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The xTool D1 Pro 40W is the most powerful laser I’ve tested by some margin. It can supposedly cut up to 20mm softwood and 18mm hardwood in one pass and can engrave anything from wood, to stainless steel to slate at speeds of up to 24,000 mm/min.
I’ll show exactly what it’s capable of with some real life, hopefully interesting projects. And I’ll run through all its features, capabilities and available accessories including the rotary tool, enclosure and air pump, to help you decide if this is the right laser for you.
So let’s take a closer look!
Assembly
The machine comes nicely packaged with a few welcome extras including sample materials and a useful dual ended screwdriver for assembly.
Most importantly there are some of the clearest assembly guides I’ve seen for any laser machine. And they also have video guides if you prefer.
The 40W version of the D1 Pro is still relatively new and my unit came as a 10W D1 Pro with the 40W upgrade kit. I’m not going to go through assembly in detail since you’re better off following xTool’s instructions, but I will point out a few areas to watch out for.
Despite the clear instructions, it still took a couple of hours to assemble including filming for my YouTube video. The frame is the same for all the D1 Pro units but you need to swap out the motherboard for the board supplied with the 40W laser. I found this easier to do before assembly. Leave the motherboard screws loose to make it easier to assemble the frame which is quite a tight fit. I also fitted the microSD card which is required for some of the machines’ functions.
Then you can screw the frame together. Some of the joints do need some coaxing to line up and the 12 screws then pull it all together. It’s easier pulling the joints together with the end screws and then fitting the top screws. You then need to install the tensioning bolts for the y-axis. The manual and videos don’t show this, but the idler pulleys are secured in place with screws on the side of the laser. I’d recommend loosening these before installing the long tensioning bolts, so you don’t strip any threads.
Then you can install the motor shaft that hooks into the timing belt and joins to the motor with a coupler.
You need to make sure you fully slide down both of the x-axis gantry mounts before securely tightening both halves of the coupler. Double check both gantry mounts now move together.
With this 40W unit you also need to swap out the y-axis limit switch, using the existing stand-offs and install the new limit stops.
The front stop has various positions based on which laser you have installed so it doesn’t crash into the front of the machine. Unless you desperately need the extra 2 cm or so, I’d just leave this in the 40W laser position even if you switch lasers.
Then you can install the y-axis motor cable and attach it to the front of the machine with cable ties before installing the x-axis gantry.
This has been beefed up for the 40W laser and slips into the sliding mounts, secured in place with 2 screws either side. Then you can install the x-axis tensioning bolt. Again, loosen the securing bolt behind the x-axis before attaching this bolt. You can set tension on all the belts as the final step.
Connect up all the cabling which is pretty self explanatory, but it is a little fiddy attaching the main wiring loom to the motherboard. Then you can move onto cable management which is one of the weaker features of this laser.
Initially I attached the wiring loom as instructed, with cable ties through the holes in the side of the unit. But in use this can interfere with the x-axis movement so I stuck cable tie bases onto the bottom of the unit and secured the wiring loom to these with cable ties. It’s still not perfect – there’s very little space for all the cabling behind the x-axis. I had to adjust the cable tie around the back of the x-axis motor to allow the gantry to move all the way back for homing, which I’ll discuss later.
Now you can install the laser unit. This 40W unit is massive and weighs 875g – you can above see how it compares in size to the 465g 10W unit. It slides into its dovetail mount on the gantry, with a lever locking it in place. You’ll probably need to loosen this lever a little to install the laser.
There’s a light shroud that attaches magnetically. When using the laser with the enclosure I did often remove this.
Then you can install the cabling which locks into place with a strain relief lever, new to the 40W module.
You can use any of the xTool lasers with this machine, from the 5W module all the way up to this 40W. With all the lower powered lasers, the smaller cable connector will remain unplugged.
Finally you need to set the belt tension on both y-axes and the x-axis. Tighten the tensioning bolts and then lock the tension with the side screws on the y-axes and rear screw on the x-axis. Try and ensure the belt tension on both y-axes is the same or at least close. You can pluck the belt like a guitar string and compare the note. It should sound similar.
If you have the xTool air assist, setup is very easy. Most of the included accessories aren’t required for the 40W laser module which has air coming in through its top. Just attach the coupler for the tubing and push the tubing into the top of the laser through the adapter. Do the same at the other end into the pump.
I also have the foldable xTool enclosure which is also very easy to set up and slips over the machine after velcroing it together. I’ll cover the pump and enclosure shortly.
There are also riser feet that come with some kits, that screw neatly into the existing feet. And they can be stacked together for extra height for thicker wood or to use the RA2 Pro rotary tool which I’ll cover later. I’d recommend getting at least one set of these feet for thicker materials if your kit doesn’t come with any. I mostly ran the machine with one set of feet installed – if you’re using a honeycomb cutting bed the extra height is useful.
Performance
This 40W module uses no less than 8 stacked 5.5W laser diodes, which according to xTool allows it to cut up to 20mm pine in just one pass. We’ll test that shortly.
The larger laser module and wider gantry does reduce the usable capacity slightly from 430 x 390 mm for the 10W laser, to 430 x 348 mm for this 40W version. If you fit one of the lower powered lasers and adjust the front limit stop, you can extend this workspace slightly. With the 10W fitted you’ll get an extra 23 mm or so with the usable capacity expanded to approximately 430 x 371 mm. That’s still less than with the standard 10W setup with the narrower gantry.
In comparison the Two Trees TS2 I looked at had a much larger 450 x 450mm capacity. I did find the working space a little limiting as you’ll see shortly, but there are generally ways around this, and it doesn’t take up as much space as some lasers I’ve tested. xTool does sell an extension kit if you do need more capacity.
If you’re using this machine for engraving, the extra power lets you engrave faster, or at lower power, or a combination of the two. I started running an engraving material test on some laser plywood. I ran the test from 5,000 mm/minute all the way to its maximum 24,000 mm/min. Vibrations were minimal even at the highest speeds and I had one set of riser feet installed. Removing these risers would lower the laser’s centre of gravity and further reduce any vibrations. Even at its maximum 24,000 mm/min I could still engrave plywood at just 35% power.
I settled on 15,000 mm/min and 50% power for this coaster which came out pretty well. The machine is completely silent when the laser is not on. The laser’s cooling fan only turns on with the laser, and the stepper motors are pretty quiet. I measured around 65 dB in operation one metre away, about 28 dB louder than background noise. That’s without the air pump and extractor on. You can hear how it sounds in the accompanying video.
As well as wood I engraved other materials including slate, leather and cork and I also tried engraving stainless steel. Diode lasers can’t engrave other metals without some type of coating, but the xTool did a good job on this stainless steel ruler. I got good results at 4,000 mm/min and 100% power, but did an additional pass on this ruler to darken it slightly.
For the rest of the review I’ll concentrate more on the cutting performance of this laser. The 40W can engrave faster than a 10W machine for instance, but otherwise pretty much any engraving you can do on this laser, you could do on a lower powered laser, just slower. In fact theoretically you’ll generally get slightly higher resolution with a lower powered laser for engraving since it’s easier to accurately focus one or two stacked diodes, compared to the 8 in this 40W module. The laser spot on this laser is 0.1mm x 0.15mm, compared to 0.08 x 0.06mm (0.004″ x 0.006″) for the 10W module. In reality I didn’t notice much difference unless I looked very closely.
Cutting is where there are considerable advantages with this 40W module. Again there are time savings with faster cutting, but you can also cut thicker materials that are not possible to cut with lower powered units, even at lower speeds. And wood can catch fire if you run at too low speeds.
I tried a section of pine 35mm thick at 100% power and 100 mm/minute. If you’re using a honeycomb bed which I’d recommend for any cutting jobs, you’ll need some riser feet for thicker materials like this.
You set the correct focal distance of the laser with the height adjustment arm that flips out, but there’s also a focal scale on the right side of the laser which you can adjust for thicker materials. It lowers the focus of the laser below the surface of the wood for a deeper cut. It’s worth noting that this adjustment doesn’t alter the position of the height adjustment lever. So you can set the correct height for the material and then adjust the focal scale, or vice versa.
For this pine I had the focal scale set to 4mm and even though the laser didn’t make it all the way through, it made it to around 30 mm in just one pass – exceeding xTool’s spec’d 20 mm. At this thickness multiple passes don’t achieve a deeper cut.
I then tried some 20 mm pine from a pallet but this didn’t make it all the way through, and started to catch fire!
The laser did just get through a 20 mm thick pine rail from an old Ikea cot. So as is often the case with these lasers, you need to carefully test the actual material you’re going to laser.
I had some 10 mm thick pine planed down from a pallet that I thought I’d try for a real project. I used a nifty app on my smartphone to take a photo of the supplied push stick for my table saw. The app converts the photo to a scaled vector image that I sent from Lightburn to the D1 Pro.
This cut perfectly in one pass and is an almost exact replica of the original.
For cutting you really do need some sort of extraction. There’s a lot of smoke generated and even cutting natural material like pine, the smell is unpleasant. For some materials the fumes can be dangerous.
I tested out the xTool enclosure which I attached to a 150 mm extractor connected to ducting that I passed through an outside window.
The enclosure fits the D1 Pro perfectly, is well made from a fire-proof material, has a useful velcro strap on the side for your tools and can quickly fold flat for storage.
It cleverly accommodates up to two sets of riser feet and has a lid with a yellow window that supposedly filters laser light. This is an extra layer of protection, but I’d still wear quality laser glasses when the laser is in operation. The lid closes with magnets and supports itself when hinged open.
The enclosure comes with a small extraction fan and some ducting, but it really needs something more substantial. I 3D printed a 75mm to 150mm adapter for an extractor I already have which worked pretty well. I can also pass the ducting through an inline carbon filter for additional safety.
Having used this laser almost exclusively with the enclosure and extraction I wouldn’t want to go back to open lasering again. You can still smell what you’re cutting, but it’s a huge improvement. With children around, it feels far safer in operation too. And it’s quieter – I measured around a 10 dB drop in noise, one metre away with the enclosure. With the xTools air pump and my large extractor on full, I measured 63 dB one metre away using the enclosure.
I tried cutting various other materials, including 6 mm plywood, oak up to 15 mm, and 19 mm MDF, leather, rubber and black acrylic. 6 mm laser plywood I could cut at 400 mm/minute, about 4 times faster than on any 10W laser I’ve tested.
Solid oak I was able to cut up to 12 mm which is pretty impressive, although not quite as quick as spec’d.
The black acrylic I could cut easily but unfortunately you are limited to opaque acrylic with diode lasers so you can’t cut clear acrylic which would be more useful – you need a CO2 laser for that. I had no success with 19 mm MDF unsurprisingly – MDF is very dense.
But it did cut this 6mm black laser MDF I’ve just come across which I really like and I’m looking for projects to use it on!
xTool also advertises that the 40W laser is powerful enough to cut 0.1mm stainless steel, which I had to try. I didn’t get the cleanest cut but could cut the metal at 200 mm/minute.
My only possible use for 0.1mm stainless steel would be custom shims for machinery, but let me know if you have any other ideas!
I used the xTool air pump for all cutting tasks, at full power. I turned it down to its lowest setting for engraving. I normally use my compressor for air assist which is far more powerful, but this air pump does a decent job and is much quieter and far smaller! I do think it’s expensive for what it is though. It looks identical to an aquarium pump I’ve seen online with the same output but at less than a third of the price!
Real projects
After endless testing of what seemed like a very capable machine, I wanted to work on some real projects. I bought a couple of designs off Etsy that my children requested.
This bicycle I cut out of 3 mm plywood and even the ultra fine details in the wheels less than 1 mm across came out perfectly at 500 mm/min and 100% power.
I also cut this from a combination of black acrylic and laser MDF.
As a more challenging project my daughter was after a multi-layered sign for her room.
The background with the intricate honeycomb design I again cut from 3 mm plywood with the same settings as for the bicycle. This took less than 30 minutes to cut and came out very well with. Cutting this on a 10W laser would take well over an hour.
I cut the second outline layer from 6 mm laser plywood at 300 mm/min, 100% power.
This would take about three times as long on a 10W laser.
Finally I cut the lettering out of 3 mm plywood again.
I spray painted the daisy background with antique white paint and the lettering with candy pink paint and stuck it all together. I think she’s very happy with it! If you were selling these, the time saving using a 40W laser like this would be significant.
Finally I wanted an oak pizza peel for my pizza oven. I photographed a Gozney aluminium peel I have to base the design off and created the design in Fusion 360 which I exported as a DXF and opened in Lightburn.
I had a lovely wide piece of 50mm thick English oak that I cut down into narrower pieces to make it easier to work on and increase its stability.
I then resawed it and thicknessed it down to 15 mm.
I then glued it back together again ready to be cut.
I would have liked to cut the pizza peel on the xTool but firstly it’s too big, and secondly 15 mm oak was too much even for the 40W laser. You’d also have to deal with the burnt blackened edge from the laser, which would require a lot of sanding.
I split the design in Lightburn using the Cut Shapes tool, arranged the parts to fit the working space and cut them from some 3 mm board I had from an old work table.
The D1 Pro has an always on crosshair for alignment that I find very useful. You need to set its offset if you’re using Lightburn. xTools provides a setup file for Lightburn but this doesn’t have the correct offset for the 40W module.
Under Device Settings | Laser Offset: leave X as 0 mm and set Y to -21 mm. It’s worth confirming this offset is correct for your machine with a couple of test pieces.
It’s so much each using this crosshair for alignment and framing compared to using the laser itself at a lower power. It’s easier to see, the crosshairs help alignment and it’s safer since you don’t need the actual laser on. And because the laser’s not actually on, it’s also silent. You do lose a little accuracy so for any critical alignment I turn it off and use the laser dot.
Even with the assistance from the crosshair, this project was larger than my honeycomb bed and I still managed to burn through to my table top!
But the template came out perfectly and I lay it on the oak before tracing around it and cutting it out on the bandsaw a little oversized. You could also use a jigsaw.
I stuck the template to the oak with double sided tape and used the router table with a pattern bit to cut it to its finished size. You could do this with a handheld router.
I then used a chamfer bit to bevel the end and sanded it before applying a food safe mineral oil finish.
The mineral oil really brings out the grain in this lovely piece of oak and it works very well for launching pizzas into the Roccbox!
Wireless & RA2 Pro Rotary tool
One feature of the D1 Pro that I’ve not discussed is its built in wireless capability. It’s not something I really use since it’s not supported in Lightburn. But if you use xTool’s cross platform Creative Space software it works perfectly.
In Creative Space Settings, you click on WiFi Settings and enter the password for your WiFi network. Now you can unplug the USB cable and use the laser wirelessly, not just from your computer but with the smartphone app too.
The Creative Space software is pretty capable and for occasional use it’s a great free alternative to Lightburn.
Even if you’re not going to use it, you need to install the Creative Space software to update firmware and configure settings on the laser. For instance to switch the crosshair off or enable the limit switch alarms. These will alert you if you try and move the laser outside of its allowed working space. The limit switches are useful if you want to home the laser head and use absolute positioning, which can be very useful for repetitive tasks.
My machine arrived with a faulty rear left limit switch so when I tried to home the laser head, it crashed into the back left of the laser. xTool sent me a replacement switch which took around a week to get to me and worked just fine.
Finally I tested xTool’s RA2 Pro rotary tool accessory for engraving cylindrical objects although it’s far more capable than that. It comes with various accessories including a chuck and can engrave irregular shaped objects, tapered flasks and mugs with handles.
It’s easily the best rotary tool I’ve tested, and the most expensive. It comes already assembled and is well made. It also includes plenty of accessories but surprisingly not the riser feet that you will need and must be purchased separately if not included with your bundle.
I used it in its basic roller mode and only had to move the outer roller inwards to accommodate this torch I wanted to engrave.
You do need to unplug the y-axis motor cable from the motherboard and attach the rotary in its place. This is a rather clumsy implementation for such a pricey accessory, and I would be concerned about snapping off the fragile connector on the motherboard if you’re doing this regularly. But it’s not difficult and with the laser raised up on its additional feet it’s fairly easy to get to.
I used an engineer’s square to line up the gantry to both ends of the rotary and in xTool’s Creative Space you’ll be prompted to turn off the crosshair for the rotary tool. Which will carry across to Lightburn, where you also need to remember to turn off the Laser Offset. This is a little inconvenient, but you do often need the additional accuracy of the laser dot itself for rotary jobs. You only need 0.25 to 0.5% power for the laser dot in Lightburn – any higher and you might burn through your material with the 40W laser!
It’s much easier using the rotary tool in Creative Space, so I’d probably start off in that program for at least the first few jobs, even if you have Lightburn. You just choose Laser Cylindrical, and Roller or Chuck and that’s setup completed.
In Lightburn you need to Enable Rotary and configure the correct parameters. I’m using roller mode and xTool’s instructions say to enable Mirror Output to Rotary, use the Z-axis as the rotary axis, use 32 mm per rotation and a roller diameter of 17mm. I checked these settings with some wooden dowel and found 32.1mm per rotation gave me the perfect result – close to what I got in Creative Space. I should have checked some text too!
I lasered my initials to this Fenix torch but although I checked framing carefully, I rather hurriedly didn’t check the preview and the text was mirrored. It turns out xTool’s instructions are incorrect and you don’t want Mirror Output to Rotary, for the roller mode at least.
I used the support module for the end of the torch which is a great little accessory that can be very accurately set with the thumbscrew to get your object exactly level. xTool even includes a small bubble level to help you.
I reprinted my initials, this time on a white background to cover up the mistake. I’ll try and cover the other accessories in the RA2 Pro kit in a follow up article and a video on my YouTube channel.
Conclusions
I’ve looked at a few lasers over this last year, and the D1 Pro is my favourite so far. It’s well constructed, fairly easy to use and the 40W laser module really pushes the boundaries of what a laser diode machine is capable of.
I particularly like that xTool has an upgrade path for the D1 Pro. You could start with the 10W version and upgrade down the line to the 20W or this 40W module if need be. There’s no doubt you’re paying a considerable premium for this 40W module, but if you’re making money off this machine it could be worth it for the time savings alone. And for cutting, you can work with thicker materials too.
I’m unsure how far this technology can be pushed. As a keen woodworker I’d love to be able to cut thicker 19mm sheet materials. But even with this 40W module, I think it needs to include an enclosure and proper extraction, even if this pushes up the price. You could get away without one for engraving, but cutting thicker materials generates huge amounts of smoke which you don’t want to breathe in. Not to mention the safety concern of an open machine with a laser this powerful.
The only issue I had with the laser was the faulty limit switch. I did get to test xTool support who took a couple of days to get back to me but did send out a replacement switch. This email support is pretty standard, but I think at the price of this machine, 24/7 chat support like Prusa offers with their 3D printers, would really set xTool apart from the competition.
The machine works well with xTool’s Creative Suite but I imagine most people spending this much on a laser will eventually move to Lightburn if they’re not using it already. Although you can use the D1 Pro with Lightburn, it’s frustrating that you still need to use xTool’s software for certain functions like toggling the crosshair. And you can’t use the laser’s WiFi capabilities with Lightburn which means you have to use the machine tethered with a USB cable, which seems a bit outdated. There’s no control screen either which I’d love to at least see as an optional accessory.
There is a button on the top of the laser for some control of the machine, but it’s very confusing and I question its safety. I accidentally pressed it once and it recalled the last job and started cutting into my desk with no warning! And this button doesn’t work with Lightburn either.
These are all minor issues and overall I had a very good experience testing the D1 Pro. It’s become my laser of choice, at least for the time being. And the enclosure, air pump and rotary tool, whilst expensive, all work very well. There’s been a lot to cover and I plan a follow up article and video, so look out for that.
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