5 Cricut Maintenance Tasks You Need to Perform

If you have a Cricut machine, you have to take care of it to keep it working at peak performance! These 5 Cricut Maintenance Tasks are ones you may not already know about, but important ones that you need to perform.

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5 Cricut Maintenance Tasks You Need to Perform

None of these Cricut maintenance tasks are difficult or time-consuming, but they can keep your machine in tip-top shape. After all, you want it perform as well as it possibly can and for as long as it possibly can.

#1 – Clean your machine.

This is so important that we have actually put together an in-depth blog post and video for you so you can follow along and learn all the steps you should take to keep your machine clean.

If you have had your machine for 6 months or less, you probably don’t need to worry about this just yet. But, if you have had it longer than that, it’s time for a cleaning! You need to be sure that everything is clean and that there is no debris in your machine that may be interfering in getting perfect cuts and results.

#2 – Update your software/firmware.

Time and time again, we see people complaining about the performance of Cricut Design Space. Yes, sometimes there are issues stemming from Design Space itself, but all too often we see people who haven’t updated their software.

If Cricut has done updates on their end and you haven’t installed those updates on your end, you could encounter issues. If you close Design Space when you’ve finished using it, when you come back to it, it will alert you that there is a new update to be installed. This makes it easy peasy to stay current all the time!

We do know that there are many crafters who are crafting so much that they leave Design Space open all the time and may miss these alerts. If this is you, you need to be aware of this and periodically, take a look to see if you need to update your firmware. You can do this really easily by going to the home page on Cricut Design Space.

In the top left corner, you’ll see three lines (next to where it says Home). Click those to open the dropdown menu. On that menu, simply click Update Firmware and follow their instructions from there. It will check to see if you have the latest update and if not, it will prompt you through the process to get it.

#3 – Calibrate your machine.

There are 3 different things you can calibrate your Cricut Maker for: Print then Cut, the knife blade, and the rotary blade. With a Cricut Explore, you can only calibrate for Print then Cut.

You might be wondering why you need to calibrate your machine. By calibrating, you are helping to ensure that you are getting flawless cuts with your machine every time. If you are making a Print then Cut project, using the knife blade or rotary blade, we suggest calibrating before getting started.

If you haven’t done this and you find that your cuts aren’t precise, this is likely the issue. So, head to Cricut Design Space, and on the home page, click on those 3 lines in the top left corner (just as we did for updating the firmware) to open that dropdown menu again.

If you haven’t done this and you find that your cuts aren’t precise, this is likely the issue. So, head to Cricut Design Space, and on the home page, click on those 3 lines in the top left corner (just as we did for updating the firmware) to open that dropdown menu again.

Choose Calibrate. If you’re using a Cricut Maker, it will then provide you with the 3 different options to choose from: Print then Cut, Knife Blade, and Rotary Blade. Follow the steps on your screen.

We have a video tutorial on how to calibrate your machine here.

#4 – Delete old projects.

When you are a very busy crafter and you have created tons of Cricut craft projects, you might start finding that your Design Space project library feels a little cluttered. If this is the case for you, you can choose to delete your old projects.

Go to Cricut Design Space and from the home page, you can see My Projects. Click on View All. Choose the project you would like to delete and click on the 3 dots. From there you can choose to Edit the Project Details, Save for Offline, or Delete the Project. It will then ask you to confirm that you want to delete it. Click Yes and it’s gone!

#5 – Clean your mat.

Always be sure to clean your Cricut mats! You can get so much more use out of them and have much better results with your craft projects by using clean mats.

Our favorite way to clean mats is by using baby wipes, but we have an amazing tutorial on 3 different ways to clean your cutting mats that you are going to want to check out.

You have invested good money into your Cricut machine. Make sure to maintain it and get the most out of it for years to come!