xTool M1

10.00 / 10
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An incredibly capable machine that'll look at home in any home or office environment. At $1000, it's about two or three times the cost of a basic budget 10W laser engraver. But for that, you're getting a much safer, enclosed design that draws away harmful fumes, as well as an incredibly useful camera. And of course, the ability to fit a blade tool for cutting heat transfer vinyl and fabrics. Is this the ultimate maker machine? Quite possibly.

Key Features
  • Laser engraver, laser cutting, and blade cutting — all in one machine
Specifications
  • Brand: xTool (MakeBlock)
  • Laser Power: 10W as tested (5W also available for $200 less)
  • Working Area: 30 x 42.7 x 12cm
  • Connectivity : USB
  • Software: xTool Creative Space (not compatible with LightBurn)
Pros
  • Camera view enables you to more precisely position your project, with less waste and faster batch production
  • Easy to swap between laser and blade tools
  • Autofocus laser
  • Large working area, safely enclosed and with a fan to drew away fumes
Cons
  • Not compatible with LightBurn, so you'll need to learn new software

I’ve reviewed a number of laser engravers at this point and to be brutally honest, I'm a bit sick of them. Not because they’re bad products—I’m just not seeing anything innovative in the mid-range price point, so there are only so many ways in which they can differentiate themselves. But the xTool M1 from MakeBlock intrigued me. Not only does it feature some advanced features like a camera to help with precise positioning of your projects, but it also has a blade-cutting tool (like a Cricut) that can be swapped in to cut vinyl and other materials. That makes it a really versatile 2-in-1 crafting tool. And that's all contained within a safe working box with LED lighting and a fan extractor. Is this the ultimate maker tool?

Starting at $999 for the 10W laser version, the xTool M1 is available now from xTool.com, xTool.co.uk, or Amazon. It's not a Kickstarter, and will ship immediately.

xTool M1 Design

Looking much like a combo inkjet and scanner, the xTool M1 is a prosumer tool that would look right at home in any home or workshop environment. It’s quite bulky at roughly 56cm wide by 45cm deep, and 23cm tall (22 x 18 x 9 inches), and weighs a tad under 10kg. The main body is all white, while the top is a semi-transparent brown acrylic lid, which lifts up to reveal the spacious internal working area.

xtool - basic design

The working area inside is 30cm deep, 42.7cm wide, and 12cm high. This isn't the biggest engraving area I've come across, but it's certainly not small either. It can easily fit a standard sheet of HTV vinyl or an A4 sheet of card stock. In terms of material thickness for engraving, in theory, you're unlimited when you remove the base of machine. In the standard configuration, you're limited to 15mm thick. You'll soon be able to purchase a set of risers to increase this, but this should be more than enough for most people anyway.

xtool - laser interal prisms

The interior features some helpful line guides, and is fully lit with led strips around the edge that automatically turn on when the lid is opened. Hidden on the rear of the machine is an embedded camera, and the view from here will refresh in the software whenever you close the lid (or can be manually refreshed). It's not a live-view webcam though, so it only updates when requested, rather than allowing you to remotely view the progress. Everything inside is very neatly laid out with a cable tray and nothing dangling.

Included in the box are a set of metal prisms that can raise up the material you're cutting or engraving with the laser (however, this further limits the maximum thickness of your material to around 10mm). These prisms ensure a cleaner cut by letting the air flow freely underneath, as well as making it easier to see if the material has been correctly cut or not.

xtool - extras prism and baldes

Also included are two cutting mats (light grip for HTV, strong grip for fabrics), a blade holder, and five 45-degree cutting blades. The blades and cutting mats are consumables, and should replaced once the stickiness wears off or the blade dulls.

The xTool M1 includes a fan and roughly 6-foot hose, which you'll need to fit to the rear of the machine.

Optionally, you can also purchase a rotary attachment, and an air filter, should you not be able to vent the hose outside. However, adding both of these to your order will roughly double the purchase price of the machine, so it might be worth just sticking to the basics until you're sure you need the extras.

The xTool Creative Space Software

To use the XTool M1 you’ll need to download a special bit of software called the xTool Creative Space (XCS). It's not compatible with LightBurn.

The XCS software is remarkably easy to pick up, but is a little basic compared to LightBurn. For most people, it'll be more than sufficient, and for those who need better design options, you're likely using an external package such as Adobe Illustrator for your vector illustrations.

The xTool M1 works over USB, so make sure you've got it plugged in, then select your machine from the connection dialog. Once you've opened the lid and inserted your material, the screen will refresh to display a preview of your working area. On the right hand is where you can select the operation type (laser cut, laser engrave, or blade cut), material thickness, and burn or cut parameters.

xtool xcs screenshot positioning camera

Helpfully, a selection of commonly used materials is included, which sets the thickness and burn parameters for you. The xTool M1 also uses a laser to automatically measure the thickness of your material if it's non-standard. In my experience, it was mostly accurate, to within around 1mm or so. Finally, ensure you've selected whether or not you're using the risers.

The XCS software has some basic drawing and text tools which should be sufficient for simple projects. You can draw simple shapes or add text, for instance, but not make the text follow a path. Technically, the software is still in beta, so I expect more features will be added in time.

One aspect of the XCS software that I really appreciated was that it features a built-in project library, which is perfect for onboarding you with your first project. Just pick a project from the list, view the instructions, and load all the required project files into the app. If there are too many parts for one operation, they'll be separated into different workspaces. Of course, the list of projects is limited, but it's still a great way to get started or be inspired.

xtool xcs projects screenshot

Before you send your design to the engraver, highlight all the parts and ensure the correct parameters are set. It's here where I missed LightBurn the most. In XCS, cuts or engraving actions show a different line color, but every single object can have its own different settings. Meaning that sometimes it'll default to 1% laser power, and you'll wonder why only one of your objects came out properly. In LightBurn, different colors represent different layers, and these all share laser settings, so any object with the same color is going to use the same settings as another. Hopefully, XCS can replicate this behavior in the future and implement a proper layering system.

Despite these shortcomings, I will just add that XCS felt a lot easier and more efficient than I'm used to with LightBurn. A large part of that is the positioning camera, which means you can quickly batch together multiple projects on the same type of material, and not have to fiddle around with endlessly framing your projects.

Blade Cutting

Switching from laser engraving to blade cutting is remarkably simple. The first step is to fit the cutting tool. Pull back the tip and drop in a blade, then hold down the end and twist the tip until only the small 45-degree part of the blade is poking out. Insert the cutting tool into the working head of the machine—it's obvious where it goes if you feel underneath, and it slots in magnetically.

xtool - close up of cutting head

You'll also need to fit one of the two cutting mats. These are sticky on both sides, so it secures lightly to the base of the machine, and your material sticks to the top of it. The blue one is for vinyl and other flat materials, while the pink heavy grip is for fabrics that are more likely to move around.

xtool - neat internals

One of the great aspects of having custom software is that switching over to blade cutting is as simple as selecting it from the list. Everything else about the interface is identical, so you'll immediately be familiar with blade cutting once you've used it for laser work. You also get a similar dropdown for common materials, or you can set your parameters for cutting pressure, speed, and number of passes.

Laser Sample Outputs

The very first project I made while learning the software was a few plant labels on 3mm balsa wood. These came from the project starters catalogue, though I didn't like the box for them so I skipped that part. Then I tried making some basic boxes from MakerCase for game cards and tokens, cut from 2mm MDF, though I had to slow it right down to cut through even at 100% power. However, they came out nicely with very clean lines. The positioning camera meant I could really utilize every bit of the mdf, and what you see is just one set of boxes. I made six sets in the course of a few hours, which goes to show just how much quicker the workflow is with the xTool M1 compared to most machines.

xtool - wood samples

Finally, I found this dragon coaster design from Vecteezy to test out the fine details, and was really pleased with how that came out. This is only possible with a powerful and sharply focused laser.

Using a random branch I'd cut down and sliced up, I made a Xmas present and tree label, using the automatic thickness measurement. I've struggled to use these before as the spacing is just too tight, but with a positioning camera, I was able to quickly and easily ensure text and object would fit perfectly. I only tried two, but it would be easy to scale this up for replicable and reliable results with multiple parts at the same time.

I also tried a larger item using a rasterized image. For images, the machine works much like an inkjet printer, having to move the laser head slowly across line by line until the image is completed. This takes a lot longer than vectorized engraving and cutting, which moves only where the line is needed.

xtool - wood bitmap burn

The result is also not as dark as I'd like as the laser was slightly out of focus, due to the thickness of the wood being a few millimeters more than the machine can handle. While I could have removed the base, I don't have any risers and was planning to stain this anyway. Note that the lines you can in the wood are not a result of a laser error; rather, it's the speed at which different parts of the wood grain burn.

Blade Sample Outputs

Next, I turned my attention to the bladed cutting feature. I'll add that I'm a complete beginner on this front, so there was every chance I'd completely screw it up. I used a few sheets of various colors and glitter heat-transfer vinyl from HTVRONT to test with, and was pleasantly surprised with just how easy it was to use.

xtool - ninaj bag

After inserting the blade, you only need to change one setting and choose the material type—thankfully HTV is in the list, so it already knows what to do.

xtool screenshot xcs cut unicorn

To cut with the blade, you should first clean out the interior, give it a wipe to mop up any oily residues, then stick down one of the cutting mats. Your vinyl will lay on top of this, shiny-colored side down. The blade will cut the dull whitish side. Lastly, your design must be mirrored horizontally, because you're cutting it from the reverse side.

xtool - peeling off unwanted htv

Once the cut is finished, you can peel off your design and start removing the unwanted bits of vinyl. It should peel off cleanly, leaving only the bits on your design that you want to transfer onto the material.

xtool - htv peeling back unicorn

It's also worth noting that the cutting tool is only half the equation—you'll also need a heat press to transfer your design onto your target material, whether that's a t-shirt, bag, or even a piece of wood. For this, I used the HTVRONT Auto Heat Press, but I'll be reviewing that separately next week.

Is The xTool M1 The Ultimate Maker Machine?

I have no reservations at all about recommending this as a safe easy-to-use prosumer choice for an all-in-one maker machine.

xtool - lots of samples with machine

When I accepted this review, I'll admit I was quite dismissive of the bladed cutting, assuming it would just be a nice-to-have feature but hardly one I'd be using much. It turns out that it was easy to use and such fun that I actually ended up using it more than the laser engraver. But again, it does need to pair with a heat press of some sort. So if you do want to explore that side of things, you should budget a few hundred dollars more for a heat press as well.

xtool - htv tshirt

The positing camera is also an incredibly helpful feature that I underestimated the utility of. It's going to be very hard to review another engraver that doesn't feature one at this point. It's such a huge quality-of-life upgrade that also reduces the amount of waste material and makes batch production much faster.

xtool - bag

The xTool Creative Space software is easy to get started with, but I can see it being a little limiting if you're used to working in LightBurn with the extensive design tools offered there. As something designed for beginners, it's great: it has just enough features to get you started, a built-in project library, and makes switching between blade or laser tools seamless. Even for pro users, it offers everything you need to bring in your designs from an external program such as Illustrator. It's that mid-level user that may struggle and be frustrated by the simplicity of XCS compared to LightBurn. Unfortunately, the xTool M1 isn't compatible with LightBurn, and isn't likely to be in the future, so there's no choice here.

I've become quite enamored with the xTool M1, and am surprised by how much utility I found in the blade-cutting feature. At $1000, it's about two or three times the cost of a basic budget 10W laser engraver. But for that, you're getting a much safer, enclosed design that draws away harmful fumes, as well as an incredibly useful camera. And of course, the entire other function of being able to put in a blade for cutting HTV and fabrics. There's no question in my mind if that’s worth it or not. It is.