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The Wondercutter S: A Handheld Ultrasonic Cutter That's Like a Power X-Acto Knife
You can't see/feel it vibrate, but it "breezes through an amazing array of materials"
By Rain Noe - February 12
No one likes taking 4-5 passes to get through a sheet of matboard or foamcore with an X-Acto; it's tedious, but it's also the only way to get a clean cut. However, a South Korean company called Cutra manufactures and sells the Wondercutter S, a sort of powered, ultrasonic X-Acto knife that promises to make cutting tasks easy--and can even be used to cut sheets of acrylic.
The tool oscillates some 40,000 cycles per second, but the motion is so subtle that you reportedly can't see or feel the vibrations. The action of the tool means it "breezes through an amazing array of materials," according to MicroMark, who's snapped up the North American distribution rights.
The demonstration looks good, but I wish they'd show close-ups of the cut quality:
Enter a caption (optional)
MicroMark sells the Wondercutter S for $400.
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Rain Noe
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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The Wondercutter S: A Handheld Ultrasonic Cutter That's Like a Power X-Acto Knife
That video doesn't convince me that it can cut through most of that stuff easily.
I've owned this for several years now (from Kickstarter) and I have to say it's not worth the money. My only gripe with is happens to be it's biggest crux of it's engineering, and it's just not capable of cutting the materials it's advertising. The reason why it cannot handle them is because of it's poorly designed knife and a single set screw to hold it in place. With 40k vibrations per second the blade needs to be precisely fit inside it's holder and if it's not, then it vibrates itself inside it's little slot, diminishing the affect of the ultrasonic waves. Because of this I estimate it's only able to cut at 20% capacity.
https://youtu.be/og8wFLhWP5g There are some videos online that cover this and other commercial ultrasonic cutters - seem to work well enough though there seems to be a non-negligible amount of heat from the friction that may upset some plastics - though in acrylic it might serve to heat "polish" the cut edge.