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After months of experimenting, I've finally found the right combination of machine, paper, and software to automatically cut music box strips, rather than having to punch the holes by hand. This process utilizes a consumer-level Cricut cutting machine. I've made a tutorial video that walks you through the process:
I was inspired by previous Wintergatan attempts, but this approach is much cleaner, more user friendly, and even incorporates the Cricut's drawing function to decorate the music box strips. I'm happy to answer any questions, if you have them.
Whoa! Such a great video 👏 The DXF output format hasn't been very popular among our users, but with the insights that you shared in the video we'll consider improving it. By the way, your youtube channel is awesome - high quality content. Looking forward to seeing more videos from you!
Awesome stuff! I was using a similar method with my Cricut, but it was incredibly jury-rigged via a Photoshop output (poor hole-cut quality, too). Your Illustrator steps are definitely helpful; I'll give this another look after whipping up a test!
My husband wrote a python program that takes the output from dxf files downloaded here and converts it to an svg file that can be directly used in Cricut Design Space to cut. I'm encouraging him to share it more widely, because it is really a great tool.
Ah I see you've already posted it here! The forum won't let me post the link here but for anyone find this you can search for "Automate Conversion of 30-note DXF files to Cricut Cutting files" or see shoshanaz's recent comments
Great Tool, by the way time had made things to evolve. Have you tried with Cricut Maker 3 or Explore 3? Seems they can cut up to 3.6 mts without a mat.
The latest Cricut can indeed cut long materials without a mat, but only the "smart" materials that Cricut sells. None of those are appropriate for a music box, especially if you plan to inkjet print on top of them (as I do now). If anyone else experiments and gets it to work, please share your progress!
Hey! Thanks for the video, it was very helpful on my music box journey. To improve the process of cricutting music box music, I wrote a bit of code that may be helpful to you when cutting your strips!
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Whoa! Such a great video 👏 The DXF output format hasn't been very popular among our users, but with the insights that you shared in the video we'll consider improving it. By the way, your youtube channel is awesome - high quality content. Looking forward to seeing more videos from you!
Thanks! I never used the DXF format either, until I got a Cricut... now it's all I use!
Awesome stuff! I was using a similar method with my Cricut, but it was incredibly jury-rigged via a Photoshop output (poor hole-cut quality, too). Your Illustrator steps are definitely helpful; I'll give this another look after whipping up a test!
My husband wrote a python program that takes the output from dxf files downloaded here and converts it to an svg file that can be directly used in Cricut Design Space to cut. I'm encouraging him to share it more widely, because it is really a great tool.
^ would definitely appreciate if that script can be shared here or added to a public repository like Github!
Ah I see you've already posted it here! The forum won't let me post the link here but for anyone find this you can search for "Automate Conversion of 30-note DXF files to Cricut Cutting files" or see shoshanaz's recent comments
May I ask how did you print the beautiful artwork on the strips? Thanks!
Great Tool, by the way time had made things to evolve. Have you tried with Cricut Maker 3 or Explore 3? Seems they can cut up to 3.6 mts without a mat.
The latest Cricut can indeed cut long materials without a mat, but only the "smart" materials that Cricut sells. None of those are appropriate for a music box, especially if you plan to inkjet print on top of them (as I do now). If anyone else experiments and gets it to work, please share your progress!
Hey! Thanks for the video, it was very helpful on my music box journey. To improve the process of cricutting music box music, I wrote a bit of code that may be helpful to you when cutting your strips!
https://github.com/aarushbothra/midibox
It allows for different paper sizes without having to edit the dxf file, and more rhythmic resolution.