xTool F1 Jig For Wine Corks

I saw on the xTool F1 forum where someone had been engraving these cool wine stoppers  made of cork.   I ordered a boat load of them and then manufactured a jig that fits in the removable bottom plate area of the xTool F1 laser.

While I made this on a CNC machine it could just as easily be made with either a 3D printer (if you possess those skills) or with a laser.  I have included (later in the post) a Vectric CRV file for making the jig.  (Vectric is a CNC file). Also included in the zip file is an SVG vector image with the proper dimensions for cutting out with a laser, and finally an XCS file for engraving the tops.  

Bear in mind that if you use the XCS file you MUST manufacture the jig from either the Vectric CRV file or the SVG image file. 

The downloadable SVG file which contains the perimeter is a 109mm x 109mm rectangle with a 6 degree radius in the corners.

The 9 pockets are 19.3mm in diameter and are spaced 36mm apart. (All designed in Lightburn).

The wood thickness I had was 3/4″ pine and the pocket depths are 12mm deep.  This fits the wine stoppers perfectly.

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Tool F1 Review And Thoughts

I’ll be completely 100% honest here.  When xTool first previewed the xTool F1 last year I had my doubts about it.  Not about the machine, but whether it was a good fit for me.  Yes, it looked cool.  But it also looked very SPECIFIC.  In my mind I could only visualize using it as a vendor at a Craft Fair or Flea Market.   I had decided that I probably wouldn’t be getting the F1 Laser.

Boy was I wrong.  

Now that I have one, courtesy of xTool, I can see just how wrong my initial assessment of the F1 laser was.  xTool provided me an F1 and a Slide Extension, however at no time have they attempted to influence my reviews.   When someone provides you gear to review and they don’t try to influence you, that means THEY TRUST THEMSELVES.

I did an initial review here, and man was I impressed.   That should teach me to not form an opinion until I actually test the equipment.  My initial belief that a 115 x 115 mm working area just was only good for small items produced rapidly at a vendor table.   Now that I have one of these, it is apparent to me that most of the things that I do with a laser FIT ON THE F1!  And I can do them way faster on the galvo laser.

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xTool F1 Slide Extension

Recently, the laser company xTool began shipping their F1 machine.  I was fortunate enough to receive one from them and did an initial impressions review here.  They are now providing a great accessory, the xTool F1 Slide Extension ($199) and it is available now for purchase. 

The F1 is a galvo laser, which is fast, but galvo lasers generally have a very small working area.  Because galvo lasers have a mirror system which directs the laser beam and the lens is fixed focal length, the further the beam gets from the lens, the more out of focus it becomes.  So that keeps the working area fairly small.

The Engineers at xTool have designed a BRILLIANT method of expanding the engraving length along the X axis (right to left) by UP TO 4X’s.

This creates ample room to engrave longer items, make signage, and to create templates to engrave more than one item at a time.

I’ve said this before, but xTool is the most innovative laser manufacturer out there.  They are providing engineering solutions to overcome machine limitations in ways that I have not seen before.

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xTool F1 Review – First Impressions

My friends at xTool have provided me with one of their latest offerings to review, the xTool F1.  The F1 is a highly portable laser engraver which contains 2 separate lasers in one housing.  One laser is a 10 watt, 455 nanometer (nm) wavelength laser and the second is a 2 watt IR, 1064 nm laser for marking metals.

The laser is a galvo system and an explanation of that type of laser can be found here.  I’m told the author of that article is pretty awesome!

Because the galvo laser uses a mirror system instead of mechanical movements across an X and Y axis, it typically is a LOT faster than a conventional desktop diode laser.

Conversely, the tradeoff here is that the range of the mirroring system results in a considerably smaller useable area.  Also if cutting an item,  the edges may have a slight bevel to them. This is due of the angle of the laser cutting beam.

Where the F1 really shines brightly is its ability to mark small items quickly.   Items such as jewelry, coasters, leather patches, and tumblers (with optional rotary) can be rapidly produced.  Because of the portability of the F1 it is ideal for Craft Show and Flea Market sales.   Customers may walk away if you tell them their tumbler will be ready for pickup in 30 minutes.  However, if you tell them you can produce it in a minute or two right in front of their eyes, they are more inclined to stick around.   Time is money, as they say.

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xTool Air Assist

Laser engravers need an air assist pump. Not “should I get an air assist”? You need one. Period. An air assist pushes particles and soot away from your job giving you a cleaner engraving. They maximize efficiency in cutting and prevent flame ups and fires. They keep your optical glass clean. For years I have been using a Hydroponic pump ($60) which quite honestly works great and is about half the price of an xTool Air Assist pump ($139)

And yet something happened that made me make the switch to the xTool Air Pump.

When I would plug this air assist in or unplug it, my monitor would either go blank or corrupt the signal. I would then have to turn it off and then back on to restore the picture.

Then once or twice I had laser jobs just stop mid stream for no reason.

My first suspect was this air pump and I was able to confirm this was the culprit by simply plugging it into another electrical outlet. Actually, I completely isolated it by plugging it into a portable power supply, a Jackery 500.

No matter what I did I could not reproduce the laser failure with the air pump on another circuit.

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xTool RA2 Pro Rotary Review

FULL DISCLOSURE – I was provided an xTool D1 Pro with an RA2 Rotary Pro at no cost to review.  xTool has in no way attempted to influence my review. 

I’ve been given the great opportunity to review the xTool D1 Pro and included in the kit was an xTool RA2 Pro Rotary device.

There are a lot of videos online that show the xTool RA2 Pro but most of the ones I have seen are familiarization, and unboxing videos.

I appreciate all these reviews and learned a lot from all of them but when I get my mitts on a piece of gear I want to fill in the gaps that others may not touch on and I will discuss Lightburn settings quite a bit in this blog.

Regarding unboxing though……….my kit was missing the small bubble level.  Obviously that doesn’t affect assembly or use of the machine so it won’t affect anything discussed here.  Actually I have a couple of those mini bubble levels around here somewhere so no harm, no foul.

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xTool D1 Pro Review – Updated

NOTE:  xTool provided me a D1 Pro + RA2 Rotary kit for review.  All other accessories mentioned were purchased by me.  xTool has never attempted to influence my review. 

First of all let me expand on my note above.  Had I not been impressed with the xTool experience I would not have purchased any accessories.   So far I have bought an IR module, a Honeycomb kit , an Extension Kit with 1 additional Honeycomb panel, 8 risers, and a Laser Parts Kit.  And now I’m eyeing the Air Assist kit because a friend of mine has one and it is SUPER quiet.

Also it pulls about 17 watts and the current LOUD air assist pump i use now pulls about 40 watts.   If I run a job and I have any concern that a power loss would ruin the working piece……..I use a portable power supply such as a Jackery.

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xTool Infrared Laser Focusing

I purchased one of the xTool Infrared Laser modules and while it is super cool there does seem to be some internet chatter that the manual focusing mechanism is not 100% accurate.

There is a flip down bar that positions the laser 20mm from the work surface however the optimum focal range is 1mm or less.  That means even a tiny positioning error can greatly reduce the effectiveness of the engraving operation.

There are a few strategies for manual focusing the module however the best of the bunch in my opinion is to use a USB microscope to visually dial the beam down to the finest possible size.

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xTool 1064nm Infrared Laser Review

I was provided an xTool D1 Pro + RA2 Rotary kit to review for xTool.  I purchased the xTool Infrared Laser with my own funds.

So I have been using lasers for a few years now however the ability to engrave metals has eluded me.  One of these days I’ll probably pick up a proper fiber laser but I haven’t done it yet. Since I have an xTool D1 Pro 20 watt I decided to grab the xTool 1064nm Infrared Laser.

And as usual this blog will take you through the things that I have discovered while using it and not the typical unboxing video or walking you through the specifications..  The first thing that I discovered was that the box contained the xTool  laser module and a power brick, however the power brick didn’t contain the cable that goes from the outlet to the brick.

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xTool D1 Pro Review

Full Disclosure – xTool provided me an xTool D1 Pro at no cost to review.  They in no way whatsoever influenced this xTool D1 PRO review.  

NOTE:  Almost all my testing is done with Lightburn using the configuration file xTool provides here.

It doesn’t take me long to tell whether something is great, good, or problematic.  In the case of the xTool D1 Pro review my conclusion is landing somewhere in GreatLand™.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning that I have considerable desktop and CO2 laser usage and I know just what to do to reveal problems right away.

While waiting for my D1 Pro to show up I began asking people questions and joining forums and groups.  The first thing that hopped off the page for me were people asking “How do you keep things straight?”

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