This.
A few years ago, I bought a first generation desktop CNC machine. It worked about one time out of 10. Most of my time with it was spent cracking it open to troubleshoot stuff. Tech support was great for this kind of thing- One time a piece was stuck, they told me to “give it a couple whacks with a hammer”, and another time, I had to replace a wiring harness which they charged a VERY reasonable price for- less than it would have cost me to scratch build one.
I kind of like doing that stuff, but I bought this machine for some specific uses- Which I literally never got around to. I think it ended up being used a half dozen times and then sitting in my basement or storage locker for the next 5 years. NOT A GOOD USE OF CLOSE TO $2k I PLANNED TO USE TO BUILD MY BUSINESS.
A couple months ago, I bought a Cricut, despite the bad reviews about locked-down cloud-based software, expensive accessories, a penchant for suing people who try to jailbreak their machines, and everything else I hate about proprietary tech. I’ve used it over and over, it does EXACTLY what I need it to do, and it’s cut my time for stencil cutting down by like 80%. I’m doing all kinds of great new artwork because of it. This literally translates to money in my pocket.
I used to build robots and race RC cars- If I got back into that, you’d better believe I’d be all over hacking and reconfiguring every bit of their hardware and software. My phone, though, I just need to fucking work the way it’s supposed to.
Here’s what I’m doing with my Cricut, BTW:
