7 things I wish I knew BEFORE buying the XTool D1 Pro 20W 

Really appreciate your clear and concise explanations on what you found to be your pros and cons about each model. Just enough detail to defend your position without gettin' deep in the weeds. An informative post for sure. I'm a fan. Keep up the good work.

Very thorough …I look forward to seeing what you create

Great job brutha! I've watched a bunch and you brought up points no one else did. Thanks.

Note on the time it takes. It looks like you were using lightburn. You can change the order it engraves the piece. Instead of engraving all the tracks and text across the board at the same time, you can set it to do one track and label at a time. You'll eliminate the travel time it takes to go from one to another as it moves across the board. This will shorten the time some. Play with it and how you group them.

For your speed: Use offset fill instead of fill, for things like this where you have either multiple different sections or for shapes with space inside (such as the letter O etc). I just loosely replicated the size and speed that you have for the exact same image, and it goes from 1hr 24m 28s for fill, to just 19m 59s for offset fill. Over an hour saved there. If you click "Show traversal moves" in preview, you'll see the wasted time the laser head spends moving over blank areas.

GOOD to see someone else with the extension kit! Subed, Hope to see some cool stuff!! I got the 20w 2-in-1 deluxe kit enclosed!

You covered good points. Wish I would’ve researched before buying but still looks like xtool is a good product. I agree on lack of air assist out of the box and pro of upgrade-ability

Nice overview! Another unit that's a close competitor to the XTool is the Atezr P20. Very similar in not only capabilities but construction / design as well. I just ordered one a couple days ago so looking forward to getting it. It's a upgrade from my Sculpfun S6 Pro which is a 5 watt unit. It's been a great machine and I'm planning to keep it too, just want more power. And as noted in another comment, you probably need to change your cut settings on that tracks plaque. Your cut time is only about 20 minutes, but you have over an hour of rapid moves. In the cut settings for the fill layer, at the bottom are options for "Fill all shapes at once", "Fill groups together", and "Fill shapes individually". It usually defaults to the first one, but to be honest unless it's a fairly small or very dense (little white space) image it's probably not a good choice. Try the other two settings and see what kind of times you get. Which is better will depend on how you have the shapes in your design grouped. Offhand, I'd suggest making each track a group, each name a group, and the title another group and try "Fill groups together". It can take some experimenting to find the most efficient approach. Another trick that can speed things up if you have a large "hollow" shape (for example, an empty circle) is to split the object in two or more parts and put each part on a different layer but with identical cut settings. That way the laser can do each half individually without having to traverse from one side of the circle to the other with each pass. The direction you split will also depend on which direction you're scanning the laser. For horizontal scanning, split into left / right halves. Hope that helps! Looking forward to more content from you!

Great points thank you for the info sir

You run into the limit (sensor) because of project positioning. Remember, there’s an offset between the positioning crosshair and the actual laser. It’s not that they’re “pretty sensitive,” but they’re perfectly accurate!

As I don't have an enclosure, I leave mine on the balcony when burning. For FDM I have a filtered "hot box" which uses three charcoal filters. I have an adaptor to it for soldering which works well so I will make another adaptor for the laser enclosure I am building from aircraft composite like my hot-box. The aircraft composite I use is alu-acrylic-alu in a 0.3/3.0/0.3mm sandwich. It is light enough to hold together with just tabs and hot-glue. Aluminium and graphine reinforced belts are good for preventing expansion due to heat but Kevlar reinforced are cheaper and work just as well if you are not moving a head over 800g. (Which is pretty much all of us outside an industrial situation)

8:28. Computer and laser should be in close proximity. And always monitor your jobs, at least every few minutes.

Hi, just a little word about the air assist not being adjustable, I just receive mine yesterday and it now has a small rheostat on the electric cord. But still no remote control from computer 😞 About the support team, I agree, I had a response to my question in less than 4 hours ! Logistics was not as good thought, took 2 weeks to receive my D1 Pro 5W, which end up being in fact a 20W... BUT NO COMPLAINT 🙂 Finally great vidéos (plural) THANKS

I have the D1 Pro 2 in one with the extension kit. I've spent more time and money building the biggest enclosure you have ever seen. The main thing I see in ordering the extension from the git go is that you wind up with half enough parts to build another machine. It would be nice for them to offer the extension as an option. Two side rails, extra standard belts and wiring harness and extra power supply. I could build another machine just for the infrared laser or one to keep the RA2 accessories set up in. I cant imagine running this in a home without any enclosure. I have a high velocity three speed six inch exhaust and still get some odor issues. The other item needed is a full length honeycomb. With two standard ones you have a large middle section of rail joint. I think I saw an update coming for the Wi-Fi. No issue for me because I'm running a mini computer on the station. One other thing they should work on is the wiring of the main cable and placement of the motherboard. Overall The machine is impressive in appearance and construction. I like the built in projects that have the library of settings for the main materials provided in the samples kit. One thing to note on all enclosures is the placement of the intake port. One user sent photos of the fan module that had sucked up a ton of residual smudge. The laser is cutting and the air assist is blowing the material downward. If you place your intake up top it is pulling a supply of the dirt up where the cooling fan can take it in. with the air stream going down from the start let it keep on its path and draft into the exhaust intake tube. Position the air intake to the enclosure to cause the air to draft across and down away form the material and laser.

Great video. I’m a noob as well and have the D1 Pro 20w. Smell is also one of my biggest challenges. The fan that came with the xTool Enclosure is a joke and the enclosure was too small. I end up buying a larger enclosure (SCULPFUN) that is taller and bigger. I also bought an inline fan (195 CFM). Still major smell. Will need to figure something else out. Looking forward to more videos!

I believe everyone’s first laser is good , it’s there second one that should grab all of the attention! By the time your ready for your second one you should be well informed on what you need what it does and things like cost and expandable options ! If you return to buy an upgraded version of your first that tells me your happy with your first and if you buy a different brand that’s saying you weren’t happy with your first ! Just my opinion !

Air assist help every type of layer regardless!

1:15. It takes longer to vector fill rather than raster fill. Nice animal track project!

I'm a couple months in with my D1 pro 20 watt. I too was shocked by the amount of smoke and smell. I have it 100% solved this with an AC infinity Cloudline s6 in line fan (I used reducers and run 4 inch hoses vs 6). This thing is so strong, I can open my enclosure while cutting wood and barely smell smoke. The fan is also strong enough to push the air through roughly 25 feet of hose to my outside vent on speed 6 of 8.

Really helpful that, thank you for taking the time .... I'm looking around right now at purchasing a machine mainly will be used for engraving leatherette coasters, tumblers etc not interested in cutting anything how long do you think it would take to engrave a leatherette coaster 4" x 4" with say 50% coverage

I have been looking at getting a laser. Did you look at the TwoTrees TS2? I have never used a laser, but I like that it auto focuses the laser, comes with air assist connection, has a larger area, and wifi. If you had dismissed it, why?

I just got my new Xtools laser and can't wait to begin. Question ....what type of surface workspace should I have below the laser ?

you could get a cheap kvm over ethernet to transport hdmi and 2 usb down to your basement, and then access you pc from 2 places.

8:01. Yep, fought WiFi for a while, did not get it working. HOWEVER, you can’t beat a solid connection. So USB is better anyway.

One more compliant to add on the air assist "after-thought" bolt on they did. The egress tube bangs into one of the mounts on the right rail, further reducing the working space. Ridiculous! I also built my own Baltic Birch enclosure, with laser window, exhaust fan, tubing to window door (over 40' of run), and interior lighting. No smell at all if I leave lid closed for a few minutes after burn/cut is done. I'll have to do a review video and post online.

I’m a newby but it looks like you engraved horizontally and lost a lot of time in “white space”. Have you tried grouping each track set and engraving each complete before moving to the next?

It would be nice if they the extension pieces with the end pieces and the gantry or sell the pieces separate. I have the 1064nm and the 20w and 40% of a second frame.

There are much cheaper air pumps available. I'm not paying $139. Good vid.

Why would you want air-assist off? It prevents flame-ups and keeps the head clean from back flash and back splatter

I want to point out that the Infrared laser is very difficult to use. Yes it does have a "kickstand" but when I have contacted customer support, they told me that I have to look a the light beam and focus it based on the brightest light. I have only had one time that I could even see what I had engraved on a metal "dog tag". I regret my purchase.

I bought mine. Didn’t use it yet. Wish i seen this first :/. It was $300.00 on sale so hopefully its worth it

Wish, just wish they had a U.S. based customer service center.

You mention Xtool 'customer support'. Not so good when you have a warranty claim - to say the least it was long and painful. I had laser head failure.

Bon travail. J’ai la chance d’avoir un partenariat avec Xtool et j’arrive aux mêmes conclusions.

I'm looking at 3rd party air assist since the xTool doesn't seem to be very good.

This idea of having your laser in a separate room from your computer - not a good idea IMHO. There are times when you're going to have something jam up (e.g. forgot to turn off rotory when doing linear), or hit a piece because of misalignment. Or something worse, and you need to stop it. With Lightburn, the HW button on the D1 doesn't do anything. So your options are to run back upstairs to hit stop, and hope and pray the house doesn't burn down, or turn off the machine and lose your position. Plus it's not practical to do alignments, realignments, etc. Now that I've had my 2-in-1 for 2 mos, I've come to accept that the wifi is only a means of 1 less wire, otherwise a gimic. Again, just my own experience.

I hate when the framing says it is good and then the job stops due to those limit switches! I may have to turn them off myself one of these days for those large jobs!

Is Lightburn on an iPad connectable for any lasers?

Of all the weird crap, I had a spider build their home inside one of the limit switch sensors after only a week of not using it. Little dude was blocking the optical sensor. I had to relocate him.

If you can.. take external in air, not your room air, and make sure that your (box) is seald closed box.. no leaks.. in and out air need to be friends.. or they will take over each other..

2:12. Do you expect to BURN something and _not_ have smoke??

Hey, get a hepa filter and just run it in your room.

2:54. If the fan is *exhaust,* why would you be getting cold air?

Use a raspberrey with virtual usb to utilize wifi. Problem solved with Lightburn

you can run it from an rpi

What is "AIR" ? Why do you need it?

yeah i got the enclosure its crap build your own sealed one with silconed joints

So pretty much research before you buy.

I wish you'd have bought a microphone before you made this video...

If you need a bigger bed buy a laser with a bigger bed, what's the problem? Didn't know what you were doing, WTF? Burning wood smokes, what a surprise. You only need to import a file with parameters, took a whole 2 minutes to setup once, WTF? I got a good pump for less than half, once again you buy without knowing anything how stupid.

Get that audio squared away, my friend it's terrible. Information is great, however.