fwiw, just because they don’t respond here and officially say they don’t monitor the forums, don’t be fooled into thinking they don’t read any threads. i know they do read at least some, but they don’t generally respond here.
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Excellent point! I do know they do read at some level, just my way of saying “hey guys, let’s up the bar and add these features to GlowForge”. 
I think all of us would appreciate access to the capabilities, features and attachments shown on the xTool P2.
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i’m guessing as users (because pretty much everyone who works there is also a user), they’d want them too. you can always email support if you want to make sure your voice is heard.
this is one of the downsides of GF. on some levels, they can be reasonably transparent, and others they are a 100%, tight-lipped, black box. and pretty much anything about the future is a black box.
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More information…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9SGXoqy9N0
Looks like the software is not completely developed or released yet. But, it seems really compelling.
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I have found quite a range with Walnut, some can be a half-inch cut with barely a scorch, but I have had some that burned horribly also. I think it has a lot to do with the age and growing conditions of the tree.
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FedEx delivered her today. At 127 pounds shipped, I broke a sweat getting it upstairs and onto the table on my own. Glowforge’s box weighs 70 pounds for comparison.
First thing I did was print a blast gate for the P2 using the Glowforge. I modified this free design to shrink the inner diameter of one side of the rings to match the P2’s smaller exhaust port. Then I got it hooked up to the ventilation run and ran my first test cut.
Super first impressions:
- I missed the simplicity of GF’s webapp compared to the XCS desktop software
- The camera positioning system is not as good as Glowforge’s, and there’s no calibration possible unless you contact customer service and have them send you tools
- If there’s a built-in material library, I haven’t found it, so my first print was a test grid
- Optical path calibration was perfect out of the box, just like GF
- They ship it without coolant in the tank and have you add it yourself before powering it on the first time to avoid spills inside the laser during shipping
- It’s loud as a vacuum cleaner when running, like my GF was with its built-in exhaust fan, but there’s no way to turn off the fan in this one that I saw
- The slats are removable for lots of depth, and I might replace them with the spare GF honeycomb tray I have sitting unused
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Glowforge wont even tell us what is in the coolant, let alone let us interact with it. That was the beginning of why @deleted left, really. He fought them for ages to get coolant. I just don’t get GF’s model sometimes.
interesting feedback though, I’ll be curious what else you think as you get used to it. The software simplicity thing caught my eye. You think it’s overly complex, or will it still make for a pretty smooth workflow?
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Doesn’t it also support Lightburn? Did you ever use a laser before the GF? I wonder if the app awkwardness is unique to this one or if it’s just the difference between it & GF’s. If you had used an alternate laser’s software I’d be interested in your opinion of easier/harder vs another laser’s software. I noticed when moving to the GF that I found it limiting because I couldn’t control some parameters I was used to with my other machines. After awhile I found the GF better/easier for some things but worse/harder for others.
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It’s only partially supported by Lightburn at the moment. Supposedly they’re working on improving that together (xTool and Lightburn both made posts about it on their respective social media). You can do the basics but can’t use the cameras, autofocus that follows curved objects, use the automatic passthrough feeder and other P2 specific features.
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Ran the same SVG file through both machines, using their preset settings (found how to get those in the xTool software), on the same material (Thick Draftboard). This was the cut time for each machine.
Glowforge made clean cuts that dropped right out, while the P2 needed to be pushed out of the wood, so I’m going to slow it down a tiny bit, but it’s still going to reduce the cut times by about half. Big difference for only 10 watts more power.
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That is really interesting, thanks for sharing!
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Our daughter, who got me into GF to begin with, upgraded her GF+ to a Thunder. She loves it, and it too cut the cutting time to about half what the GF does. Plus she does a lot of the tumblers and stuff on it.
Either way, until I pay off bills, I can’t afford to get anything new, and just keep praying that my GF stays working as well as it is!
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it would be interesting to know the design. i don’t think the GF would necessarily be a lot slower on cut time compared to something with 10w more power. but the GF is significantly slower on engrave times because the head just won’t move that fast. the universal i have at work is 75w, so nearly 2x the power, but the engrave times are closer to 4-5x faster because the head on the universal can just move so much faster since the rails carry so much less weight.
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It was a sheet of large words to cut, no engraving.
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Can’t wait to hear more about it and your experience! I hope this laser turns out to meet the hype.
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We might have more success if we ask them about the " box moistening fluid" .
All 3 of the machines I have received have had a notable fluid leak during shipping.
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thanks for the review. very helpful.
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It’s been a week, so I guess I can share some more early thoughts.
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There’s almost no learning curve switching from the Glowforge webapp to xTool Creative Space, which is also actually a webapp, just wrapped up as a desktop install via Electron. It has built-in settings for common materials, design tools don’t require an extra paid subscription, and I can use all the same SVG files I made for the Glowforge. It’s even got an AI art generator.
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I haven’t reached for the Glowforge much this week since the P2 does all the same stuff, but faster. Autofocus for material height, camera-based alignment, built-in air assist and exhaust fans, built-in coolant tank/pump, big button that lights up that you press to start a job… I feel like it’s another pretty direct Glowforge clone though the xTool owners community never seems to feel that way when I mention it there.
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It has a secondary camera on the print head, like the Glowforge does, but unlike Glowforge you can ask it to go take a picture (or multiple) anywhere on your material for a super accurate close-up shot to align your design against. That’s nice and I don’t know why Glowforge doesn’t let you use its print head camera for anything yourself.
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The machine offers a wifi connection, but your computer will be directly connecting to the laser via your local network, not via a cloud server intermediating like Glowforge does it. The upside is that you can do everything even if the internet’s out. The downside is that even a momentary connection dropout disconnects the software from the machine. I prefer how Glowforge does it TBH. I don’t know why people so often complain about Glowforge being web-based – who wants to update desktop software and hardware drivers every time there’s a new feature?
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The P2’s early customer base appears to include many Glowforge owners based on photos people are sharing of their workspaces as their new laser arrives… and xTool knows this, as one of their first software updates was to treat colors in SVG files as different layers, so that files made for the Glowforge can be easily used with their machine.
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Maintenance on the Glowforge is easier. Fully cleaning the optics on the P2 requires pulling out a hose from the air assist and undoing two screws to access the lens. I’m sorely missing the ease of Glowforge’s metal lens holder that you can pop out with a magnet. I’m hoping that with a nozzle-type print head, the lens won’t get dirty as fast so I won’t need to clean it as often as I do in the Glowforge – which was around every other day.
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Why would this happen? Router malfunction?
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They copied Glowforge a bit too well by also using a flaky wifi chipset and antenna? That’s how it’s feeling based on my usage so far and the kinds of posts other owners are making about wifi issues. The machine beeps when it connects to wifi, and it beeps rather often in the middle of print jobs, meaning it is reconnecting itself. I have a mesh wifi system and wonder if it’s connecting to one of the further access points instead of the one in the same room. But I can only speculate. It does have Ethernet and USB ports as well, so flaky wifi is never going to stop someone from being able to work at least.
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