I’m considering the purchase of a laser engraver with the accessory permitting usage on cylindrical items such as glassware, mugs etc.
Currently looking at Makeblock xTool D1
Anyone have this, or perhaps a better reasonably priced unit? This will not be used for a business, but more for hobby use, so spending thousands of dollars is not in the plans.
Thanks for any input.
(I’m curious about laser engravers too, so I’ll watch here to see what folks say)
An alternate approach for glassware and mugs: use a vinyl cutter. I have a Silhouette Cameo that I use for all kinds of cool stuff, and one feature that I have not yet tried is glass etching.
It’s quite simple to do though: create a fancy stencil using the software to generate an appropriately distorted shape that will wrap correctly on the glass, apply the stencil, then smear some glass etching cream over the stencil for a few minutes. That’s all there is to it: you now have a mug with your favorite inscription / cartoon / logo / whatever engraved in the glass.
I think this is how they make those corporate awards–either that or they sandblast over the stencil.
A while back a neighbor told us she used one that is available at our public library. They have various printers and such available in a “makery.” If you live in an urban setting, you might want to check to see if that is an option.
I’m definitely rural, not even suburban, so I’m pretty sure that’s not an option. I did join some FB groups dedicated to that particular model of engraver, so much of the information received so far is somewhat applicable to others I suppose.
For glass and mugs it seem that they spray a coating on the surface that the laser burns through. The coating concentrates the heat.
Hoping to learn more before the “buy it now” bug bites too hard.
OK, the buy now bug bit and I’ve placed an order for the unit liked in the OP, with the rotary unit for working with cylindrical objects. I’d don’t believe their shipping is too fast, so I expect arrival in a few weeks. Perhaps sooner, who knows.
I’m “burning” to get started.
I’ve got two laser engravers - the EleksDraw A3 and the EleksDraw (which also has a pen lifter servo that can be fitted in place of the laser, to make it a plotter).
(The A3 was given to me for review after I made reviews about the EleksDraw).
My experience of desktop laser engravers:
Don’t expect to actually cut anything thicker than card, thin leather, art foam, etc, or anything more resilient than plastic, wood, rubber, etc.
That said, assume the laser is going to cut through whatever you point it at, and engrave whatever is underneath. Don’t run this directly on top of your priceless walnut veneer table - get a hefty board to stand it on.
Don’t expect to cut or engrave anything that’s white - the laser just scatters and bounces off (also see eye damage notes below)
Holy crap, they produce a lot of smoke, and even if it’s just an engraving on wood, you can’t just do this on a table top in the house - you’re going to need to either run this in your garage with a fan creating a crossflow of air, or you’re going to need to buy/make a fume hood with powered extraction.
Do Not Look Into Laser With Remaining Eye. The laser goggles they give you with some of these devices are not really good enough - and even a relatively low power diode laser such as used in these devices can blind you quicker than you can blink - and this also applies if the beam hits a reflective bit of the object you’re trying to engrave and bounces off that into your eye. Make sure the eye protection you use is properly rated, and if you can, make the windows of your fume hood out of a material that absorbs the particular wavelengths of your laser (you can buy acrylic sheets with these specific safety ratings)
The software might be weird and buggy - at least with my EleksMaker devices it is - they use a proprietary thing called EleksDraw, and it’s not great. It has to be run as administrator and even then, it sometimes just crashes, and certain functions simply fail to work at random. Most cheap laser engravers use an arduino-based control board that can be flashed to work with more common and standard software though (mine can, but I am reluctant to take the plunge) - if you can, use software that is common and widely used, just because there will be more help and commentary out there to get you going.
I noticed they show the MakeBlock engraver directly etching a stainless steel coffee mug, and in the gallery, they show an engraved white pebble. I’d be very surprised if this is actually possible with that machine. If it is possible, then an additional risk to be managed is stray reflections not just blinding you, but setting fire to things in the room.
I appreciate the words of wisdom. Really I do. I’ll be running this in either my garage, or in the shop at my gun club. We have and use a Lincoln plasma cutter on a regular basis, so eye protection is a regular thing around there. We’ve even got those orange plastic curtains to protect any who wander by.
The machine is “supposed” to be able to cut bass wood @ 10mm thickness, but that’s probably optimistic. They do make a 20W module for the unit so that’s always a possibility in the future.
We may construct an enclosure if we decide it’s needed, but the shop has two 12x18 foot doors so I’m thinking ventilation shouldn’t be an obstacle.
I know that to engrave light colored or shiny objects they apply a dark coating so the beam’s heat is absorbed rather than reflected. So postings I’ve read use thinned tempera paint for that purpose, but I see they sell special sprays for that purpose. Any suggestions along that line?
Should be lots of fun I hope.
Yeah, I think you can get light surfaces to engrave if you apply a dark pigment - in some cases, this will just ‘tattoo’ the pigment into the top surface of the material, but that might be desirable (custom keyboard legends are made this way sometimes).
The run speed of the laser will affect the depth of engraving/cut, as well as the power setting of the laser itself - a slow path will cut deeper into the material, but will also risk local overheating which (especially with wood) might just start a little fire that results in a blobby charred line. Multiple passes at a higher speed might be better, although not sure whether the precision of your rotary axis will support that.
One thing I find mine very useful for is manufacturing custom decal lettering just by applying tape to a surface, then cutting and weeding - I used it on my mini Altair clone case here: A Nostalgic Case For My Arduino Altair 8800 Clone - YouTube
Edit: oh, and also here: Using The Franken FT80 Terminal With My Altair 8800 (Clone) - YouTube
I wouldn’t be worried about stray reflections setting fires elsewhere in your workspace: Unless you’ve got a surface that’s both extremely polished and extremely flat, you’re going to have a lot of dispersal of the beam before it hits anything else. That said, it takes a lot less energy to cause eye damage than it does to set things on fire, so you do want to be careful about that.
Interesting, so the vinyl tape becomes the letters. I’ll have to look into that type of application. The unit I bought comes with a box of material to get started . I’m sure that I’ll learn a lot.
The software is kind of basic, but LightBurn is available. The software we use with the plasma cutter is of a similar type, though it only cuts, but the work flow should be similar.
Oh, and even if you’re stuck using some crazy-ass piece of software for the direct interface to the laser, it’s highly probable that it can import from more common formats like SVG. So you might be able to do most of your design in the vector-graphics program of your choice, then when you’re happy with it, export it to SVG, and then import the SVG into the laser software (and then maybe make only minor tweaks, if there were bugs in the importation).
That sounds like a spiffy way to use what you already have to do extra things without having to buy more equipment. Kind of like me machining wood using my milling machine rather than using proper woodworking equipment–it works, so why not?
I will say that if one wants to do a significant amount of work with vinyl, then a proper vinyl cutter is the way to go–they are designed to slice perfectly down to the backing paper without slicing through that, and I’m not sure how precise a laser cut edge would be compared to the razor-cut one. To give an idea of the precision, I have cut 14pt lettering with one–weeding is a supreme pain and there may have been a few false starts, but in the end it worked beautifully. Besides, it’s yet another cool tool to buy!
Yeah, I’d like to get a vinyl cutter sometime - definitely a better cut than my bodging with the laser, but this was OK for the purpose.
You’re probably right - I mean, it seem unlikely to me that this diode laser will actually engrave stainless steel anyway - I guess it’s just a case of the more powerful the laser, the harder it is trying to kill you.
But I don’t have to worry about an EMP destroying my TV every time I use it.right? 
My xTool d1 arrived today!
Very well packaged and went together with no issues. The frame parts are well machined and the corners are secured with 4 screws on each.
I did have to update the controller’s firmware. I did make a few test passes, but because I was working in my kitchen I didn’t do much.
Will move to the shop tomorrow and see what it can do. So far the placement of the work piece in relation to the laser head I find a little confusing. I plan to play on corrugated cardboard to get that figured out as it’s pretty much free.