Will a Diode Laser Engrave Steel? | xTool D1 Testing 

I've only recently discovered your channel and have been watching a lot of your past videos. Just wanted to give you props on having a ton of really great projects and very engaging style of presenting them! I'm in the process of acquiring all the bits necessary for both the lathe vfd upgrade, and the electronic lead screw. Thanks for taking the time to put together these great videos.

You can use T1/T2 layer instead of 02 layer so you can frame without really burn the path.

Outstanding James! Perfection is in the details. The older you get, the more appreciate it. Can't wait for the anodized aluminum.

Damn (sorry for the expression 😔) you are for me one of the most serious fabricators on RU-vid. You work ethic, detailing, explaining,… and so much more are through expiring!

All of your videos are terrific, James! I am extremely impressed by the breadth of your knowledge and the wide variety of builds you successfully execute. Only problem is, I see you using something and am sure I need the item you are using!! I guess a xTool is now in my future!

Very nice work! The added text and outlines enhanced the look of the panel a lot

I enjoyed this review, thank you James. You inspired me to build my own CNC Mill and all the information you provide and share is amazing and so detailed....keep it up

I like that you uses mutable programs and different applications to get this job done. You are very knowledgeable and a good narrator. When you do have something go wrong you show it so people know it happens and can make adjustments with some help from you. Thank You for your time and expertise.

Great video production/discussion/demonstration….enjoyed and nice finish!!

Amazing video! plz keep them coming! Great job!!!😍

Looks great! I agree the second effort has a much better contrast. Great content as usual.

Wow looks great James! I'm looking forward to the anodized aluminum video. 👍👍

Your attention to detail is amazing ... Thanks for Sharing ... Stay Safe and well ...

James - you’re having endless fun 👍👍😎👍👍

Nice, very informative. I like the final product.

The whole issue of the metal warping here is essentially the same issue when welding or surface grinding thin metal: too much heat concentrated into too small of an area at once. Two suggestions to reduce metal warping. The first is to back the workpiece with a block of a good conductor (such as aluminum) instead of the wood. The other is to change the order of operations so no area is heated for long periods (do a little engraving in an area then move to the opposite end of your work piece) - this may not be practical with the software you use (it would be trivial with MasterCam).

thank you for showing your errors - so helpful for people learning to troubleshoot for their own projects

Great result!

nice edit as always

My top tip for using the 'paint' type spray can, is once you have finished using it flip it upside down and give it a quick press. This will clear the spray head and stops it blocking up.

Very nice finish, I will try this method and thanks for sharing.

Excellent sir, thank you for making this video. You have a great talent for explaining things !

Most excellent. I think I'm envious of your shop. :D

Nice result indeed ! 👍👍👍

"Artisan Robot" - The best two word description of the XTool D1 that I've ever heard.

Man thanks for the dxf tip in fusion. Always learn so much from you.

Very informative video, easy to listen to.

Beautiful job!

Frickin’ lasers! Great project to try this out on. Another professional job. I have see these lasers advertised and demo’d everywhere. Would be interested in your final thoughts on the product after your aluminum video. So far, it looks very good to me for a hobbyist. Thanks for sharing!

Ive been waiting for someone to do this with that machine. Im ordering one tomorrow.

„And its a freaking laser!“ totally felt that😎🤙

Hi James, at 14:15, you can assign a tool path (T1 and T2 in the layer pallette) which still lets you properly frame but will not output. Nice work by the way!

James, I use Laserbond 100 which is a lesser expensive alternative to Cermark and does an excellent job. I've used it on metals and glassware and it looks great. Also I've learned that as soon as I get the aerosol can in my hand, muscle memory would take over and I'd be in "paint full-coverage mode"... had to break that habit and learn to only spray the product where there was going to be etching.. as you say, it is expensive so no need to waste on un-etched areas.

Excellent video. My partner and I are looking to do some motorcycle and car part customizing using a laser and I wasn't sure if they diode would get the job done. Thanks for showing me the possibilities. Great video, well paste and excellently put together.

Very Nice Laser cutting - Thanks

Amazing! It would be interesting to see what level of detail that setup can deliver.

Wow, what an amazing introduction !🎩

This looks SO good, you've got me wanting to remake the gland plate of my control box, with my diode laser. Sharpie just doesn't seem to cut it, now.

Thank you for sharing, your video shows a diode laser actually burning on stainless and for a hobbyist this is good to know. I have been looking into getting a laser cutter for ages but the cost of getting a Co2 laser is to much for what I intend to use one for, and this type is at good price.

This is amazing, thanks.

Great detail thanks

James, That looks like it was custom ordered from a factory. Excellent job on the entire presentation.

Looking forward to your aluminium engraving video! Also, I would be interesting in seeing a very close zoom (and/or microscope image) of the markings.

Great video. Thanks

Great job!

Great information.

So THAT's what offset fill is.. Good stuff!

That looks amazing! Now I want a laser as well...

Durablack is an amazing option for decorative labels and machine tags. Takes detail really well and is shockingly durable

Nice work! Since I don't own a laser I would have made the panels out of pcb. The connector holes and silk screen will be perfect. But a trial using laser and powder coat would be really interesting.

Nice and interesting video! I put a diode laser on my CNC and had some similar problems with laser marking. I used LaserWeb to generate G-code. Which worked but it was not ideal with a lot of wasted time. Then I just used the horizontal milling in Fusion 360 and set the end mill to 0.1 or 0.2mm depending on the material. To export, I modified the post processor to turn off the laser at every linking move. This greatly increased speed of my projects. Also, the spindle speed can be changed to set laser power. In my case 24000 rpm = 100%.

i know im whining but man... nowadays, every video that's interesting (including this one... thats a compliment) is a 15-20-30 min video. i just dont have time to download all this into my brain 🤣 Great video. Very informative. You have a new sub.

Gotta say that looks a lot better than the engraving our CO2 Laser at work does on stainless

As usual, you have impressed me with your ability to absorb an unfamiliar chunk of software, learn all its buttons, and then remember it all well enough to narrate its use in real time. Dunno how you do that…

THANK YOU for including your mistakes. That helps me alot!!!

I just got an S1 40w and have already engraved anodized aluminum and found it was easy and the results were fantastic. Judging by your process here, I think stainless may be just a degree of higher difficulty but I’m about to give it a go. Great tip on the cercoat

Looks great! It's funny how we often miss the little details like the sanding direction that seem obvious in hindsight. Anyone else notice that the ATC frame isn't lined up with the LMIT frame? =P

Hey, great work. I used to make control panels like these, but I used a different technique : I simply printed on a transparent film, with a high quality inkjet printer, then sandwitched the film between the metal panel and an acrylic (2mm thick) plate with the same openings as in the metal panel and screwed everything together. That tech. gave me 3 advantages : can print in color, and being able to recover/modify and just throw away the old film, and finally the outer acrylic layer is postive protection that can be cleaned easily without worrying about the legends being wiped away. Hope this helps.

Thanks for sharing 👍

outstanding!!!!

That was so interesting I watched it twice...

Another great video James. What are those white connectors you have on your panel? I’m looking for a 3 pin connector like that. Thanks, Paul

Excellent tip about setting the power to zero for outside boundaries of the part. Also appreciate the info about how to get the laser to follow the line of the geometry, instead of back and forth like a dot matrix printer. I have a Ortur LM3 and these tips saved time (and money) immediately which is an excellent bonus. Like the switching between Fusion 360, Illustrator, and LightBurn. 👍👍

You know, I was just thinking; if you were planning on doing a batch of the same panel, making a paint 'masking panel' from thin plywood/MDF would be a great way to save CerMark and also minimise clean-up after laser engraving.

Holy crap. I've been watching these vids for a couple days and I'm really close to dropping the ball. I caught that you didn't set the start position. When you went to frame, I said, he needs to set the origin. I think I'm ready.😁

Great video!! I just purchased the D1 20W laser platform for use in my knife making shop. Does that spray on stuff work with other metals as well? Like high carbon steel?

Thanks!

Beautiful.

I can't afford to play in your world (haha) but I enjoy watching your videos.

So after watching the whole video, I have a quick question. What would happen if you tried to engrave "regular" steel? I'd love to be able to laser a makers mark onto my parts, but I typically only use 4140, reaching for other steels as needed (like 303 stainless for things like dumbbell handles). Would it cause excessive oxidation? Or is there another reason you can only use stainless? I should probably just Google this, but other folks may be wondering the same thing so I figured I'd ask here.

WOW, I like how it looked even before you did the one with the spray. I have an Amazon mini router 3018, it has a blue 450 nm laser, I may try that. I was going to do my control panel in 1/8 inch MDF to attach to my control box. You are moving way faster than I am. I started to build my EDM machine over a year ago. At first, I wanted to do a wire EDM but, I went with a probe in a drill bit head. I have not designed my circuit yet for Electrical discharge. I am getting there! Take care, thank you for your videos. Keep up the great works. Lee

Metals (overall) tend to be more reflective of light, as the wavelength gets smaller (ie. towards and beyond UV), but inadvertently - it's quite difficult to make lasers very powerful in the small ("Hundreds of nm") wavelengths. But as it happens to be, around the 1,000nm wavelength (Near Infrared) are fibre lasers - which is a technology that basically consists several meters of coiled fibre optic wire, doped in special elements (eg. Ytterbium "Yb"). We then use a primary diode lasers (pump or feed lasers) not unlike your blue ones there, in that they are frequently combined in parallel, but more powerful and typically in the 910nm (+/-) range. These are focused down the doped fibre optic and bounced back between two mirrors, this excites the Ytterbium in the fibre optics, and then that lets go of a slightly longer wavelength (1000-1100nm). The mirror at one end will permit some of the long wavelength light, but still bounce the 900's back and forth. This is fairly efficient in terms of energy saturation, and allows these lasers to be VERY powerful - in the order of dozens of kilowatts, where (with the assistance of compressed oxygen) can cut through inch-thick steel. Fibre lasers are not quite "Hobbyist friendly" yet - the price is still quite high for powerful models (mainly due to the rare element doping requirements and high power optics), but they're coming down. Slowly. Have a look at the OMTech 20W.

Missed opportunity with your logo on the control panel, but very nice. your getting a nice collection of tools!

Nice, thumbs up :) I would probably spray some clearcoat over it.

I use the CerMark (yes it's a bit expensive!) - it washes off with water and a gentle cloth (much easier than rubbing with a rag) - great video though 👍🏻

Great channel James, I like the way you use a lot of different types of machines for your projects. I have picked up a several tips that I can use at work where I use some of the same type machines and do some CAD work too. I do have one tip for aligning your parts for laser etching. To save time on the alignment you could have the laser burn the outline of the part on a scrap piece of wood or cardboard then put your part on the outline instead of having to frame it several times to get it lined up. You would probably need to be able to set an origin point at the laser for this to work good and I don’t think I saw you do that, not sure if you can on your machine. Keep the videos coming!!

Looks pretty good! If you like we could try and burn one using our fiber laser for you just for comparison. It definitely cuts material away as opposed to oxidizing, though not super deep.

“That fan is always running And yes it is annoying” 😂😂😂

That's great. I didn't realise that diode lasers could mark stainless directly. I can get a similar result by spraying "Coldgal" zinc based paint onto the bare metal and then running my CO2 laser hot and slow. It's about 5% of the cost of Cermark!

I wasn't expecting the bare-metal marking to have very good contrast either, but it still came out much better than I expected. The Cermark looks great, though.

Thanks for sharing. I'm only getting interested in dabbling with low cost lasers since I'm already retired. I like how you explained everything very simply. My one concern is eye safety. I have watched a number of videos where they mention that not all laser glasses are of adequate quality.

Very interesting

This is a really good video , super informative and really helpful. I really wavering on what machine i am gonna buy .. I am starting of as a complete newbie with lasers though i have some experience with a mori seiki cnc machine that a friend of mine owns and has been cutting trick high performance parts fro motor cycles fro years now. I have a ever growing itch to further my experience with cnc , So i am a small business owner as well , i am a drywall man , renovations and remodeling service provider, I am collectively buying tools for this and believe it or not its really easy to get them mixed up with others on job sites ie batteries cordless tools , hand tools ect. My solution is i am gonna purchase a laser engraver to put my brand on all my equipment and create a way to hopefully solve the problem of tools being mistakenly switched out. Plus like the video i just watched do some projects like you just showed . Thanks for the video,.

Your delivery of "it's a FREAKIN' LASER," had me cackling. Had to pause the video so I could leave this comment.

A closeup of the piece after machining would have been very interesting

awesome , looks super professional were you making these plates commercially.

Very nice video. What about durability regarding the engraving just with the laser? I know it's not as dark as with Cermark but this thing is too expensive in Europe.

I've got a K-40 laser in my workshop. I'll have to give this a try.

might be interesting to try powder coat instead of the cermark, then you might be able to have different colors as well. (also handy if you are already set up for powder coating, you don't need to but anything) Great video though, as always packed with great info. and good to know a small laser like still has enough power to mark stainless.

thanks. that was helpful. just got the same laser, was curious about the effects of add ons like that. i would have been fine with the original, or maybe another pass (or two)? anyways, very cool, something i will be doing soon!! thanks

Oh... I totally called it! Laser Beams!

12:20. Play around with LightBurn. You’ll find it’s remarkably easy to control sizes, alignments and other design elements. You just need a little familiarity with it’s tool set. I decided to buy it, just after testing it for 2 minutes!

Nice work as always James. One thing could be better I think from a graphic design point; the border outlines are too close to each other which makes them connected for a human eye. If the separation is just a few millimeter wider it looks cleaner and more defined as separate areas. Small tip. Thank you! Best, Job

Fricken lasers sure beat fricken lable makers 🤣. Great video, and results! Awe, I thought your next project was gonna be mounting lasers to sharks or some other aquatic creature. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers I guess 😏. Thanks, James. Cheers!

Very nice looking panel! Another laser engraving technique is that lasers cutters can burn through surface anodizing on aluminum.

Quite impressive, that laser module has 4 diodes and an extremely small kerf (Dot) , I have my 5W laser module attached to my router running mach3, I would like to use light burn as it is specific to lasers and good reviews. Excellent Panel

Very very nice 👌

That turned out well, but you need a shark that looks like it is holding the tool head. 🦈😀 Those open lasers scare me... I think I would have to make an enclosure for it.

And for those who live where the humidity is high, rust can be prevented in one of two ways: 1) periodically wipe down the steel surface and cover it with a thin film of light machine oil or mineral oil; or 2) finely grind or polish the surface to a high sheen. I live where the humidity is 92+ percent during some months. I recently found an old lathe toolholder I made back in the late 1980's in an old toolbox that had been in storage since the early 1990's. I could see a slightly discolored impression of my thumbprint where I'd touched the part decades ago, but the rust beginning to form from the acid in my body oils could not be felt or measured.

Damn you’re good. I always enjoy your videos. I want to build a special jig for engraving stainless spheres. I figure a 360 degree roll in one direction and a +- 80 degree roll in the orthogonal direction might work. Each roll axis about the center of the sphere. Then the laser head is offset from the +-80 degree axis such that it focuses onto the surface of the sphere. The speed or rpm of each axis would be linked so the laser could cut anywhere on the surface except the poles. What do you think? Paul.