I've been eyeballing Cricut machines for a few years now, but it was mostly for stickers for my own use and the cost just couldn't be justified.
However, last Sunday I found a faulty Cricut on eBay, put an offer out and it arrived on Wednesday for a total of £35 (including postage).
When plugging the power lead in, the power button briefly shows red and the cutter lights up, but then it all immediately dies. I figured I'd need to get to the power connect to check the state of the connect and the PCB - perhaps there was a short.
After a lot of screws and jiggling to release plastic covers, I eventually made it to the motherboard, which, on first inspection looked entirely clean.
Looking closer though, the DC barrel connector had a small crack. When I prodded the connector, I could see it was moving, and in fact the positive leg was broken and no longer connected to the motherboard.
My guess is that it was plugged in, someone snagged the power cable but the lead didn't remove, instead breaking the DC barrel connector and tearing it out of the motherboard.
Some careful soldering and lot of replacement of screws and I now have a working Cricut. Tidy.
