Hmmm, they now sell a set of pens to use with the Craft Robo - turning it into a regular plotter. I don't know if anyone here would find it useful, but it is interesting.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Link Looks good....

*EDIT 2* Link works for me, I don't know what's wrong....

Dead link for me

Try this. I think Craft-e may have sold out. Their links disappear when they do that....



The Auld Grump

*EDIT* The first link still works fine for me. And they have not sold out. Maybe they don't like linking for some reason, or I am loading from cache?

Works now, but didn't before. It is definitely an interesting concept.

I wonder... if you ran a print out through with the blade on and then swap the blade for a pen and ran it through again... would it edge for you? Would it actually get down in the cut line yet still get ink along the edge?

Just a thought I had when I read your post...

I've been waiting for them to do something like this.

Only a small step further and the craft-robo will do embossing! Which has to be a hit for WWG as suddenly the downloads will be able to achieve surface effects (i.e. realism) currently only achievable on preprints.

Roll on the day when we can download WWG sets with embossed textures - yeah!

These pens look ideal, just need to find a UK supplier

* EDIT * found a UK supplier www.craftsuperstore.co.uk, ordered a set and will let you know how well they perform..

Well, the pens have arived, so i'll give them a go the weekend and post results...

I had all but given up on hearing about this. I am very anxious to see how things turn out. Please report ASAP.

Well tried them out today, and they work fine..

This is the Packaging



They fit in the Craft Robo fine, except that you can't close the lid as it hits the top of the pen..



As for results, nice clean lines 0.45mm thick..



Sob

Now what happens when you run a GSD file through it with the blade mounted first but then switch to a pen and run it through again... does it actually bleed down to the edges (thus you have a robo edger)? Does any sticky gunk from the carrier sheet get on the pen and ruin them?

This is why they need to make blade-pens...

I would not think that the ink would bleed down, as they are like rolaball pens, but i'll try it out and let you know.

As for gunk, as they only touch the paper the same as the blade does, it should not happen, unless the paper/card rips, i've not had any problems, except i do make sure the pen is running smoothly before fitting it, as the ink sometimes does not flow straight away.

They should make marker versions instead of just ball-penstyle...maybe someone could rig up a setup with those mini-sharpies.

There is a pen holder available for it...So it would not be a problem to set it up with markers...But...I can see that it would be very fussy to set up so that it would bleed down into the edge, but not over onto the part..Im skeptical that it would be a practical edging tool...shame really

Maybe it could work with a specialized GSD file that is over-sized...