Vinyl cutter attachment for 3D printed drawing machine

I was not even completely done with my AxiDraw inspired drawing machine (aka plotter), when a friend of mine brought up the idea to use it as vinyl cutter as well, to print adhesive film letters for our model airplanes.

You find the respective plotter here:
https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/32878-drawing-machine-and-vinyl-cutter-high-precision-co

Now in this print you find a generic lever for exchangeable tool holders, and a tool holder that fits to standard vinyl cutters.

As you can see in the pictures, the whole setup is quite precise and is good for letters that are at least 20mm in size. If the font is a bit fancy, this is really the lower limit to achieve very clean results. For rather straight fonts, it should be possible to go even somewhat smaller with good results.

As the cutter requires a certain amount of force to push it into the film, about 50-60g of weight is required on the tool. I have used 10 pieces of 5g metal weights with double sided tape, as they are used for model flying planes to correct the center of gravity or for balancing car tires. You can glue whatever you want of about that weight on the plate of the tool.

As with all vinyl cutter machines, you will need a bit of patience to peel of the film around the letters.

Have fun and feel free to post pictures of whatever crazy picture or text you might cut!

Print instructions

Printed with the uploaded .3mf setup on a Prusa i3 Mk3S, using PETG in silver grey from DasFilament.de.