Glad it was helpful!

It is comments such as yours that brings us such joy and inspures us to make more contenr. Thank you so very much for watching our video and for your kind words.

It is our pleasure. Thank you so very much for watching!

Thank you so very much. That means a lot to us. We hope we are able to help you in your M1 journey.

I have PURFECTED the letter jigs. Lol

You are so very welcome! We are truly pleased that you enjoyed the tips. We would also like to thank you for taking the time to watch our video and for leaving a kind comment.

You're most welcome

We sincerely appreciate your short but very meaningful comment. It makes us want to continue making more content if people are watching and thanking us for you. And for that... thank you, back at you! :-)

I got to be honest... that has turned out to be the best work around I have ever used. I use it all the time. Thank you for watching our video. I seriously thank you!

That is fantastic! We would love to see what creative ideas you come up with.

Thank you so much

We are so happy to hear you enjoyed our video. It is comments like your that makes this so much fun to do

Between us... it takes me forever to set the board the way i like it. Ran out of a certain color blocks of a specific shape so i had to develop different set ups to make things symmetrical and mathing colors. Other than that. The blocks are perfect. 🤣

Ms Ida, that is actually a brilliant question, which I had not thought about before. Prior to the M1, I used a Cricut to cut vinyl a lot and the concepts are the same. In theory, I imagine you could place the matt on the honeycomb but the way the cutter works is by applying pressure of the blade through the cutting material. every time the blade passes over a blank area of the honeycomb, it might not have the right amount of pressure needed to cut through the material. On the flip side, I believe the sticky matt provided with your M1 is firm enough that it will not be a problem. In conclusion, Personally would not place it on the honeycomb. As you start cutting wood, the honeycomb starts building up a residue, which will in turn transfer some to the back of your sticky pad. remember, the sticky pad is sticky on both sides to prevent movement. It might not stick well to the honeycomb. Here is a work around. I used small blocks of wood to raise my M1 high enough for the honeycomb to slide under and leave little gap. when I need to use the metal plate of the M1, I simply put it in place and it takes seconds. It does not touch the honeycomb. I also, do not screw down the metal plate. It fits firmly in place and is heavy enough that I do not feel the need to screw the plate down. Now I can remove the plate and access the honeycomb and easily add back the plate to use as needed. I hope this makes sense but if you have any questions requiring clarification, do not hesitate to ask.

I did the research and found that xTools has some instructions for using Lightburn to actually control your M1 but it was a little complex. At this time, I use Lightburn to trace images and it works much better than XCS for me. If I get a chance to create a how to video, I will let you know. Thank you so much for watching our video and for taking the time to leave a comment.

Wow! That is extremely generous of you. Please let your friend know they are welcome to ask us questions. We read and respond to all questions and try to provide a proper resolution.

Great question. I went through all the steps that I found and ultimately, the instructions are for using Lightburn to control the M1. I am new to laser cutting and Lightburn was a little overwhelming and I found it much easier to use it to create SVG file and then use XCS to open the SVG file and cut it. I hope this helps.

@@Poor_Mans_DIY interesting. Do you have to a link to those steps. I just see it for the D1. I find the creative space to work ok. I like the feature it has to find similar shapes and automatically engrave the same thing on them.

Great question. Usually when there is scorching it is because of to high power or too slow speed. It might also be with an improper setting of the laser head distance to the wood. use the following link to obtain what is called a test cut file. What will happen is your M1 will cut different squares at different level of power and different speeds. when finished, you will be able to determine the perfect power and speed settings you need. You can also manually adjust the height settings. run the auto-detect and add 0.1" inches as a manual distance and run a test cut. if it does not cut through, add another .lf it does not get better, subtract 0.1 and test cut a small piece. you will eventual figure out the perfect settings. Once you do, store the settings on a spreadsheet so you dont have to rely on memory. The air assist can help prevent scorching. It blows away minute particles that can deflect the light from the laser and spread the beam a bit. if the beam spreads, it may cause scorching. I hope this helps but if you have more questions, feel free to reach out to us.

We are very pleased that you enjoyed the tips. We thank you for taking the time to watch our video and for your kind comment

@@Poor_Mans_DIY I'm waiting for new videos.

If you were to check out our other videos, you will find that numerous companies have given us products and asked for us to review their products. We only agree to this under one condition and that is... we provide an honest opinion, be it positive or negative. So, we only work with companies that want such feedback so they can make improvements if needed. That being said, we too are primarily woodworkers but we were provided an opportunity to review the XTool M1. This has proven to be the best tool I have. We have been avle to make countless custom gifts for friends and family and it paid for itself in a short time. Not from selling things but from saving money for purchasing gifts. Maybe XTool is not for you but a laser cutter will make a huge difference in what you can accomplish in your shop. Keep in mind lasers burn wood to cut and creates smoke. Enclosed cutters like the M1 help control smoke and allow you to blow it outside or into a purifier. Be sure to research all laser companies and decide for yourself. If you have questions, feel free to ask

@@Poor_Mans_DIY thank you 😊

From what I pieced together, you are able to generate something called a Gcode and utilize that to cut but you cannot use any version of Lightburn to directly control the M1. I use Lightburn with its features to create an SVG file and then open the SVG file in XCS and get great results. Kind of tedious but I love Lightburn and I definitely love my M1 so it is a way to take advantage of both, in a round about way.

@@Poor_Mans_DIY Thank you, that makes sense.

if your SVG file consists of individual lines, you click on each line and identify if it should be engraved or cut. If you are unable to do this, feel free to send your file SVG to me and I will see if I can make adjustments for you and send it back. If I am able to make changes, I will explain what I did, so you can do it for yourself in the future. If you choose to do this, send email to poormansdiy@hotmail.com.

If you find a thin enough honeycomb, you could place it directly in the M1 but I had no such luck. I have removed the bottom plate of my M1, raised the legs and placed the honeycomb under the M1. Note this caused a problem for me. By using the included riser blocks, it works fine but creates a large gap between the honeycomb and the bottom of the M1. This allowed all the smoke to escape and not be drawn into the air vent (fan), which i connect to a smoke purifier. To fix this. I use risers I made myself from scrap wood. And there is virtuall no gap but some smoke still escapes so I place some long, thin scrap wood around the base and it does the trick for me. Thank you for watching our video and for your wonderful question

I like the idea of transfer tape but every tape I have tested, pulls small parts of the wood off. But seriously.... thank you for taking the time to provide such a good suggestion.

Fantastic question. I never thought about the need to address this. The answer is Yes. You need more power to cut through the tape first. Thank you for the wonderful question.

I originally bought a 300x300 but it was far too small. I then purchased a 400 x 400 and it is perfect for me.

@@Poor_Mans_DIY you got new sub !!

@@Poor_Mans_DIY i want to see more xtooll m1 wood project👍

I am ashamed to admit, I initially tested the cutter blade but have not fully tested because I have a Cricut and I am very comfortable with it, so I have not taken the time to use the cutter, fully.

​@@Poor_Mans_DIY sorry my bad, l meant the laser cutter as l can only cut out the mane shape but l can't cut out any detail inside the the mane line ?

No problem. I definitely can give you some information. I run into similar problems. I use photo shop software and change images to SVG, JPG, BMP, etc just to try and get a good cut image. The most recent version of xTool Creative Space does a better job creating all the cut lines but not always. I tested Lightburn software, which is the most popular for laser cutting and I liked the software very much so I paid for it. I now take images and use Lightburn to make cut files, save it as svg and then load SVG into XCS. You can also use free internet sites to convert images to SVG and then load them into XCS and it works better. One other option I use is to go to Etsy and search for "Laser Cut Files" and I pay for them. They are often very inexpensive and many people make very creative things to cut. I hope this helps.

Although I do not have experience with this, I am confident that it can cut without burn marks. It is all about the laser settings. You should run a test on some card stock to determine the best speed and power to use. I suspect the laser power will have to be low to prevent burn marks. This will be true with any laser. Always run tests first and then annotate the best settings for use with each color cardstock.

@Poor_Mans_DIY Thank you@ I am considering buying M1 5 or 10W to work on paper project, basically to replace the use of cricut maker.

support.xtool.com/hc/en-us/articles/4415992587159-LightBurn-Software-for-experienced-laser-users

That should help.

I understand how you feel. I actually experienced the exact same problem just two days ago. I actually rebooted my laptop and powered my M1 off and turned it back on. Everything was fine after that. I hope this helps you.

@@Poor_Mans_DIY I did try reboot the program and the machine but still nothing. I'll try the whole computer thanks!

You are 100% correct, but you didn't have to point it out. LOL

I am so sorry. I just realized I never explained that. I cut some scrap pieces of wood at the same size. I used Score and made a circle on the scrap wood. I adjusted the image a bit on XCS until I centered it just right. Thank you for watching our video and for taking the time to leave an excellent question!

We don't use the term "stolen", we prefer "borrowed", "confiscated" or "appropriated" LOL! Actually, we are thrilled to know you appreciate our ideas enough to consider using them. Thank you for watching our video and for leaving a comment.