Craftwell Ecraft Die Cutting Machine - My Review

I've been wanting a die cutter for a long, long time.  I finally broke down an got one.  My choice was the Craftwell Ecraft.  I read the reviews and I knew that quite a few people were having a hard time with it, but it was being sold at HSN for $199, 5 payment plan and I could return it after using it for 30 days so I decided to give it a try. I probably would have gotten the Cricut, but I discovered that they no longer supported 3rd party software that would enable me to create my own designs.  As of now, the only way to cut with the cricut is by using their very expensive cartridges or purchasing on the website with no customization other than size and placement of cut.

I went into this determined to make it work for me.  I spent a week and half cutting on it.  I must say that it chewed up a whole lot of paper.  I was able to get some acceptable cuts from it, that is if you don't mind things cutting a bit skewed and having tab chads.  This was my first die cutting machine so I didn't know if it was the machine or the paper or me.  I kept at it, but even when I got a complete cut without chewed up paper, either there were chips in the design or it was skewed.  I cut a small piece of lattice and on the left side it came out good but as I looked over to the right, the holes in the lattice got bigger and bigger and the actual lattice got smaller and smaller.  I tried everything, tabs, no tabs, inserting dashed lines in MTC to simulate tabs at various sizes.  I did find that my results were better if I used a piece of card stock for a mat (so much for a matless cutter), but in the end, unless I was cutting something from the sd card that came with it, nothing cut well.  That was a big problem for me because one main thing I wanted was to design my own patterns.  I'm not going to give any review on the software that comes with the ecraft.  I downloaded and installed it but found it lacking so never really gave it a chance.  I already had MTC and was happy with the way it works.

Despite all the trouble. I was determined to make it work for me, but then I found myself already planning for my next die cutter and one morning I realized I was already researching other die cutting machines and still within my 30 day return policy.  At that moment I decided it was going back.  I immediately got out the boxes and packed it up (a challenge in and of it's self).  I did some more research, read more reviews and ordered my KNK Zing that day.  Yes, the Zing cost twice as much ($399) and uses mats, but I realized that I was not going to be happy with the ecraft and was going to end up spending all the savings in chewed up paper anyway.

My recommendation, to be kind I will say that the ecraft is an inadequate die cutting machine. From now on I will be referring to it as the ecrap.  If you simply must try it, get it from somewhere that you can use it for a bit and still return it.  Make sure you keep all the packing and take note of how it's packed so that you can send it back.  I think the only way they are selling any of these is because people simply can't get them packed up for return.

I am very, very, very happy that I sent it back and over the top happy with my zing.  I will write a review on my KNK Zing next, but for now I will tell you that, I LOVE MY ZING that was purchased at KNKUSA.