Allison interviews Kerry Young from Smoky Mountain Designs about xTool desktop laser cutter/engravers. While Kerry focuses on their portable desktop models, xTool offers a range of laser cutters from industrial to portable. Allison also talks with Richard Gunther, host of the Digital Media Zone, who happened to be at the xTool booth and is a user of their products.
At the high end of their desktop models, their F1 Ultra Laser Engraver has a dual 20W fiber and diode laser that can engrave wood, acrylic, leather, and other materials. It can also perform deep metal engraving, embossing, and thin metal cutting.
At the more affordable end, their F1 Portable high-speed engraver has a dual 2W infrared laser and a 10W diode laser that can engrave at a rate of 4,000 mm/sec.
All xTools desktop laser cutters include eye-safe enclosures with built-in safety interlocks. xTool also offers air purifiers, conveyors, cutting panels, and rotaries as optional equipment.
The interview setting is the Pepcom show floor at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
Learn more at https://xtool.com/
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Transcript of Interview:
Allison: So I just ran into a good friend of the show and author of his own show, The Digital Media Zone, Richard Gunther, and he is at the xTools booth, but first time xTool booth, but first I’m going to say hi to Richard. How are you doing, Richard?
Richard Gunther: Hey, it’s great to run into you again, Allison.
Allison: So he told me that one of his passions is engraving and 3D printing, and Kerry Young is going to talk to us about what xTool is. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Kerry Young: Okay, so xTool is a laser company. We have several different laser modules. We are considered a desktop laser, which means you can put it on a desktop, a workbench, something like that. We have everything from a CO2 laser, diode lasers, and fiber lasers. This laser right here is a diode laser and a fiber laser, so this is a dual laser.
Allison: Now, why would I care about two different kinds of lasers? I understand that they are different, but why would I want one over the other?
Kerry Young: Different laser types to different materials. you want to do to what type of laser you want to do it with.
Allison: Okay. So the box we’re looking at is like maybe a double height Keurig size is the way I’d describe it.
Kerry Young: There we go.
Allison: This is an audio podcast as well as video. So it’s a glowing green box here and there’s nothing inside, but I see a bunch of really nifty stuff down on the table. Can you show us a couple of the things that have been made with this?
Kerry Young: All right. So this machine right here, we have done a two-tone leather bookmark.
Allison: So it’s engraved. That’s xTool.
Kerry Young: So it’s engraved. it engraves off the leather top and reveals the silver or gold underneath. These are the anodized aluminum business cards, so they’re really, really thin.
Allison: And it’s got a dragon on it.
Kerry Young: This one has a dragon on it.
Allison: That’s really cool. Do you have one of those, Richard?
Richard Gunther: In fact, my engraving business cards are made
Kerry Young: on those.
Allison: Oh wow, that is not a plant. Well it is, but I did not know he would say yes to that. Okay, I see a really cool like Christmas scene back here. It’s a bunch of layers.
Kerry Young: This is a wood layered item. So what you do is you cut out each of the different layers. And then you place them together and glue them for a scene. So then you get a multi-layered 3D look scene.
Allison: I see. So the back layer, say, is this light brown wood. And then you’ve got some reddish wood of the trees that are in front. You’ve got a little white reindeer out in front. That is really, really pretty. That’s all done with this engraving tool.
Kerry Young: It is. We also have slate coasters. Okay, and so there are two different kinds of engraving on slate. So you have surface engraving. If you change your settings, you can get different shapes And then this one is considered embossed. So it’s basically a relief engraving.
Richard Gunther: That takes the higher power laser?
Kerry Young: That is the one that will take the fiber laser.
Allison: Oh, okay. So fiber is the highest power?
Kerry Young: No. So every type of laser has different levels of… So this one is a 20 watt. This one over here is a 10 watt.
Allison: Okay. Oh, you’ve got a littler one behind you. I’m going to sneak around. Steve, can you see this little bitty one back here? That one is more the size of a small Keurig. Measuring everything, right?
Richard Gunther: And I have that at home.
Allison: You have the little one. Okay, and that’s 10 watt?
Richard Gunther: It’s a 10 watt diode and a 2 watt IR or fiber laser. So you’re getting the ability to do both of those things. You can do stuff like slate, you can do stuff like plastics, which you can’t normally do with many lasers. And that’s one of the things that’s really great about that IR laser that’s in there.
Allison: Okay. Does it make a terrible noise when it’s engraving slate, like, “Ahhhhh!”
Kerry Young: No actually all of our laser engravers are fairly quiet our loudest one I would say is the P2 that is our co2 laser that one does acrylics slate, glass, wood. It’s a bigger it’s a bigger machine
Allison: So it’s not a function of what you’re engraving that makes it loud or quiet?
Kerry Young: Not really it’s usually the laser itself the enclosure your air purifier, what else do you have going on with the machine?
Allison: I got you. Okay, so I think you said we could do a demo. So how about if you go behind the computer and we’ll have Richard tell us what you’re doing?
Richard Gunther: Oh, no, that’s frightening.
Allison: Is it?
Richard Gunther: Hopefully it’ll go well.
Allison: I think we do it. Come on, Carrie. Come on, Richard. We’ve just teamed up here. So I’m going to go over here. No, you stay here.
Richard Gunther: Okay.
Kerry Young: Okay, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a leather bookmark.
Allison: So she’s taking a, looks like it’s already an engraved though, right?
Kerry Young: We’re going to put a name on it.
Richard Gunther: Oh.
Allison: So she’s just placed this leather bookmark down on a Oh, don’t put your hand in there. Steve says podfeet. P-O-D-F-E-E-T So this is black with silver.
Kerry Young: We’re going to do framing. So we’re going to frame our design on. And so if you can see right now the blue is where your design would be. And you can see it’s a little bit too big. So we are going to shrink that down so that it will fit onto your bookmark. And now I’m doing everything upside down so you’re gonna have to tell me when it is centered where you want it. Is that perfect? Alright so what we’re gonna do now is I’m gonna hit process and then I am gonna close our safety glass. So with this safety glass you do not have to have an extra pair of goggles. This is your eye protection right here.
Allison: Is there anything to keep you from opening
Allison: opening it when it’s running?
Kerry Young: If you open it, it will stop.
Allison: Good answer.
Kerry Young: That’s a safety feature that stops. Okay, so now I am going to let you do this since you are all excited. You are going to press that green button one time.
Allison: Here we go, I’m pressing the green button.
Kerry Young: And there we go.
Allison: Oh wow, laser’s going. It’s going back and forth. Oh, I can see it coming out. Oh, that’s really cool.
Richard Gunther: Wow.
Kerry Young: All right, and so what I’m gonna do now is I’m gonna reveal it. So go ahead and get your camera right back down there so you can get a good shot of it.
Allison: Ooh!
Richard Gunther: Nice.
Allison: So is it hot?
Kerry Young: Nope. Go ahead, take it.
Allison: Ooh, it’s sticky. Wow, look at that. That was really, really cool. That was fast.
Kerry Young: It is fast. So this is one of our faster ones, especially for the leather, the slate and your metal.
Allison: This is very exciting. So this is the 30 watt X tool. How much does this cost?
Kerry Young: This one is 20 watts. So it’s a 20 watt diode and a 20 watt fiber.
Allison: And how much is this one?
Kerry Young: This one with the machine, the air purifier, which is right down here. So that that keeps your smells and your all your fumes and everything contained and cleaned. The rotary tool so you can do tumblers and your conveyor belt so you can do batch processing. All of that together is only $5,000.
Allison: Okay, tumbler. You mean tumblers like mugs?
Kerry Young: Stanleys, yeah, the Stanleys, the Yetis, all of that. So basically the anodized ones, the ones that have the colored coating on it, it’ll pull the colored coating on and reveal the metal underneath. And if you have just a stainless steel one, it will actually mark on the stainless steel. So this one does metal, if you can see my necklace right here.
Allison: Yeah, yeah, that’s beautiful.
Kerry Young: So that machine right here will do the metal.
Allison: If $5000 is too rich for my blood and I’m more like Richard right here and I want this little one what is this what is this model called?
Kerry Young: This little one is the F1 this one comes with just the machine for $1200 if you want the air purifier you can buy that separately if you have the ability to vent outside you don’t need a purifier so I have a shop that’s separate from my house so I have everything venting outside except my F1 Ultra and my F1 Ultra I do run through the air purifier.
Allison: How much is it to add an air purifier to the F1?
Kerry Young: The F1 with the air purifier and, so with the air purifier, the rotary, the machine, the cutting panel, and the slide extension, this one would be $1799.
Allison: All right, that’s nice, and there’s such a wide variety. This has been really fun. People want to find out more about xTool. Where do they go?
Kerry Young: They can go to the xTool website, or they can look us up on Facebook. It’s xtool.com, and you can look at us up on Facebook if you want to join any of our Facebook groups. We have lots of help from other
Kerry Young: users. We have tech gurus in there that are helping. They’ll help you with everything from the software to settings to materials to get But they’re great, great, great communities to join.
Allison: That sounds super fun. I’m just going to call Richard when I get stuck with mine, though. Right, Richard?
Richard Gunther: Absolutely.
Allison: All right. And again, we’re joined by Richard Gunther from the Digital Media Zone. And we’ve been talking to Kerry Young from xTool. Thank you very much.
Kerry Young: You’re welcome. Thank you.