For Christmas this year, I decided to get myself a new laser engraver, and I settled on the XTool F1. It’s a marked improvement over my old one, which was a cobbled-together ‘gantry’ laser. One of the reasons I picked up the F1 is that it’s a dual-laser setup. A 10W 455nm Blue Diode, and a 2W 1064nm IR Diode. This lets me engrave on more materials, even 3D printed parts! I was inspired by Batch Studio’s work and experiments with laser engraving onto PETG and PLA filament. As well, people have been doing a lot of testing, and you can actually get colors and different shades on certain materials just by varying speed and power!
I ordered the Deluxe package, which gave me an air purifier, a rotary tool, and a slide extension. I was impressed with how easy the F1 was to use. Focusing is trivial, and because it’s a Galvo laser, it’s a heck of a lot faster than the old laser. The only real drawback is the size.
So of course the first thing to do is print all sorts of jigs and vices and storage solutions!
First thing I printed was this wonderful 3D Printed Vice with this Remix to fit the F1.
Then I printed up this mount for the rotary tool. Bit of a snug fit on the two parts, but nothing a hammer couldn’t fix!
The next major thing I started on was this set of Gridfinity Bins for the rotary tool, since it has a whole bunch of parts. I also designed a bin to hold the clamps for the slide extension.
Once I start making custom things, I’ll toss up a project page.
