WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.240 Hey, I'm Tynan, and today we're looking at the X-Tool D1 Pro 40W version, which, 00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:12.720 if you saw it, was too dangerous for the LTT video, but I am trained to know what I'm doing, 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:21.280 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 00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:26.160 it takes like an hour and a half to build, and we had other things that we needed to get done. 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:30.560 And though this is an interesting tool to look at, I'm actually more interested in some of the 00:00:30.560 --> 00:00:35.520 other things that come with it, like the fire suppression system and the built-in air assist, 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:40.720 but the fire suppression system in particular. One of the several problems with this type of 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:45.120 laser is the fact that as soon as something gets lit on fire, it's likely just going to get a lot 00:00:45.120 --> 00:00:50.320 worse, unless the laser has its own built-in fire suppression system or its own way of stopping. 00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:54.880 And even if the laser stops, most materials we're cutting will continue to burn afterwards. 00:00:54.880 --> 00:01:00.720 This uses a compressed CO2 cylinder to flood the entire enclosure with CO2 to 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:05.440 snuff out any fire that's inside it and stop it from spreading. This particular laser is a diode 00:01:05.440 --> 00:01:11.840 laser, and it's a blue laser at about 455 nanometers, which means you can see it, although 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:16.720 if you see it, you're doing something wrong because it's very dangerous, and it can severely 00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:21.360 damage your eyes if you're not careful. Any laser like this should always have an enclosure, 00:01:21.360 --> 00:01:26.320 and it is definitely one gripe I have right off the bat, is you can buy this without an enclosure. 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:31.280 That's really dangerous. Thankfully, you can buy an enclosure. Though this one is better than 00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:35.440 nothing, I'm not sure if it's going to solve all of the potential gripes I have. Back to the 00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:41.360 original Home of ShortCircuit, actually unboxing something. So in here we have a couple of 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:48.080 laser danger signs, which is good. A couple of instruction manuals, assembly guides, 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:57.200 and a whole bunch of panels. Enclosures like this are designed for a couple of reasons. One is to 00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:03.920 keep smoke and fumes in one area and be able to vent them out, and the other one is to act as 00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:08.960 things that dampen how much power is coming out of them. So these should help lower the 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:13.600 amount of laser power that comes through and make it closer to safe. This enclosure also 00:02:13.600 --> 00:02:20.560 comes with a nice little exhaust fan, hose, some mounting hardware, some more mounting hardware, 00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:27.520 and the tiny little AC adapter. This is the teeny tiny adapter just for the fan. I'm sure 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:34.000 there are instructions somewhere, but I'm sure I can figure it out. Maybe. This particular enclosure 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:40.320 is designed to be taken apart and ported around with you fairly easily, which is both a good thing 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:46.800 and a bad thing. They say that this is flame-proof material. It feels relatively robust, and I have 00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:51.440 seen some people take blow torches to it and actually do burn tests. I don't know how well 00:02:51.440 --> 00:02:54.880 it would stand up to the laser blasting at it, and I don't think we're going to test that today, 00:02:54.880 --> 00:02:58.560 because I don't know what's in this, and that could potentially be dangerous. I think I might 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:01.440 actually need the instructions for this. All right, laser, you're going to the side for now. 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:09.680 This is my nice LTTstore.com screwdriver with the right hex size bit for this, of course. 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:14.720 Okay, laser, you get to come back. 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:20.080 Ah, there's a nice little inlet space. 00:03:22.880 --> 00:03:27.920 There we go, and we have an enclosure. This is definitely a lot better than the 00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:36.080 laser just being in the open, but it's not super secure. And if you're using the laser, 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:42.000 definitely don't trust the enclosure to fully protect you from the laser, because there is 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:45.520 a ton of places it can still get out. You definitely still have to wear a laser safety 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:52.480 glasses when operating it. This fan can vent things out, but we also have a few extractor 00:03:52.480 --> 00:03:58.000 underneath the table. This has several filters in it. I haven't checked through each one of 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.280 them individually, though it does appear as though it should filter out most of the particulate in 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:05.360 VOCs. There is a chance that not all of the dangerous seams will get filtered out, 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:10.640 so venting the output outside is still a safer option. Just on there. 00:04:17.520 --> 00:04:18.160 Power switch. 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:28.320 There it goes. That is two of the power systems done. Next up is actually hooking up computer 00:04:28.320 --> 00:04:33.120 and power to the laser itself. One of the other things that you can get as an optional add-on, 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:37.520 which also I would strongly recommend is some kind of base for the laser. What we got here 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:44.160 is a nice honeycomb base. These are fairly nice because it lets air fly through it. A lot of 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:48.880 these lasers have an optional air assist, which helps clear out a bunch of the vaporized material 00:04:48.880 --> 00:04:54.640 that the laser creates, and these both provide some space in between where the laser is hitting 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:59.600 your material and focused, and the backstop where it gets absorbed, which in this case is a relatively 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:06.080 thin aluminum sheet. This, you need to raise it up off the table, or it will not be able to actually 00:05:06.080 --> 00:05:16.400 sit. That's an RTFM moment. Oh, that's a read the manual moment, or read the 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:23.120 manual for those who are so inclined. Sometimes knowing what you're doing is fun. Other times, 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:27.840 just stumbling a little bit is more fun. If I understand how this works correctly, 00:05:29.200 --> 00:05:36.000 aha, it is now a good height. Sweet. There is also a height adjustment on the laser body itself, 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:42.400 so we'll get to that soon. I fired it with my laser. This is one of the reasons that I was 00:05:42.400 --> 00:05:47.360 interested in this setup to begin with. I've seen and heard of a lot of horror stories of places 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:51.360 burning down when people leave their lasers unattended. Don't do that. Having a system that 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:56.240 helps prevent a fire in any circumstance is good. Even if you're in the same room, if you're not 00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:01.360 paying 100% attention, which if you're running a long cut, it's going to happen. Having something 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:06.720 that'll cut the laser power and also deal with the fire itself is a pretty nice quality of life 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:10.960 improvement and also potentially just a life improvement if it works properly. 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:22.960 Not weights. There are the aforementioned compressed air cylinders. These ones, I believe, 00:06:22.960 --> 00:06:28.320 are CO2, and they look fairly similar to what you'd use in like airsoft or things like that, 00:06:28.320 --> 00:06:33.840 although a little bit bigger, which makes me wonder how many times each one works. 00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:40.960 Power adapter? I think this might be what actually kills the power to the laser if it detects a fire. 00:06:40.960 --> 00:06:45.040 There's actually quite a few things in here. I believe this is a relay box, 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:55.520 and in here there are a whole bunch of lights, and then also what I'm assuming is a fire detection 00:06:55.520 --> 00:07:01.200 system. This appears to be an emitter, and this appears to be a receiver. If there's a fire in 00:07:01.200 --> 00:07:07.120 the box and it blocks off enough of the space between them, I believe it'll trigger. It does have 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:11.920 a shutoff for the main power for the laser, which is pretty good. It does have a bunch of CO2 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:17.680 that'll blast into the chamber to put out any fires. Oh, there we go. Okay, so there's the hookups. 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:21.920 I'm only going to put in two of the bottles. They do say you can do that if the volume is small 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:28.160 enough. I have a pretty good feeling that once these are inserted, you are very much not supposed 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:32.560 to take them out, but that may only be after it triggers. I'm not sure whether it punctures the 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:38.960 discs. Just don't want to turn it on and then have it blast in my face. Now that I'm ready to plug 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:44.240 this in, we are all going to put on our safety glasses. X-Tool does ship with a pair of safety 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:51.040 glasses, though I am rather skeptical of them. These are dark green, which generally is not the 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:58.240 normal color of safety glasses for a blue laser. These are ones from Thor Labs that are rated and 00:07:58.240 --> 00:08:04.160 certified to a level that is above what we need in this use case. And as you can see, they're 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:09.600 orange. When you're blocking out a blue laser, generally orange is the lack of blue, so it'll 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:14.320 absorb all of that radiation. Whereas with this green one, I'm a lot less certain about it. I did 00:08:14.320 --> 00:08:18.400 watch a video of them demoing the safety glasses working properly, where they blasted a laser straight 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:24.480 through it into a power meter, though the amount of reduction in power wasn't really high enough 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:31.200 for me to be content with using something like these. These are expensive, but you only have two 00:08:31.200 --> 00:08:38.720 eyes. So we're gonna wear them. Wow, those lights are very orange now. Holy moly. And just as a 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:45.680 general bit of safety things for the user, whenever your laser is on, for these ones in particular, 00:08:45.680 --> 00:08:50.240 I would say even if it's powered on, not if the laser's firing, I would have your glasses on. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:55.520 You'd much rather be safe than sorry with anything like this. And eye damage is not going to be fixed 00:08:55.520 --> 00:09:03.040 if it happens. So be careful. So as we can see, all these are green and good to go. Yes. Okay, 00:09:03.040 --> 00:09:09.680 so it does work. That's convenient. Next up, make sure it's on the test mode so I don't blast my 00:09:09.680 --> 00:09:13.120 ears. Okay, so it is on test. This is where the blowtorch comes in. 00:09:19.680 --> 00:09:26.800 Haha, that is what you call overkill. This is powered. I have this sensor. Again, it's on test mode. 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:36.640 Please don't go off. So you can see the flashing orange dot. That means it's detecting a fire. 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:44.160 And then when I pack away, it goes away. Let's actually jump into software and firing this thing 00:09:44.160 --> 00:09:49.360 up. All right, laser is powered on. Xtool has its own Xtool Creative Space app, which you can 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:54.240 download off their website. They also say that it is compatible with Lightburn, which generally is, 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:58.560 in my opinion, a better software. We're going to use the Xtool Creative Space today just because 00:09:58.560 --> 00:10:02.320 it's easier to get set up and we can just hit the ground running with the download. They sent us a 00:10:02.400 --> 00:10:07.280 base material pack, which is pretty expensive for what you get, but it is a wide variety of things. 00:10:07.280 --> 00:10:12.640 So there's some benefit to it. That includes everything from making your own necklaces 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:19.920 to some pendants, which you can engrave and color to looks like some leather. Though, 00:10:19.920 --> 00:10:23.360 be careful with leather. You want to make sure that it's real leather and not fake leather, 00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:28.160 because that can create some really nasty gases if you cut it. Another couple pieces of metal, 00:10:28.160 --> 00:10:34.160 some slate or shale, a bunch of different types of plastic and cardboard for either cards or 00:10:34.160 --> 00:10:38.560 whatever else you want to make out of them. A bunch of random types of wood, which are plywoods. 00:10:38.560 --> 00:10:43.040 Again, be a little bit careful, especially with things that have a lot of glue or adhesive in them. 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:47.600 It can create some nasty fumes if you're not careful and not aware of it. A bunch of different 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:55.360 types of felts and colored acrylic for this particular laser. You can cut colored acrylics 00:10:55.360 --> 00:10:59.920 because the light will be absorbed by it and it'll blast it away, but be aware that different 00:10:59.920 --> 00:11:04.800 lasers have different restrictions when it comes to what kinds of materials they can cut or etch. 00:11:04.800 --> 00:11:10.240 Jumping into cutting stuff, we're going to start with wood because it creates the least 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:15.520 nasty smelling fumes and is pretty forgiving. Things like this, just slap it down wherever 00:11:16.640 --> 00:11:24.000 once we, ah, so as you can see, this does have a nice little focus dot. I'm going to read through 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.240 the focusing instructions on it. I'm going to guess we're going to have to adjust the total height. 00:11:28.240 --> 00:11:33.600 So I believe that for focusing, you need to have this set like this piece here on the material. 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:39.920 Though I'll confirm that with the instructions on their app. Ah, that's connected. They have 00:11:39.920 --> 00:11:44.000 things, something like Thingiverse where you can upload things for free and people can download it 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:49.600 and cut it themselves on their own machines. It's kind of nice. Let's just send it and see what happens. 00:11:50.400 --> 00:11:54.640 I should probably make sure that it's focused first though. Aha, there it is. 00:11:56.560 --> 00:12:01.040 One thing I'm not sure about is if this knows where it is relative to the grid 00:12:01.040 --> 00:12:05.200 or if it just starts wherever you place it. So just in case it starts wherever you place it, 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:11.120 I'm going to get this adjusted so it's cutting starting at the corner and that should be good, 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:16.400 hopefully. If not, we'll find out. There is also a framing option which just gives it, 00:12:16.400 --> 00:12:21.200 gives you the outer profile of the cut. It can be quite nice to make sure that you placed something 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:29.840 correctly. That was a limit switch. It does stop itself from sending itself further away than it 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:35.200 expects. It's very loud and hard to ignore, which is nice. I essentially just manually moved it 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:39.920 until it stopped beeping and did a full frame. Now we're actually going to turn it on. I'm going 00:12:39.920 --> 00:12:44.400 to grab a fire extinguisher. One moment, please. Conveniently, there's one right outside the door. 00:12:44.400 --> 00:12:47.120 All right, time to push the button. 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:56.400 What is my backup if things start going wrong? Power button down there. All right, so start. 00:12:58.400 --> 00:13:04.960 Press the button on the device. She's in the enclosure. All right, I'm going to come around. 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:15.600 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? 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:24.560 Yeah, this should start. Close this up again. Hopefully no more loud beep. Oh, so that's a 00:13:24.560 --> 00:13:30.320 laser. Currently, it's just doing a etching pass, so it's not going all the way through the material. 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:33.680 It's just kind of burning away the top layer. After it's done its first pass, it'll do the 00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:37.520 cut pass. I'm going to cut this one a little bit short and shift to just a smaller section of the 00:13:37.520 --> 00:13:42.800 cut, just as a proof of concept for the machine itself rather than going through the entire cut. 00:13:42.800 --> 00:13:44.320 Let's take a gander at the thingy. 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:56.320 Smells like campfire. It's not bad, especially with no air assist. I will say their software is 00:13:56.320 --> 00:13:59.840 pretty easy to use, which is nice. And away we go. 00:14:04.640 --> 00:14:09.760 As anyone who's ever worked with lasers like this, the thing that takes the longest time 00:14:09.760 --> 00:14:14.640 is trying to do an etch because it covers a full area, whereas when you're just doing line cuts, 00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:21.760 it's way faster. Open her up. Oh, that actually doesn't smell too bad. 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.200 Oh, are the cutting parameters correct? No, they are not. 00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:33.200 So that's the one side, mini little ShortCircuit logo. Unfortunately, 00:14:35.520 --> 00:14:41.600 didn't cut all the way through. Interesting. You can even see a couple of different heights of 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:47.440 different layers, and that's just the depth. Just how much laser power goes onto it, and it burns 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:50.960 away a little bit more, and that kind of serves as your color. There are a couple of different 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:56.400 algorithms for it, but this one's relatively straightforward and easy to implement. But 00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:01.040 I definitely want to test out this fire suppression system. And to do that, 00:15:01.040 --> 00:15:04.880 we're going to head over to the shop and do it there. I have a couple of pieces of cardboard, 00:15:04.880 --> 00:15:09.600 relatively common to try to cut on devices like this, and I'm going to light them on fire. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:24.400 It does the thing. All right. Well, 00:15:30.400 --> 00:15:40.800 okay. So it'll blast at every 20 seconds, I think, although the fire looks very out at this point. 00:15:40.800 --> 00:15:45.200 So this line will get cold enough where it might actually cause problems, 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:50.800 depending on what you're doing. But they do tell you about that. So it definitely does enough to 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:58.400 snuff out this size of chamber with a decently sized fire. It works pretty well. I didn't give it 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:04.880 ideal conditions, but it still produced a pretty good cut. But there's a bunch of 00:16:04.880 --> 00:16:10.400 happy-ats with this system in particular. It's really not safe, and people shouldn't 00:16:10.400 --> 00:16:15.760 really buy lasers that don't have purpose-built enclosures to keep them safe. Honestly, in my 00:16:15.760 --> 00:16:22.560 opinion, this product shouldn't really exist in the form it is. It's a good machine. The technology 00:16:22.560 --> 00:16:26.880 inside the laser itself is cool, and it does a very good job for what it needs to do. But 00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:32.640 it's not something that I could recommend. I personally would consider running a machine like 00:16:32.640 --> 00:16:38.320 this, but if I did, I'd build a custom enclosure that is safe and operates it properly and has 00:16:38.320 --> 00:16:45.200 properly rated glass or Windows. So at least my takeaway from this machine in particular is 00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:50.960 I wouldn't really recommend buying it, unless you really know what you're doing. But even then, 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:54.400 if you know what you're doing, you're probably buying something else. If you were going to buy 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:59.520 this particular system, one of the other complicated parts is you kind of have to buy 00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:04.080 everything individually, which means the total price is a little bit difficult to nail down. 00:17:04.080 --> 00:17:10.400 The base machine that we got was the X-Tool D1 Pro 20W, which is about 1400 US. And we also got 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:17.040 the 40W diode upgrade kit, which is another 1400 bucks. And then you have a fume extraction and 00:17:17.040 --> 00:17:21.120 purification system, which runs you another thousand, unless you want to run this out the door. 00:17:21.120 --> 00:17:25.520 And then an enclosure, which costs another 200. Plus, in this particular setup, 00:17:25.520 --> 00:17:30.880 the fire suppression system, which is only 200 bucks. Well, my opinion is that the laser itself, 00:17:31.760 --> 00:17:38.480 not great overall. This is a pretty nice tool. And if you can implement it well in a laser setup 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:44.960 that you have or anything else that could catch fire, it could be a nice tool to save you a fair 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:49.040 bit of money if you're not paying really close attention to your heat generating objects. 00:17:49.040 --> 00:17:52.960 If you liked this video, you should go check out the unboxing I did of the Prusa Mark 4. 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:53.840 It's quite a printer.