 11x17” pages: 4 (actually 8) per page, times 20 pages… 80 (actually 160)
So the total number of cuts the autoblade performed on these settings was approximately 240.
Frustrated and after losing about 20 prints, I went back to slicing my prints by hand (this takes hours and can result in unreliable print width). I still have not attempted to cut these, even after the next saga…
When it was time to prepare for MomoCon, I removed the autoblade, cleaned it, and reset it, hoping that a good cleaning would help it function better. I checked online for any way that I could try to calibrate the machine, but there wasn’t much information.
So I tried cutting the same 100# pulply 8.5x11” cardstock and immediately had issues. The pages were turning, the blade was cutting even deeper into the matte, and I lost about 10 pages to test runs.
I started using the test button during this run, but I still had to keep cutting down page after page to test pages with the test. Nothing was working.
So I went back to the internet and that’s when I decided to try out the premium blade. I read a number of recent reviews talking about the autoblade’s shortcomings and all of them resonated with me. So, I purchased the premium blade for $22 and lost 3 days of production while I waited for it to arrive from Amazon. I was hoping to avoid store markups and gas prices by doing this, but it turns out that it was actually cheaper at the store!
Once it arrived, I seated it and had no luck with it. No matter what I did, it kept cutting at the same depth. It even ruined my cutting matte once and for all by slicing holes in it. Frustrated, I went to the store to get Exacto knives so I could just cut the darn things myself, by hand! I was that upset!
When I got to the stores (yes, I went to multiple), there weren’t many options for punch cutters that would work for my project, nor did I think that I could get reliable cuts with the Exacto knives. So, back to the Silhouette area I went.
I grabbed an autoblade from the wall, deciding that, if the autoblade at least worked for the initial run, maybe the one I had was too dull and needed to be replaced. So, replacing it seemed reasonable. I grabbed the only autoblade on the shelf. It was adjacent to the Cameo 3 in the shop. I also got a new cutting matte. Another $40 spent on this machine. As a back-up, I grabbed two Friskars Exacto knives of varying sizes. I’ll probably have to return these later.
When I got home, I realized that the autoblade I’d purchased was for the Cameo 4 and would not fit in my machine. Wonderful.
Trace helped me call some stores (because now I only had about 1 hour before they closed and two days to finish my work for Momo) and he found me a Cameo 3 autoblade about 20 minutes away. So I went and got that one. Another $20 spent on this machine.
I got it home and…
The autoblade wouldn’t adjust.
No matter what I did, it wouldn’t work. I had to manually adjust the autoblade to get it to cut and, even then, the settings seemed backwards! I started at the 7 blade depth and it immediately damaged the cutting matte. I was livid! Trace helped me troubleshoot it and we discovered that the autoblade couldn’t adjust properly because the cartridge head was no longer properly positioned. To reset it, I had to turn off the machine and move the cartridge head from left to right three times and then seat it on the right. Then, I had to turn on the machine.
This worked. This actually worked.
I did a large number of test cuts starting with blade depth 2 and working up to blade depth 5.
At blade depth 3 with a force of 33, the machine was not quite cutting all the way through the paper.
At blade depth 4 with a force of 26, it was just about cutting through, but was less reliable. Blade depth 4 with a force of 28 somewhat worked.
The settings that have worked the best are:
Blade Depth: 4
Force: 30
Speed: 1
Crisscross Corner Cut: On
Passes: 2
I think I could get away without the second pass and a higher speed, but I just don’t want to fiddle with it anymore and lose anymore time. I have now spent well over 100 hours dealing with this machine and have arrived at the conclusion that, while it’s good for one-off arts and crafts, the peripherals come at too high of a premium and, because they are designed to depreciate quickly, are not good for small business owners who need a high-capacity machine. The machine is too slow, too loud, and too finicky to be reliable for small business owners. I would not recommend it.
Had laser cutters been more affordable back when I purchased the Silhouette Cameo 3, I would have purchased one. However, they were about $300 - $500 more for the low end ones that would not have been large enough to cut 11x17” paper. Now, however, there are several affordable laser machines that seem well-reviewed and well loved that cost around the same amount as the Silhouette. In fact, I could argue that they are less expensive because they do not require the user to purchase $100+ of peripherals after let’s just say 500 cuts through a medium-thickness paper.
I plan to make a YouTube video for this, but time is really short, so I thought I’d at least drop this information here. If you’d like to see a video about it, my Patreon supports my video tutorials and gives you the opportunity to request videos and more detailed information about various things that I do - like troubleshooting this stupid cutting machine! LOL
So… long story short… even if the internet and the official site tells you to start at a blade depth… start at 1 and work your way up. Use the test button always!!!
