xTool F1 ULTRA Fiber Laser -The 20W Destroyer for Small Business - Ultimate Review

the new xtool F1 Ultra laser is the world's first 20 W fiber and IO dual laser that can engrave metal okay guys you seriously have to check this out I'm going to show you all the features of this machine along with various testing on different materials to see if this is the right laser for you or if you need to move on this video took me hours to make so I hope you will stay and be able to make an educated decision after this video before we begin I know most of you will want to make a money with this laser so hang out with me through this video and I'm going to share some tips and tricks with you that's helped me after I unpacked the F1 Ultra from its box I found myself digging the Aesthetics and design the green and silver complement each other well and compared to the previous exol F1 this thing looks huge coming in at 10.7 by 14.6 by 19 in the weight is right at 32 lb and is somewhat portable for what it is now I would have liked to seen a carry handle just off the regular F1 but I'm not going to knock it too hard on the front of the F1 Ultra you will find the xtool logo which lights up when the machine is powered on and a handle for sliding the protective glass up and down for when the laser is in use on the side you will find the emergency stop accessory ports and a power button and pivoting to the back of the unit you will find the power ventilation and more self-explanatory accessory ports the included accessories are the touchscreen controller which is used to focus a laser module start stop and frame a project project and store project files for offline use that is a mouthful I think this is pretty dang cool and frees up the hands from constantly Framing and focusing the project from a laptop or from using a button on the side of the laser machine other included accessories are an L-shaped positioning piece and a slap panel plate and two optional accessories worth mentioning here that would speed up workflow is the pedal and button switch for those of you that plan to hustle now let's highlight the main features of this machine before we get to the tutorial now hang with me here I'm going to make this fast in feature one as mentioned we have a 20 W blue diode and a 20 W fiber dual laser this will allow for the engraving of all sorts of materials now unlike the original F1 machine which could only mark metal we can now engrave and emboss metal which will engrave multiple layers at different powers and speeds to get a 3D image xtool also claims we can cut thin sheets of metal I think these features alone are going to be the biggest selling point for people needing that versatility in their business that was not previously possible with multiple laser machines and feature number two galvo speed this unit is around 10 times faster than any common di laser on the market with an engraving speed of 10,000 mm a second due to the galvo technology to put it into perspective the original progenitor F1 could only reach speeds of up to 4,000 mm a second and feature number three camera and framing placement the F1 Ultra has a 16 megapixel camera for the placement of designs but also a framing feature which lets you know exactly where the design will be engraved it's awesome kind of you know having both of these because it really helps you meticulously dial in those intricate designs and feature number three the auto conveyor attachment this is the first time I have seen any company do this when you pair the conveyor with the creative space software and Camera the algorithm will automatically recognize shapes on the Streamline which is the bed of the conveyor and intelligently engrave patterns on the materials now this is the feature I am most excited about because I do a lot of bulk projects as well as larger ones more on this later though and feature number four the bed size now compared to other lasers exto claims this is the biggest galvo style laser bed size even without the conveyor attachment I felt the original F1 was a little limited on space so I am glad xtool made this call and wrapping up with feature five the ultra has built-in safety features which gives us a fully closed unit with efficient dust and smoke removal now personally speaking I'm in a studio AKA my living room which is really not set up for Engraving with proper ventilation I am using the exol smoke purifier which is attached to my ultra and I'm able to engrave without a problem I have family members and friends that come over all the time and they love watching all of my lasers work so I'm really a big fan of enclosed units like this one for the first project let's do something simple so you can see how this works as I put this Basswood on the base plate you can see that our two dots are out of alignment we can autofocus in the software or use the controller R here I'm going to hit the down arrow until the dots overlap now we're in Focus let's hop to the computer okay we have the laptop hooked up to the F1 Ultra let me briefly show you how this works so as you open creative space you can see that we have our controls on the right and left side now I am going to click the refresh button when I do this this is going to take a snapshot of the engraving bed and there is our piece of Basswood right there and you can see over here that we have the thickness we could hit Auto measure right here it would Auto measure but since we did that with the controller that's fine if we go over here to the left you we can add an image do a lot of different things one thing I do want to highlight to you is that if you go to the marketplace you can find specific projects for the F1 Ultra and so these will be updated but they already have a lot of them that look great so coming back to the material bed I've already imported a image right here so we are going to engrave this so I can show you how this works so I am going to line this up right here and that should be pretty Center but I want to point something out we have a framing button right here and also a framing button on our controller so if you click the arrow it is going to show the rectangle and if I hit framing look what happens it is going to show a square on the material now when I click outline I'm going to take this up to about 10 light power I am going to hit frame and watch what happens this shows us exactly where this is going to be engraved at so when you click on the design I clicked on the Basswood plywood and it gives us a material reference and since this Basswood is a little lighter I'm going to go ahead and just crank this up to 100% we might as well go big or go home right as we click the process button it is going to take us to the laser module trajectory and this has an estimated time of 2 minutes and 14 seconds and look it is showing you exactly how this is going to engrave now we are going to close the lid and start engraving but since I have my glasses and want to show you how this looks I'm going to put these on and hit the start button okay guys for 600 mm second speed and 100 power that's pretty impressive but this is a little light so I ran this again on a smaller piece and dropped the speed by 200 and this is what happened I love how you have the preview on the controller so cool so the overall engraving quality of this is pretty dang good guys I'm getting some detail in there and um works as expected let's move on okay guys we have a goldplated necklace in here we are going to turn this 100% power and 10,000 speed so this is the fastest the laser can go let's see what happens are you serious holy crap oh my gosh did you guys see that now if we slow this down we will get a deeper etch let's try this goldplated dog tag wow okay there we go so this was crazy fast guys and if you are making jewelry well um I would say that this has a significant upper hand over the original F1 this thing's just crazy fast for the next project I wanted to test the accuracy of the camera somewhat with Celtic designs around the border of this unfinished box from a local craft store now the camera seems to be on point with the engraving and is working as expected now I don't necessarily sell a lot of these but all my friends kids love to get these projects from the videos that I make now to finish this one up I used a torch to give it some character and I think it looks really good another solid project let's engrave a Cowell we are at 100% power and 1,000 speed and we are getting a solid white Edge for a general rule of thumb the slower the speed the darker and deeper The Edge now this looks good but I want to slow it down to the other side okay yeah this is looking pretty good so guys both sides engraved great the light and the dark now if we played around with the power and speed settings I'm sure we could have got some different colors but there is something that I want to point out do you see how this is themed with a corresponding design obviously we have a cow on a cow bell so I encourage you guys to do corresponding themes like this because they corate and they just speak to people so go try it for the next project I want to share one of my biggest marketing tips with you I am bulking some keychains coaster and Engraving one acacia wood serving board with the same logo I shared this tip in one of my other Las your videos but basically the idea is to engrave a cutting board with a business logo or someone's name and give it to them now this isn't out of manipulation or being overly advantageous it's just a simple way to Market yourself if it is an individual I will post a pictures in a video to social media saying how much fun I am having and the messages will start coming in if it is a business like this I will give it to them and tell them if they ever need anything I will be there for them now all these engraved the same power and speed and the ultra did a fantastic job at engraving the large logo on the serving board now I'm not saying that I have this marketing stuff all together but I do know this doing projects like this and giving them to clients or future clients is very impactful and it will get you started in your local Hometown and I suggest that if you don't do this do something like it I promise it will pay off as you probably know the infrared can also engrave plastic and I know you have probably seen a lot of these airpod cases being engraved but they are fun to do now I got the power settings a little too high but it is still cool nonetheless I will be giving this one to a family member there has been a huge fascination with people engraving rocks here lately so I decided to give this a try at first I got the power a little too high and it ended up just being a bubbled up mess but I found that multiple passes was the way to go now I have seen other people engrave deeper than this but I was happy with the results you may not be a big fan of Engraving grocs but you have to admit this is pretty dang cool I will probably put this in my garden since this leather coaster was begging to be engraved I decided to try an inverted image on it now I have no idea why I keep using images of C but it engraves super fast and I am blown away at the results and just a quick note here the detail and accuracy on this engraving is pretty awesome I mean I'm seeing the strands of hair and everything else it's pretty impressive guys if you know me one of my favorite things to do is to carve axe handles by hand but I enjoy engraving Hammer handles almost equally the same with a laser the Hickory handle is poor quality so the engraving is is not as dark as I want because of the different things going on in the wood but I am running this a few times to darken it up and you know I had to put the cow on here somewhere something I want to point out putting humorous quotes on materials like this makes people think about the creativity behind what you are doing and it gives them a laugh so when you are making pieces to sell give some thought to some humorous quotes do some research and start incorporating that in your work make them Cor respond just like the cow with a cow bell or this this is not a drill it's a hammer you see the humor there but people really resonate with this stuff and I think you could open up a new market for yourself I know a ton of people on Etsy already do this and are making a ton of money and when you do this you will start appealing to larger crowds of people thinking a little outside the box here I want to test the cutting performance with a light switch cover file I found on Etsy and yes we are going to make a light switch cover I know this is super random but I know many people will love it now compared to traditional dial lasers with an air assist the galvo laser is doing a superb job at keeping the cuts nice and clean so if you guys can see right here the cutting performance on this is pretty dang good this is smooth nothing really scorched and I'm happy with the way this turned out let's see how the infrared works on a stainless knife blade I found this old knife in her drawer and wanted to fo a Damascus pattern that I found on Etsy I am still playing around with a setting so I got it a little high but the pattern still came out super cool and I am pleased I know many of you like to customize silverware like for anniversary or wedding gifts and other things like that so I think it's great having the 20 wats of power that can speed right through this I mean that turned out pretty good and I promise I'm not trying to be biased this is like real world engraving that I'm doing here on camera for you guys so don't blame me for being biased I'm I'm just showing you like what I'm getting here my biggest seller right now out of everything I engrave are these ridge style wallets in fact I have already made well over $200 today using this same laser and you know what I was told my prices were too cheap go figure now the ultra is so much faster than the F1 at engraving these wallets and people absolutely love them I'm really meticulous with the design placement on these wallets so the framing and the camera feature really makes this easy so uh yeah this is hands down my favorite project on this video and I think all these turned out super cool now I think I should have waited to engrave these business cards on the conveyor feeder so I could show you guys but these are turning out really good I have everything maxed out speed and powerwise and I could probably turn it down the speed a bit but I think this setting will work in my opinion when you pair this with the creative space software it makes engraving these business cards super easy and by the way I am putting all of these inside of my customized wallets now let's look at the embossing mode one of the biggest features of this machine in order to do this you have to have a depth map image and I got this one which was provided by exol and the settings I took from Bitner built would working from here on YouTube so thank you Bitner I can't show you all of this footage because the settings I chose to use took me a little over 6 hours to do this engraving but it turned out amazing so just keep in mind that these embossing jobs will take you a little longer to complete but they are worth it I would show you more coin projects but we have more to cover I also wanted to try the embossing mode on a slate coaster I found a picture of a monkey and used Exel software to convert the image to a depth map now just keep in mind slate does make a bit of a mess while it is embossing and you will need to clean up afterwards the engraving turned out pretty good other than some bumps in the background now I think this was due to my dust collector because I haven't cleaned it in over a year I know my dad it kind of stopped up and it had a lot of debris inside the engraving bed but if you turn this around you will see that the other side when I did the smaller image it engraved much better but overall I'm pretty happy with this now for the moment we have all been waiting for how well does the F1 Ultra work with the R2 Pro rotary attachment I imported an SVG file of The Lord of the Rings ring design and engraved two different parts I think I got the settings just about right and it worked flawlessly this is really cool wow so cool moving on to a tumbler I decided to use our first design on both sides of this Yeti now placement was pretty easy and the camera is dead on accurate with the design placement while this is running I can tell I should have upu the power or brought the speed down a little bit but I won't complain too much because this is still completing really fast okay guys I promise I'm not trying to be biased I'm really not but this is probably the easiest time I have ever had engraving a tumbler on any exto laser and I have them all so um take it for what it's worth this is pretty fast and effective that's that's all I'm going to say oh and if you do plan on doing these tumblers and bulk well I mean there it is I mean this is going to be my new Tumblr engraver now the last thing to show is a conveyor feeder attachment which attaches by screwing a bracket directly onto the conveyor feeder and another to the edge of the base plate of the F1 and plugging in the data cable now I am going to test this with some metal business cards inside of creative space we want to choose the conveyor batch option after I drop my design and continue it it will automatically fill in the other design when we start the engraving it will fill in the business cards with the design and I can continue placing the other business cards down and it will recognize the shape of them this is so cool guys but I am going to make this its own Standalone video I at least had to show you a little of how it worked for this review so you guys got to see the testing firsthand and honestly the only hiccup I had was guessing on some of the settings I don't feel that I have to hop this unit up it kind of speaks for itself I mean it did everything I needed it to do and it's as simple as that now for the most important part of this video who do I think this laser is for now I know thousands of people come to me for recommendations so I don't take that lightly guys here are my honest great for thoughts I don't think this is for people who plan to engrave metal exclusively I know other reviewers have echoed this as well there are more powerful fiber lasers out there for the same price that will etch deeper and faster and for me I don't necessarily need a crazy powerful fiber laser I mean it would be nice but I would not realistically use the power of it plus I am spoiled to the creative space software now this is hard because we don't have any other laser in this category or to compare the ultra 2 except for the original F1 now having 20 wats of blue diode and 20 WTS of fiber and a fast Galo unit that doesn't take up too much space I mean where is the competition from other brands this would be easier if we had another company that has something similar but we don't exol made a unique machine for hobbyists in small businesses that is a plug andplay that can engrave basically on anything really fast and with a conveyor feeder attachment we can engrave on larger materials and smaller ones in batch and this is really its own little uh laser Factory I guess you could say I mean if you already have the original exol F1 along with a CO2 or another diode laser you could probably get by without this unit but I know you probably don't want to since this thing does basically everything really fast and like I said it's literally its own Factory if that makes sense now this is real talk guys I'm just telling it like I see it from my own experience with a starting price of $4,000 it can be a big decision to make and I totally get that guys if having a dual laser will speed up your workflow and allow you to make products for customers faster well for me that's not a regular purchase it's an an investment and I don't mean to be braggadocious by any means but like I told you earlier I cleared over $200 in under one hour already and actually it's probably closer to about 30 minutes and this is what some people fail to understand when you get into the engraving business it's not by the hour it's priced by the value that you bring and again I am not trying to be prideful or sell you on this particular laser I am giving you my honest experience and if it resonates with you then look into it further it works great for what I am doing and personally this will probably be my new go-to laser if the F1 Ultra is something that you're saying hey this is what I have been looking for I will post a link to it below so you can check it out I will always try to have any current promo codes or sales posted so you know that you are getting the best price now buying through my links will give me a small Kickback from every sale at no extra cost to you and I seriously can't thank you guys enough for thinking of me if you do buy any extol laser every little bit supports the channel and the insane amount of hours that goes into each video if you would like more information you can check out my other video coming up right now my top 10 reasons for considering the F1 Ultra you can watch this video right here and I cover just a little bit more information from a business perspective if you need that extra push or need to see if it's not the right laser find this laser in the links below be sure to give this video a like and leave me a comment if you have any questions I appreciate you so much take care

Channel: Cornelius Creations

Views: 8,164

Keywords: xtool ultra f1, xtool f1 ultra 20w fiber laser, xtool f1 ultra review, xTool F1 portable laser, xtool F1 Dual Laser engraver, xTool F1 Review, xtool F1 fiber laser review, xtool p2 F1 dual laser engraver, 50w vs 55w co2 laser engraver, how to laser engrave wood, laser engraving, best laser engraver, desktop laser engraver, laser engraving machine, cutting metal with a laser, xTool fiber and diode laser, DIY crafts with laser, High power laser engraver, fiber laser vs xtool

Id: y4eq7CmcrP8

Length: 23min 49sec (1429 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024