I have been watching and watching an watching videos to try to figure out how to do this on my new S1. I have not tried it yet out of fear of setting it aflame. This is the first video I watched where I feel I can now go out and tackle the task at hand. Thank you for my new found confidence. You rock!!
I'm glad it helped. You can always start with a lower power and or higher speed and work your way up in power to help reduce the risk of combustion on new material testing.
Hey, I find that I can watch 30 videos and not really retain the info, but if I work along with a video step pause step it really helps me actually do something and retain the info. Hope this helps you!
OMG -- YOU are the BEST teacher! I've been perplexed by the use of test grids (even after watching numerous youtube videos) and THIS...This right here is the best explanation. I just upgraded (from the 10w D1 Pro) to the 20W D1 Pro (XTool) and was worried about running my previous projects without wasting tons of material! THANK YOU Steve...wow, just wow!!
Thanks for this. Finally a video that actually shows the steps and now I am able to do engraving in different variations up to 250 speed. Didn’t even realise that I could do that.
Thanks so much for your video. It’s the best I’ve seen and as such I was able to create my very 1st ceramic test grid! You are an excellent instructor!!
Thank you for your videos very informative. Just bought a xtool s1 cause it's hard for me to cut with my hands anymore. Trying to learn everything I can. Will follow your channel.🦇
Thank you so much for this excellent tutorial! I haven't been able to find this information in previous searches and definitely wanted to do some testing before jumping whole hog into a project. 😂 I followed these instructions on my 10w M1 on some 3mm blonde wood that isn't labeled as to what tree it came from. I found that the first test swatch was probably way too high as every single shape cut out and it even scored the bottom of my machine a little bit on the higher numbers. 😬 Also- very jealous that the P1 has the zoom in feature and the M1 just does the "framing" thing. I haven't even started my first project and I already want an upgrade. 😂😂😂
Great video. I had just been using squares for my test grids but I do like that teardrop shape so will switch up my test going forward. For engraves, I actually use an image as that is usually what I will be engraving to give a better representation. I also ungroup the test grid after so that I can change the title to indicate which module I did the test with (I have the S1 with both the 20W and 2W IR modules). I sometimes also move the Power and Speed text closer in to save some space. Then I select everything and group it again. I also add a textbox somewhere indicating the material and thickness of it. Sure you could just write it on there, but we have lasers so what would be the fun in that :)
It’s a good idea to test a raster engrave in a test grid like you say. I do that after I run the vector engrave as I did here as it helps me dial in closer to the settings I’ll want. I might cover that in a future video but I didn’t want this one to be too long and overwhelming. Adding the extra labels as you mentioned is a great idea as well. I usually make up a custom test file that includes a few operations in one go so I can just run them all together in one job.
@@Vintauri One other thing I do once I figure out the best power and speed values for cutting is a grid with a 75 mm straight line. I will set the power to just the one value from the testing (usually 100). For the speed I will use a few below and a few above what I thought were optimal from the test grid. I find when cutting a straight line it's moving at its fastest so want to be able to make sure it gives a clean cut.
Outstanding, thank you. Been faffing all evening trying to sort test grids on my new 20w D1. I didn't even realise these could be created in XCS! I was looking at grids on Etsy which no doubt would have been all wrong for my machine. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow :p Thanks again, awesome video!
Glad I could help! Material tests are key to really dialing in your settings without the guessing game. My goal here was to help people learn how to use the tools in XCS without having to spend more money just to learn more about their lasers.
Thanks for all your videos. How do I do a material test array with power and testing lines per cm with a constant speed?? I saw you do that on your slate video, but I cant seem to test lines per cm, only power and speed
Easy to understand video! What size wood did you use? Looks like a perfect size that won’t waste a lot for material. We just got the S1 and want to start running test cards!
I ran these tests on some 3mm Baltic Birch Plywood off cuts that were about 6" x 12". You can scale the test to your material, but generally the larger items will give a better test. At minimum I like my shapes to be about 1/4" or 6mm square. I defiantly recommend running some tests on any new material to your laser. You can get in the ballpark with other peoples numbers, but running these tests will really help dial in your settings.
Great video, as usual! I do have a question though. If you do the material tests with LB and XCS with the same values, will they burn the same because they are the same material and machine or will they vary because of the software? I haven’t been using XCS but have been interested since your last couple of videos using it.
This is something I do want to test on a couple different lasers. There are a few variables between each software that might make a difference. XCS keeps getting better but there are still some drawing features and layer options that I prefer in Lightburn. However, I've had people ask for more help with xTool Creative Space, so I'm trying to get some information out on it as well.
@@Vintauri Thank you. I was intrigued when I saw your video using the XCS software but didn’t think too much about it at the time, but shortly afterwards I got notification from XTool there was an XCS app for the iPad. Then I was very interested (I do a lot of designing with Procreate) as I had a hard time converting my files to something Lightburn can use on my PC. I haven’t tried it yet, but may try to this week. Thanks again for all your great info. (By the way, the iPad version of XCS is wireless, so hopeful that will work well.) Have a great week.
Steve, more great content. Never thought of using shapes for the test but it makes better sense for real world applications. I have a X Tool D1 i use fairly often to engrave pieces that i build on my Shark CNC, Just got a Wecreate to use for small projexts to give away. Have you gotten yours If i remember on your Sunday night lives i thought you mentioned you were getting one. the only thing i hate about it is the software sucks.
Yes, playing with different shapes will give a better overall idea of how it will cut or engrave. I do have the WeCreat and I hope to get some content out with it soon. I've been trying to get the camera dialed in as mine is off by quite a bit, but the built in calibration tool keeps failing. My issue has been sent to support but I'm waiting for them to come back from the weekend.
Did you have to select, right click, and ungroup for the engrave test in order to get each start to engrave with different settings? I tried this today but they all came out the same. Research showed I needed to ungroup.
Newbie question. I did the materials test on a bamboo cutting board today and selected 1% power 10% speed and the engrave took 2.0 hours! What tricks do I have to do in make this alot faster but still get good results? @@Vintauri
I don’t use the score function much but the method would be the same. I will do some tests using that on balsa as I do plan to cut out some model airplane parts and the score function would be good for marking parts numbers.
Just got my S1 20w. I set the same cut array as you suggested using 3mm pine plywood, used the distance to let machine measure, marked cut. Used the same numbers to set array and sent to laser. The words and numbers written cut great but nothing cut in the array. I can feel the wood is cut very slightly. Can you help me figure out what I need to do? Mind you I am just learning the software and laser.
For the S1 20w you'll need to drop the speeds down quite a bit. For the 3mm material, I'd set your speeds from about 10mm/sec up to 15mm/sec and see what it does.
Hi there So I have questions I got an Pergear Laserstorm S5 for Christmas. Can XTool creative Space software work on it ? And would you know of a Free Software that would work on the Laser Printer instead of Lightburn
The XTool software will only work with their lasers. The free software you can look at would be LaserGRBL. But I’d strongly recommend paying the $60 for a copy of lightburn.
When I try this, the laserhead tracks back and forth like it's engraving the entire workspace block by block but it's only firing the laser in one tiny area and never actually engraves anything. It's really frustrating as I dont want to build this manually but it looks like Im going to need to.
I have been watching and watching an watching videos to try to figure out how to do this on my new S1. I have not tried it yet out of fear of setting it aflame. This is the first video I watched where I feel I can now go out and tackle the task at hand. Thank you for my new found confidence. You rock!!
I'm glad it helped. You can always start with a lower power and or higher speed and work your way up in power to help reduce the risk of combustion on new material testing.
Hey, I find that I can watch 30 videos and not really retain the info, but if I work along with a video step pause step it really helps me actually do something and retain the info. Hope this helps you!
OMG -- YOU are the BEST teacher! I've been perplexed by the use of test grids (even after watching numerous youtube videos) and THIS...This right here is the best explanation. I just upgraded (from the 10w D1 Pro) to the 20W D1 Pro (XTool) and was worried about running my previous projects without wasting tons of material! THANK YOU Steve...wow, just wow!!
Thanks for this. Finally a video that actually shows the steps and now I am able to do engraving in different variations up to 250 speed. Didn’t even realise that I could do that.
Hey I'm glad it helped you dial in your test grids! Thanks for watching!
Thank you for the great explanation. I have a newS1 and absolutely don't know anything about laser engraving. Great tutorial.
Glad it was helpful! I'll have content out on the S1 soon! Welcome to the fun world of lasers!
Great information! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for your video. It’s the best I’ve seen and as such I was able to create my very 1st ceramic test grid! You are an excellent instructor!!
Great to hear it helped you get going on test grids!
Thank you for your videos very informative. Just bought a xtool s1 cause it's hard for me to cut with my hands anymore. Trying to learn everything I can. Will follow your channel.🦇
Thanks for following me! I'll have some dedicated content on the S1 soon. I just need to get caught up on various things.
Thank you Steve. Very good content teaching how to setup the test. Looking forward to more videos using the P2.
More to come with the P2!
This was a great video! You explained it SO well.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much for this excellent tutorial! I haven't been able to find this information in previous searches and definitely wanted to do some testing before jumping whole hog into a project. 😂
I followed these instructions on my 10w M1 on some 3mm blonde wood that isn't labeled as to what tree it came from. I found that the first test swatch was probably way too high as every single shape cut out and it even scored the bottom of my machine a little bit on the higher numbers. 😬
Also- very jealous that the P1 has the zoom in feature and the M1 just does the "framing" thing. I haven't even started my first project and I already want an upgrade. 😂😂😂
thanks for the shape tip for the test grid, I dont go over 80% power to save tube life
Awesome video great job with the instructions even I understood it👍
Glad it helped
Great video. I had just been using squares for my test grids but I do like that teardrop shape so will switch up my test going forward. For engraves, I actually use an image as that is usually what I will be engraving to give a better representation. I also ungroup the test grid after so that I can change the title to indicate which module I did the test with (I have the S1 with both the 20W and 2W IR modules). I sometimes also move the Power and Speed text closer in to save some space. Then I select everything and group it again. I also add a textbox somewhere indicating the material and thickness of it. Sure you could just write it on there, but we have lasers so what would be the fun in that :)
It’s a good idea to test a raster engrave in a test grid like you say. I do that after I run the vector engrave as I did here as it helps me dial in closer to the settings I’ll want. I might cover that in a future video but I didn’t want this one to be too long and overwhelming. Adding the extra labels as you mentioned is a great idea as well. I usually make up a custom test file that includes a few operations in one go so I can just run them all together in one job.
@@Vintauri One other thing I do once I figure out the best power and speed values for cutting is a grid with a 75 mm straight line. I will set the power to just the one value from the testing (usually 100). For the speed I will use a few below and a few above what I thought were optimal from the test grid. I find when cutting a straight line it's moving at its fastest so want to be able to make sure it gives a clean cut.
Outstanding, thank you. Been faffing all evening trying to sort test grids on my new 20w D1. I didn't even realise these could be created in XCS! I was looking at grids on Etsy which no doubt would have been all wrong for my machine. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow :p Thanks again, awesome video!
Glad I could help! Material tests are key to really dialing in your settings without the guessing game. My goal here was to help people learn how to use the tools in XCS without having to spend more money just to learn more about their lasers.
@@Vintauri A massive help, so thanks again. Subscribed too :D
Thanks for all your videos. How do I do a material test array with power and testing lines per cm with a constant speed?? I saw you do that on your slate video, but I cant seem to test lines per cm, only power and speed
My score test on the 150 line @ 40 and above made a double star. Should I increase or decrease to get a perfect score?
Easy to understand video! What size wood did you use? Looks like a perfect size that won’t waste a lot for material. We just got the S1 and want to start running test cards!
I ran these tests on some 3mm Baltic Birch Plywood off cuts that were about 6" x 12". You can scale the test to your material, but generally the larger items will give a better test. At minimum I like my shapes to be about 1/4" or 6mm square. I defiantly recommend running some tests on any new material to your laser. You can get in the ballpark with other peoples numbers, but running these tests will really help dial in your settings.
really good video, thanks
Very helpful thanks.
You're welcome!
Dropping a comment for the algo. Thanks for this video.
Much appreciated!
Great video, as usual! I do have a question though. If you do the material tests with LB and XCS with the same values, will they burn the same because they are the same material and machine or will they vary because of the software? I haven’t been using XCS but have been interested since your last couple of videos using it.
This is something I do want to test on a couple different lasers. There are a few variables between each software that might make a difference. XCS keeps getting better but there are still some drawing features and layer options that I prefer in Lightburn. However, I've had people ask for more help with xTool Creative Space, so I'm trying to get some information out on it as well.
@@Vintauri Thank you. I was intrigued when I saw your video using the XCS software but didn’t think too much about it at the time, but shortly afterwards I got notification from XTool there was an XCS app for the iPad. Then I was very interested (I do a lot of designing with Procreate) as I had a hard time converting my files to something Lightburn can use on my PC. I haven’t tried it yet, but may try to this week. Thanks again for all your great info. (By the way, the iPad version of XCS is wireless, so hopeful that will work well.) Have a great week.
Steve, more great content. Never thought of using shapes for the test but it makes better sense for real world applications. I have a X Tool D1 i use fairly often to engrave pieces that i build on my Shark CNC, Just got a Wecreate to use for small projexts to give away. Have you gotten yours If i remember on your Sunday night lives i thought you mentioned you were getting one. the only thing i hate about it is the software sucks.
Yes, playing with different shapes will give a better overall idea of how it will cut or engrave. I do have the WeCreat and I hope to get some content out with it soon. I've been trying to get the camera dialed in as mine is off by quite a bit, but the built in calibration tool keeps failing. My issue has been sent to support but I'm waiting for them to come back from the weekend.
Thank you
Welcome!
Did you have to select, right click, and ungroup for the engrave test in order to get each start to engrave with different settings? I tried this today but they all came out the same. Research showed I needed to ungroup.
I have not run into that issue unless I made a change to the grid after using the array tool.
Newbie question. I did the materials test on a bamboo cutting board today and selected 1% power 10% speed and the engrave took 2.0 hours! What tricks do I have to do in make this alot faster but still get good results? @@Vintauri
Have you also tested the "score" function?
I don’t use the score function much but the method would be the same. I will do some tests using that on balsa as I do plan to cut out some model airplane parts and the score function would be good for marking parts numbers.
Just got my S1 20w. I set the same cut array as you suggested using 3mm pine plywood, used the distance to let machine measure, marked cut. Used the same numbers to set array and sent to laser. The words and numbers written cut great but nothing cut in the array. I can feel the wood is cut very slightly.
Can you help me figure out what I need to do? Mind you I am just learning the software and laser.
For the S1 20w you'll need to drop the speeds down quite a bit. For the 3mm material, I'd set your speeds from about 10mm/sec up to 15mm/sec and see what it does.
@@Vintauri Thank you, I'll give it another try!
Hi there So I have questions I got an Pergear Laserstorm S5 for Christmas. Can XTool creative Space software work on it ? And would you know of a Free Software that would work on the Laser Printer instead of Lightburn
The XTool software will only work with their lasers. The free software you can look at would be LaserGRBL. But I’d strongly recommend paying the $60 for a copy of lightburn.
When I try this, the laserhead tracks back and forth like it's engraving the entire workspace block by block but it's only firing the laser in one tiny area and never actually engraves anything. It's really frustrating as I dont want to build this manually but it looks like Im going to need to.
Which laser, what speed and power settings are you using and on what material? Maybe I can offer some insight as to what it's doing.
this is work on d1 pro 10w for acrylic
thanks
Yes, this can be used on any material that is safe to run in your laser. You'll just need to modify the settings to dial in the range.