Purchasing from xtlaser.com

[Ross San]

Does anyone in the USA have recent feedback regarding purchasing from them? I received a quote from a sales rep for a 50w fiber machine. Thanks!

[Bill George]

Never heard of them. Its faster just to do a Search on here for an answer, upper right hand corner with Advanced just under. A lot of hits.... some from a few years ago.

[Ross San]

Never heard of them. Its faster just to do a Search on here for an answer, upper right hand corner with Advanced just under. A lot of hits.... some from a few years ago.

I wasn't able to find anything recent. There seems to be more recent Ray Fine reviews from this year which makes me more comfortable purchasing from them going the direct from China route.

[Tim Bateson]

I almost bought from them but decided to go with a U.S. based company - still a Chinese fiber. One word of caution. I too got the 50w. It is wayyyy more powerful than I had expected and way overkill for my gun engraving. I could have saved a lot of money with a 30 watt,

[Ross San]

I almost bought from them but decided to go with a U.S. based company - still a Chinese fiber. One word of caution. I too got the 50w. It is wayyyy more powerful than I had expected and way overkill for my gun engraving. I could have saved a lot of money with a 30 watt,

Hi Tim,

That is very valuable information as I intend to use this for firearms. I have my 01 FFL. I appreciate the insight!

[Tim Bateson]

I made the bad assumption that because my 30watt gantry fiber wasn't enough power, that a 30w galvo would not do the job either. For those looking for a fiber laser, the power level of these 2 types of lasers are not even close! I would equate my 30w gantry as maybe - maybe a 5w galvo. Based on the overwhelming power of my new 50w galvo.

[Kev Williams]

TIM-- trade ya my 30 for your 50... :D

I'm curious as to why you think 50w is overkill, I've been tempted to get a 60w or higher machine, and very glad I didn't get a 20...

What lens you get with that? A 110mm at 50w would produce a very small and powerful beam spot; might be doing more cutting than engraving, or put another way, more melting than 'chewing' and vaporizing. Even a 160 lens (what I have) might be prone to melting with 50w, but I have NO problem with 30w...

You might try de-focusing a bit, to fatten the beam spot, that'll cool it down and may help with the overkill.

Another idea to try-- with my 30w my settings for deep engraving are 100 power 300 speed 30 freq. with 45/135 hatches at .03, and a 0 hatch at .04 with 800/80/80 as a 'cleanup' pass. Here's the thing, if you look at the beam overlap at 300 speed and 30 freq, it looks like this:
367158

Now, double the speed to 600 and the freq to 60, and --
367159

--the beam overlap is identical, which means the actual engraving/ablating process should be identical, but with less power density due to the increased engraving speed-- but you have nearly double the power! So, I'm thinking you should experiment with higher speed and frequency, maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised! -- or not..? I do know there IS something to this because when attempting to engrave pure copper, I found a very narrow speed/freq setting that worked, and doubling those settings, also worked. Nearly any other settings wouldn't mark the copper a bit.

speaking of focusing, how are you focusing? Red lights or-? About 2 months ago I decided to run a focus-line test, basically 6" worth of 4" long lines spaced 1mm apart, ran at zero power on anodized aluminum while moving the table up & down to find the sweet spot. When I found it, I took a piece of 1/4" thick Cintra, cut a 1/2" wide piece of it and cut it to fit perfectly between the aluminum I was engraving and the bottom edge of the lens housing. That was one of the best 'upgrades' I've done, and haven't used the red lights for focusing since. Last night for example, I engraved dutch oven lids, and with the focus stick, I could move it around and physically and visually find the 'average' focus distance between the low and high spots in the arc of the lid. With the light you have one spot to focus on and everywhere else is just a guess...

[Tim Bateson]

Not wanting to hijack Ross's thread, my reply is: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?257506-New-50w-Fiber-Laser&p=2723210#post2723210

[Neville Stewart]

I wasn't able to find anything recent. There seems to be more recent Ray Fine reviews from this year which makes me more comfortable purchasing from them going the direct from China route.
You won't have any problems going with an XT. They're a really well assembled machine and I'd ask for Neil Chen if I was you. He helped me out with another brand machine and I bought another one from him. I'd recommend him any time. N