Cricut Expressions Hardware

From Cricut Hacking Wiki

The Cricut Expressions machine is a wider version of the basic Cricut.

Its components are mostly the same, except for an additional control knob for control of the cutter pressure.

It uses the same NEMA 17 motors used in the smaller unit.

The PCB is mostly the same, except for an additional connector on the right side (in this photo) that connects to the added encoder. As Cricuts have evolved, all versions now seem to use identical hardware. Even the newest"baby bug" uses a motherboard marked "Expression". It used to just be "Creates" that shared the expression motherboard.

I tried using an expression keyboard/power switch on one of the new expression/babybug boards and it wouldn't power up. It appears existing firmware will not allow this board to be used in an expression. I haven't tried a hard reset (pwrbtn/stopswitch). Bill D.