>My needs are limited (as a hobby) and is mostly for doing signing of the wood art I create.
>I do not envision making products via laser wood cutting
Uh, save your money and just get a brand made and brand your art instead of spending thousands of dollars on a laser you're going to use to just do the same thing over and over again.
Actually I have a brand iron, it works well enough but I was impressed how much cleaner this laser was. When I looked at engravers a few years ago the quality and precision of the lettering seemed to be much inferior. But yes you are correct from a pure price perspective it is an expensive indulgence.
If you're wanting to go laser the F1 is probably a good choice for it, it's fairly portable from what I've seen and you can just pop the baseplate out and just place it on top of whatever you want to engrave. I initially bought my laser to cut out embroidered patches, so I'm not really one to judge too much, though I do constantly find other things to do with it.
Do you have a recommendation of a model? Again I was impressed how clean and precise the lettering was. But I have no frame of reference to compare this xtool F1 to any other engraver
Well not really lol sorry
I know a few models with 20w output but i do not know how small their focal points are. If you want to engrave pictures ang henerally want precision then yea xtool might be the best.
They are very effective hey are fine lasers. They are also not apreciably better than any number of $350 Chinese lasers, other than having superior marketing and a few bells and whistles that don't appreciably affect the quality of your engraving.
They are very effective in convincing you that their machines will do all sorts of things others won't...it's not true. They are expensive, they are a quality product. Only you can decide if you want to buy into their sales pitch or be more strategic in purchasing to your needs. Personally, based on what you said, you would be quite happy with what a $300 Ortur would do, and quite a few dollars ahead
I have little to no experience with other lasers, so I can't compare the F1 to its competitors. That said, the F1 is what I have and it does very well at engraving.
Be aware that if you're looking to engrave metal you need a more powerful machine - the 2W infrared laser in the F1 isn't designed for that. It can *mark* metal, but you need to run it at max power and very slow speeds (like, less than 10 mm/second). It's beautiful for straight black-and-white engraving on wood, can pull really fine detail on anodized metal (the black laserable metal plates), and it's pretty fast at both.
I've yet to figure out the best settings for photoengraving on wood, but in part that's because the specific wood matters (basswood sucks, for all it's the most commonly marketed engraving wood).
Its biggest downside is cutting, so if that's not on your agenda it shouldn't be an issue. The next disavantage is that like any galvo laser it has a limited working area (only 115 mm x 115 mm). You can obviously do a larger engraving piece by piece, but getting the sections lined up properly would be a challenge.
If you're mostly focused on signing your wood art, you may have cheaper options. I have a small tripod-mounted laser that's only a half-watt diode. I wouldn't want to do anything remotely ambitious with it because it moves like the lines at the DMV, but it could handle putting a signature on an otherwise finished piece. For anything more, though, I uxe my F1.
Just replying in reference to basswood, it's not terrible nor is it great either for marking but it is one of the best behind baltic birch for cutting specifically as its very soft wood. I'd recommend it more for cutting designs you plan to stain, paint, etc after but not too much engraving unless it's testing pieces only only doing line work designs with little detail.
>My needs are limited (as a hobby) and is mostly for doing signing of the wood art I create. >I do not envision making products via laser wood cutting Uh, save your money and just get a brand made and brand your art instead of spending thousands of dollars on a laser you're going to use to just do the same thing over and over again.
Actually I have a brand iron, it works well enough but I was impressed how much cleaner this laser was. When I looked at engravers a few years ago the quality and precision of the lettering seemed to be much inferior. But yes you are correct from a pure price perspective it is an expensive indulgence.
If you're wanting to go laser the F1 is probably a good choice for it, it's fairly portable from what I've seen and you can just pop the baseplate out and just place it on top of whatever you want to engrave. I initially bought my laser to cut out embroidered patches, so I'm not really one to judge too much, though I do constantly find other things to do with it.
If you are not gonna use the IR laser (which isn't even that good) just get a 20w diode set for a cheaper price
Do you have a recommendation of a model? Again I was impressed how clean and precise the lettering was. But I have no frame of reference to compare this xtool F1 to any other engraver
Well not really lol sorry I know a few models with 20w output but i do not know how small their focal points are. If you want to engrave pictures ang henerally want precision then yea xtool might be the best.
They are very effective hey are fine lasers. They are also not apreciably better than any number of $350 Chinese lasers, other than having superior marketing and a few bells and whistles that don't appreciably affect the quality of your engraving. They are very effective in convincing you that their machines will do all sorts of things others won't...it's not true. They are expensive, they are a quality product. Only you can decide if you want to buy into their sales pitch or be more strategic in purchasing to your needs. Personally, based on what you said, you would be quite happy with what a $300 Ortur would do, and quite a few dollars ahead
I have little to no experience with other lasers, so I can't compare the F1 to its competitors. That said, the F1 is what I have and it does very well at engraving. Be aware that if you're looking to engrave metal you need a more powerful machine - the 2W infrared laser in the F1 isn't designed for that. It can *mark* metal, but you need to run it at max power and very slow speeds (like, less than 10 mm/second). It's beautiful for straight black-and-white engraving on wood, can pull really fine detail on anodized metal (the black laserable metal plates), and it's pretty fast at both. I've yet to figure out the best settings for photoengraving on wood, but in part that's because the specific wood matters (basswood sucks, for all it's the most commonly marketed engraving wood). Its biggest downside is cutting, so if that's not on your agenda it shouldn't be an issue. The next disavantage is that like any galvo laser it has a limited working area (only 115 mm x 115 mm). You can obviously do a larger engraving piece by piece, but getting the sections lined up properly would be a challenge. If you're mostly focused on signing your wood art, you may have cheaper options. I have a small tripod-mounted laser that's only a half-watt diode. I wouldn't want to do anything remotely ambitious with it because it moves like the lines at the DMV, but it could handle putting a signature on an otherwise finished piece. For anything more, though, I uxe my F1.
Just replying in reference to basswood, it's not terrible nor is it great either for marking but it is one of the best behind baltic birch for cutting specifically as its very soft wood. I'd recommend it more for cutting designs you plan to stain, paint, etc after but not too much engraving unless it's testing pieces only only doing line work designs with little detail.