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Hey, I'm Tynan, and today we're looking at the X-Tool D1 Pro 40W version, which,

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if you saw it, was too dangerous for the LTT video, but I am trained to know what I'm doing,

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and we're going to take a look at it today. This is a little bit different in terms of flow compared to a normal ShortCircuit. As you can see, it's already built, mostly because

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it takes like an hour and a half to build, and we had other things that we needed to get done.

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And though this is an interesting tool to look at, I'm actually more interested in some of the

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other things that come with it, like the fire suppression system and the built-in air assist,

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but the fire suppression system in particular. One of the several problems with this type of

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laser is the fact that as soon as something gets lit on fire, it's likely just going to get a lot

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worse, unless the laser has its own built-in fire suppression system or its own way of stopping.

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And even if the laser stops, most materials we're cutting will continue to burn afterwards.

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This uses a compressed CO2 cylinder to flood the entire enclosure with CO2 to

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snuff out any fire that's inside it and stop it from spreading. This particular laser is a diode

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laser, and it's a blue laser at about 455 nanometers, which means you can see it, although

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if you see it, you're doing something wrong because it's very dangerous, and it can severely

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damage your eyes if you're not careful. Any laser like this should always have an enclosure,

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and it is definitely one gripe I have right off the bat, is you can buy this without an enclosure.

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That's really dangerous. Thankfully, you can buy an enclosure. Though this one is better than

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nothing, I'm not sure if it's going to solve all of the potential gripes I have. Back to the

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original Home of ShortCircuit, actually unboxing something. So in here we have a couple of

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laser danger signs, which is good. A couple of instruction manuals, assembly guides,

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and a whole bunch of panels. Enclosures like this are designed for a couple of reasons. One is to

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keep smoke and fumes in one area and be able to vent them out, and the other one is to act as

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things that dampen how much power is coming out of them. So these should help lower the

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amount of laser power that comes through and make it closer to safe. This enclosure also

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comes with a nice little exhaust fan, hose, some mounting hardware, some more mounting hardware,

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and the tiny little AC adapter. This is the teeny tiny adapter just for the fan. I'm sure

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there are instructions somewhere, but I'm sure I can figure it out. Maybe. This particular enclosure

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is designed to be taken apart and ported around with you fairly easily, which is both a good thing

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and a bad thing. They say that this is flame-proof material. It feels relatively robust, and I have

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seen some people take blow torches to it and actually do burn tests. I don't know how well

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it would stand up to the laser blasting at it, and I don't think we're going to test that today,

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because I don't know what's in this, and that could potentially be dangerous. I think I might

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actually need the instructions for this. All right, laser, you're going to the side for now.

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This is my nice LTTstore.com screwdriver with the right hex size bit for this, of course.

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Okay, laser, you get to come back.

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Ah, there's a nice little inlet space.

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There we go, and we have an enclosure. This is definitely a lot better than the

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laser just being in the open, but it's not super secure. And if you're using the laser,

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definitely don't trust the enclosure to fully protect you from the laser, because there is

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a ton of places it can still get out. You definitely still have to wear a laser safety

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glasses when operating it. This fan can vent things out, but we also have a few extractor

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underneath the table. This has several filters in it. I haven't checked through each one of

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them individually, though it does appear as though it should filter out most of the particulate in

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VOCs. There is a chance that not all of the dangerous seams will get filtered out,

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so venting the output outside is still a safer option. Just on there.

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Power switch.

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There it goes. That is two of the power systems done. Next up is actually hooking up computer

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and power to the laser itself. One of the other things that you can get as an optional add-on,

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which also I would strongly recommend is some kind of base for the laser. What we got here

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is a nice honeycomb base. These are fairly nice because it lets air fly through it. A lot of

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these lasers have an optional air assist, which helps clear out a bunch of the vaporized material

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that the laser creates, and these both provide some space in between where the laser is hitting

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your material and focused, and the backstop where it gets absorbed, which in this case is a relatively

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thin aluminum sheet. This, you need to raise it up off the table, or it will not be able to actually

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sit. That's an RTFM moment. Oh, that's a read the manual moment, or read the

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manual for those who are so inclined. Sometimes knowing what you're doing is fun. Other times,

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just stumbling a little bit is more fun. If I understand how this works correctly,

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aha, it is now a good height. Sweet. There is also a height adjustment on the laser body itself,

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so we'll get to that soon. I fired it with my laser. This is one of the reasons that I was

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interested in this setup to begin with. I've seen and heard of a lot of horror stories of places

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burning down when people leave their lasers unattended. Don't do that. Having a system that

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helps prevent a fire in any circumstance is good. Even if you're in the same room, if you're not

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paying 100% attention, which if you're running a long cut, it's going to happen. Having something

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that'll cut the laser power and also deal with the fire itself is a pretty nice quality of life

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improvement and also potentially just a life improvement if it works properly.

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Not weights. There are the aforementioned compressed air cylinders. These ones, I believe,

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are CO2, and they look fairly similar to what you'd use in like airsoft or things like that,

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although a little bit bigger, which makes me wonder how many times each one works.

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Power adapter? I think this might be what actually kills the power to the laser if it detects a fire.

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There's actually quite a few things in here. I believe this is a relay box,

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and in here there are a whole bunch of lights, and then also what I'm assuming is a fire detection

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system. This appears to be an emitter, and this appears to be a receiver. If there's a fire in

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the box and it blocks off enough of the space between them, I believe it'll trigger. It does have

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a shutoff for the main power for the laser, which is pretty good. It does have a bunch of CO2

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that'll blast into the chamber to put out any fires. Oh, there we go. Okay, so there's the hookups.

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I'm only going to put in two of the bottles. They do say you can do that if the volume is small

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enough. I have a pretty good feeling that once these are inserted, you are very much not supposed

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to take them out, but that may only be after it triggers. I'm not sure whether it punctures the

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discs. Just don't want to turn it on and then have it blast in my face. Now that I'm ready to plug

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this in, we are all going to put on our safety glasses. X-Tool does ship with a pair of safety

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glasses, though I am rather skeptical of them. These are dark green, which generally is not the

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normal color of safety glasses for a blue laser. These are ones from Thor Labs that are rated and

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certified to a level that is above what we need in this use case. And as you can see, they're

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orange. When you're blocking out a blue laser, generally orange is the lack of blue, so it'll

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absorb all of that radiation. Whereas with this green one, I'm a lot less certain about it. I did

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watch a video of them demoing the safety glasses working properly, where they blasted a laser straight

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through it into a power meter, though the amount of reduction in power wasn't really high enough

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for me to be content with using something like these. These are expensive, but you only have two

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eyes. So we're gonna wear them. Wow, those lights are very orange now. Holy moly. And just as a

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general bit of safety things for the user, whenever your laser is on, for these ones in particular,

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I would say even if it's powered on, not if the laser's firing, I would have your glasses on.

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You'd much rather be safe than sorry with anything like this. And eye damage is not going to be fixed

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if it happens. So be careful. So as we can see, all these are green and good to go. Yes. Okay,

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so it does work. That's convenient. Next up, make sure it's on the test mode so I don't blast my

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ears. Okay, so it is on test. This is where the blowtorch comes in.

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Haha, that is what you call overkill. This is powered. I have this sensor. Again, it's on test mode.

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Please don't go off. So you can see the flashing orange dot. That means it's detecting a fire.

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And then when I pack away, it goes away. Let's actually jump into software and firing this thing

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up. All right, laser is powered on. Xtool has its own Xtool Creative Space app, which you can

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download off their website. They also say that it is compatible with Lightburn, which generally is,

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in my opinion, a better software. We're going to use the Xtool Creative Space today just because

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it's easier to get set up and we can just hit the ground running with the download. They sent us a

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base material pack, which is pretty expensive for what you get, but it is a wide variety of things.

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So there's some benefit to it. That includes everything from making your own necklaces

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to some pendants, which you can engrave and color to looks like some leather. Though,

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be careful with leather. You want to make sure that it's real leather and not fake leather,

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because that can create some really nasty gases if you cut it. Another couple pieces of metal,

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some slate or shale, a bunch of different types of plastic and cardboard for either cards or

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whatever else you want to make out of them. A bunch of random types of wood, which are plywoods.

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Again, be a little bit careful, especially with things that have a lot of glue or adhesive in them.

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It can create some nasty fumes if you're not careful and not aware of it. A bunch of different

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types of felts and colored acrylic for this particular laser. You can cut colored acrylics

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because the light will be absorbed by it and it'll blast it away, but be aware that different

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lasers have different restrictions when it comes to what kinds of materials they can cut or etch.

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Jumping into cutting stuff, we're going to start with wood because it creates the least

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nasty smelling fumes and is pretty forgiving. Things like this, just slap it down wherever

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once we, ah, so as you can see, this does have a nice little focus dot. I'm going to read through

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the focusing instructions on it. I'm going to guess we're going to have to adjust the total height.

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So I believe that for focusing, you need to have this set like this piece here on the material.

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Though I'll confirm that with the instructions on their app. Ah, that's connected. They have

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things, something like Thingiverse where you can upload things for free and people can download it

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and cut it themselves on their own machines. It's kind of nice. Let's just send it and see what happens.

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I should probably make sure that it's focused first though. Aha, there it is.

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One thing I'm not sure about is if this knows where it is relative to the grid

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or if it just starts wherever you place it. So just in case it starts wherever you place it,

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I'm going to get this adjusted so it's cutting starting at the corner and that should be good,

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hopefully. If not, we'll find out. There is also a framing option which just gives it,

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gives you the outer profile of the cut. It can be quite nice to make sure that you placed something

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correctly. That was a limit switch. It does stop itself from sending itself further away than it

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expects. It's very loud and hard to ignore, which is nice. I essentially just manually moved it

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until it stopped beeping and did a full frame. Now we're actually going to turn it on. I'm going

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to grab a fire extinguisher. One moment, please. Conveniently, there's one right outside the door.

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All right, time to push the button.

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What is my backup if things start going wrong? Power button down there. All right, so start.

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Press the button on the device. She's in the enclosure. All right, I'm going to come around.

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All right, and away we go. You know how I was talking about being able to tell what side of the piece you're starting on?

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Yeah, this should start. Close this up again. Hopefully no more loud beep. Oh, so that's a

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laser. Currently, it's just doing a etching pass, so it's not going all the way through the material.

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It's just kind of burning away the top layer. After it's done its first pass, it'll do the

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cut pass. I'm going to cut this one a little bit short and shift to just a smaller section of the

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cut, just as a proof of concept for the machine itself rather than going through the entire cut.

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Let's take a gander at the thingy.

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Smells like campfire. It's not bad, especially with no air assist. I will say their software is

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pretty easy to use, which is nice. And away we go.

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As anyone who's ever worked with lasers like this, the thing that takes the longest time

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is trying to do an etch because it covers a full area, whereas when you're just doing line cuts,

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it's way faster. Open her up. Oh, that actually doesn't smell too bad.

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Oh, are the cutting parameters correct? No, they are not.

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So that's the one side, mini little ShortCircuit logo. Unfortunately,

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didn't cut all the way through. Interesting. You can even see a couple of different heights of

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different layers, and that's just the depth. Just how much laser power goes onto it, and it burns

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away a little bit more, and that kind of serves as your color. There are a couple of different

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algorithms for it, but this one's relatively straightforward and easy to implement. But

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I definitely want to test out this fire suppression system. And to do that,

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we're going to head over to the shop and do it there. I have a couple of pieces of cardboard,

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relatively common to try to cut on devices like this, and I'm going to light them on fire.

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It does the thing. All right. Well,

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okay. So it'll blast at every 20 seconds, I think, although the fire looks very out at this point.

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So this line will get cold enough where it might actually cause problems,

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depending on what you're doing. But they do tell you about that. So it definitely does enough to

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snuff out this size of chamber with a decently sized fire. It works pretty well. I didn't give it

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ideal conditions, but it still produced a pretty good cut. But there's a bunch of

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happy-ats with this system in particular. It's really not safe, and people shouldn't

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really buy lasers that don't have purpose-built enclosures to keep them safe. Honestly, in my

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opinion, this product shouldn't really exist in the form it is. It's a good machine. The technology

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inside the laser itself is cool, and it does a very good job for what it needs to do. But

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it's not something that I could recommend. I personally would consider running a machine like

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this, but if I did, I'd build a custom enclosure that is safe and operates it properly and has

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properly rated glass or Windows. So at least my takeaway from this machine in particular is

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I wouldn't really recommend buying it, unless you really know what you're doing. But even then,

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if you know what you're doing, you're probably buying something else. If you were going to buy

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this particular system, one of the other complicated parts is you kind of have to buy

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everything individually, which means the total price is a little bit difficult to nail down.

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The base machine that we got was the X-Tool D1 Pro 20W, which is about 1400 US. And we also got

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the 40W diode upgrade kit, which is another 1400 bucks. And then you have a fume extraction and

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purification system, which runs you another thousand, unless you want to run this out the door.

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And then an enclosure, which costs another 200. Plus, in this particular setup,

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the fire suppression system, which is only 200 bucks. Well, my opinion is that the laser itself,

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not great overall. This is a pretty nice tool. And if you can implement it well in a laser setup

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that you have or anything else that could catch fire, it could be a nice tool to save you a fair

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bit of money if you're not paying really close attention to your heat generating objects.

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If you liked this video, you should go check out the unboxing I did of the Prusa Mark 4.

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It's quite a printer.
