Silhouette Cameo vinyl cutter

Is anyone familiar with the silhouette cameo vinyl cutters. They are made by Graphtec for the hobbyist market and cost about $250. My research has turned up very mixed reviews of the cheap chinese cutters, and I know Graphtec is one of the big two brands (along with Roland).

I'm not planning to be a professional printer, but I want to be able to cut signs and stencils for the equipment I build. The cameo will do up to 12" wide, which is plenty for my needs.

Wife had one. Bought it over the Cricut because the Silhouette was more geared to someone who created their own designs vs. someone who just wanted to buy a design.

She cut cardstock, some fabric, and some vinyl with hers. Cut quality was decent. I'm not sure how you could get it much better without actually rotating the knife in the direction of the cut. It would at least score everything that was stuck on the sheet. Like you said, 12" wide is plenty wide, and I believe it could cut infinite length.

She ended up not using hers that much and sold it to a friend. Her lack of using it was no fault of the machine.

I only mess around with the industrial stuff, but anything with roland on its always been damn good!

Above all knife wise, pays to make sure there sharp, ebay straight from china and you can save a lot over OEM and they last just as long!

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to order one from Amazon, and I'll report back on how it works out for me.

My wife has an Artistic Edge 15" that she's happy with. About $350 with software.

I'm going to necro my own thread, because I realized I never gave my promised report.

Overall I've been pleased with the Silhouette Cameo. The hardware has been rock solid for me, and phone support was good when I needed it once (because I'm blind and didn't see the giant button right in front of me labelled with exactly what I wanted to do). I am glad I bought it, and would recommend it to others who need to occasionally cut vinyl.

The weak point of the Cameo is the software. Its font handling isn't quite as good as I'd like it to be, but it gets the job done. If this ever became an issue I could upgrade the software and import files from a better piece of software.

Lessons learned:

1) There is a single drive axle on the operator side of the cutting head. When you're cutting roll vinyl, leave about 3" at the start of the roll before you start cutting. If you don't the vinyl will wrinkle as it cuts and straight lines won't be straight.

2) Silhouette makes vinyl, which is okay for stencils and such, but it's expensive and not the best. The big advantage of the Silhouette brand vinyl is that Joann Fabrics has it in stock and they're right by my shop.

3) The best vinyl I've found (that is available in 12" wide rolls) is Oracal 651. It's the highest end of Oracal's calendared vinyl. They make a better, cast vinyl called Oracal 951, but I haven't found it in 12" width.

Silhouette has since come out with a new version, the Cameo 3, but it looks like the main upgrade is carrying two knives, which wouldn't help me at all.

Thanks for the update!