I know many craftsie people. People who can knit and crochet, people who draw and paint, people who can carve and whittle wood, and people who can seemingly create anything from almost literally anything else.
Me? I renderfacture statements of description from raw characters of an alphabetical origin, sometimes “creating” new words and abstract definitions in the process. However, now I was being called upon to delve deeper into my generative grab-bag and create tangible feats of craft, utilising the very latest in laser cutters.
So, what do we know about laser cutters? And what’s the difference between a laser cutter and a laser engraver?
Well, answering the latter question first, it merely depends on what you’re using the device for, literally cutting or engraving. And as to the first question, well they come in a wide variety of sizes, offering a wide variety of functions, and also in a very, very wide variety of prices, from a couple of hundred quid to thousands and thousands and thousands!
Which one is right for you?
That comes down to cost, what you intend to use it for and the materials you intend to work with.
There is some considerable variety here (as there should be) and a lot to cogitate on, but the bottom line, as ever, is that you need to consider the cost and how far you want to take your laser cutting and engraving. Is it a hobby? Do you plan to start a small business? Do you want to start small and expand to a bigger-scale business over time?
What I can tell you is that, like 3D printing, laser cutting and engraving can become enormously addictive, so be sure to kiss your loved ones goodbye before disappearing into your workshop/shed/garage rarely to return.
What I learned from all this is how deceptively simple it can also be once you master whatever software you choose or get saddled with. What I can also tell you, but keep it quiet, Christmas is going to be cheap this year – I’ve 10 sets of coasters featuring my face in a festive hat all ready to roll out to my relatives everywhere!
But to try and narrow down which laser cutter deserves your precious pennies, I’ve cut a swathe through a cross-section of them, putting my finger on five that provide the best performance at staggeringly different price points, covering the cutting gamut when it comes to making things out of many different materials.
So, if you’re keen to get creative as a hobby at home or to kickstart a new business or side hustle, let me show you the light…
Best laser cutters at a glance:
- Best for low-cost laser action: Atomstack A5 M50 Pro - £399.99, Amazon
- Best for portable production: LaserPecker L1 Pro - £369, Amazon
- Best for the wealthy beginner going bigger: xTool S1 40W - £1,849, Amazon
- Best for small business: Glowforge Pro - £4,628, Glowforge
- Best for bigger business: OMTech 100W - £3,149.99, Amazon
Atomstack A5 M50 Pro
Best for: Low-cost laser action
An ideal entry-level option for those new to lasering, the A5 M50 Pro from the excitingly named Atomstack is compact at 57 x 60 x 27cm and lightweight at 3.4kg thanks to an all-aluminium-alloy build. This makes it pretty perfect for the cutter/engraver on the go or without a permanent workspace on which to keep it sited.
Featuring a 5.5W laser and a 41 x 40 print area, the A5 M50 Pro can engrave its way through all manner of materials, including wood, plastic, leather, PCB and certain types of metal, while also capable of cutting through the likes of light wood, cardboard, acrylics and plastics like a ludicrously hot knife through butter.
Flexible on the compatibility side, too, the Atomstack plays nice with a range of software options and input file formats, meaning you can pretty much just plug and play from out of the box, hooking up to your PC over USB, while the fixed focus laser does all the fiddling about for you.
What’s more, control is a breeze, whether using the Atomstack smartphone app over your Wi-Fi or via the handy terminal interface when working offline. And in the unlikely event something goes awry mid-process, a nice-sized red emergency stop button halts everything in its tracks.
Good for all manner of crafting jobs, for the ultra-fine engraving the compression laser can reduce the focus area to 0.08 x 0.08mm for well-defined detail, whilst it can also just as easily power its way through wood and acrylic at up 15mm thick.
An excellent, elegant entry into the world of laser cutting and engraving, the Atomstack A5 M50 Pro is perfect for the home hobbyist looking to take their talents to the next level.
- Processing area: 41.0 x 40cm
- Engraving materials: Wood, bamboo, paper, plastic, leather, PCB board, aluminium oxide, non-reflective plating and lacquered metal
- Cutting materials: Cardboard, non-woven fabric, light wood, acrylic material, thin plastic board
- Laser power: 5.5W
- Engraving accuracy: 0.01mm
- Software: LaserGRBL, LightBurn, support Win XP, Win 7, Win 8, XP, Win 10
- Input format: NC, BMP, JPG, PNG, DXF
- Connection: USB
Buy now £399.99, Amazon
LaserPecker L1 Pro
Best for: Portable production
For lighter laser work that will appeal to the more mobile crafter, the 90g LaserPecker L1 Pro lends its considerable talents to the likes of paper board, leather, felt, cardboard and even wood and acrylic with an unerring accuracy of 1.01mm.
Operated over Bluetooth using the companion smartphone app, set-up takes seconds, just plug in, position your material on the base plate or under the tripod, pair over the app and simply select your design, the L1 Pro will then kick into life and engrave away onto almost anything you can think of, including food, at up to 4 x 4-inches, automatically lifting and focusing, letting you create personalised presents in next to no time, or at 20mm/s as the official and far more specific speed has it.
Cutting-capable, too, light wood, cardboard, felt and paper at up to 0.5mm thick can be quickly rendered into precision sliced pieces, ready to be assembled into, say, miniature models of famous buildings, clockwork cogs, intricately decorated dodecahedrons or, indeed, literally anything you can dream up and design.
Using a 405nm Blue Laser, limitations come in the form of metal, ceramics, glass and other hard materials as it just doesn’t have the power to deal with that kind of nonsense, but if you want to see your face in felt or looking back from the skin of a lemon, then the L1 Pro is the laser cutter/engraver for you.
Compatible with JPG, BMP, PNG and G-code files, the world is your engraving oyster, and safety is also seen to via password lock, motion detection, laser indicator, overheat shut down and, of course, goggles included in the box.
- Processing area: 10 x 10cm
- Engraving materials: Paper board, cardboard, fabric, felt, leather, wood, non-transparent acrylic, food
- Cutting materials: Felt, cardboard, paper with 0.2-0.5mm thickness
- Laser power: 500mW
- Engraving accuracy: 0.01mm
- Software: LDS
- Input format: JPG, BMP, PNG, G-code
- Connection: Bluetooth 5.0
Buy now £369.00, Amazon
xTool S1 40W
Best for: The wealthy beginner going bigger
For those looking for an epic all-rounder that can fill their laser cutting and engraving world while simultaneously emptying their pockets, two grand gets you the awesome xTool S1, armed with the kind of laser power that Bond villains of yesteryear could only have dreamt of.
With a sizeable processing area of 49.8 x 31.9cm and the ability to cut through wood, stone, metal, fabric, acrylic and paper, engraving skills adding plastic and leather to that list, the 40W laser delivers accuracy at 0.01mm, making it easy to render finely detailed designs using Android and iOS phone, iPad, Windows 10 or above PC and/or macOS via USB or Wi-Fi.
One-click auto-focus is available straight out of the box, so no need to faff around calibrating anything before getting to work, that work being made grown child’s play thanks to the intuitive XCS software that allows access to over 400 preset parameters for quick processing, AI design generating, 5000+ design ideas and full vector image manipulation. In fact, there’s so much going on that it may seem a little overwhelming at first, but once you’ve had a play around, it soon becomes second nature.
Compatible with a wealth of image file types, the S1 is capable of a fair clop, too, beavering away at up to 600mm/s, with one-pass engraving success resulting in zero waste. And should anything go wrong and result in flames, it even has its own CO2 release system to automatically extinguish the fire.
Adding to the safety features beyond flames, built-in exhaust fans quickly do away with the harmful gasses produced during laser processing, the high-transparency cover offers dual-band light filtering so you can watch that laser at work without having to worry about your eyes, an emergency stop button sits on the side, a key lock stops your little ones sneakily doing some impromptu lasering, and a safety stop immediately kills the process if the lid is detected being opened.
At the best part of two grand, the xTool S1 40W is, yes, more than a tad on the pricey side, but it is an incredibly powerful tool that lends its user the ability to achieve their crafting dreams swiftly and highly professionally. So, to that end, if you’re considering setting up a small business and selling the perfectly cut and engraved fruits of your laser labours, then it’s not a tad pricey, it’s an essential investment.
- Processing area: 49.8 x 31.9cm
- Engraving materials: Wood, acrylic, stone, fabric, metal, paper, plastic, leather
- Cutting materials: Wood, acrylic, stone, fabric, metal, paper
- Laser power: 40W
- Engraving accuracy: 0.01mm
- Software: XCS/Lightburn
- Input format: SVG, DXF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIF
- Connection: USB, Wi-Fi
Buy now £1849.00, Amazon
Glowforge Pro
Best for: Small business
Now we springboard wildly into the spending abyss with the Glowforge Pro, a laser cutter/engraver that costs a cool and oddly unrounded £4,628.
So, why the colossal cash-out? Well, if you’re not new to laser working and are looking to build your business bigger, then a commodious cutting area of nearly 11 x 19.5 inches gives ample space for larger projects, and a potent 45W laser permits you to cut and/or engrave almost any material you could possibly wish to, from food to metal to marble to cork – if it’s not alive, it’s pretty much fair game.
Compatible with countless file formats, including all the usual suspects of JPG, PNG, SVG and PDF, control is conducted over Wi-Fi via a splendidly intuitive web interface that lets you drag and drop from any other image software you own, manipulate to suit your ends and send directly to the GF Pro for printing, all while you sit back and view the progress through the ever-watchful eye of the internal camera. Now, what this does mean is that, with everything stored on the cloud rather than locally, you need to be connected at all times to get anything done, which may put some people off, but as long as you have solid, reliable Wi-Fi, that shouldn’t prove an issue.
Internal cooling keeps things chill, so the only thing you have to concern yourself with is the dust and smell that obviously accompanies cutting and/or engraving. This you can deal with either by dangling the bundled hose out of a nearby window to vent outside or by coughing up extra for the Glowforge Air Filter, a snip at only £998.
Finally, measuring nearly a metre across, over half a metre wide and 21cm tall, you’re going to need a fair bit of spare space to house the GF Pro, but if you’ve already committed over four and a half grand to it, a permanent home in pride of place is only right.
So, the Glowforce Pro is big on footprint and big on price, but it’s also easy to use and excellent at the task it was designed for, effortlessly ensuring all your online creations are realised rapidly in fine detail reality. For business, well-heeled hobbyists or even posh school CDT departments it’s the laser cutter of drooling aspiration.
- Processing area: 27.9 x 49.5cm
- Engraving materials: Glass, slate, food, stone, titanium, aluminium, marble, ceramic tile, Corian
- Cutting materials: Wood, acrylic, paper, cardboard, leather, draft board, veneer, rubber, cork, sandpaper
- Laser power: 45W
- Engraving accuracy: 0.001mm
- Software: Web interface (free)
- Input format: JPG, PNG, SVG, PDF and more
- Connection: Wi-Fi
Buy now £4628.00, Glowforge
OMTech 100W
Best for: Bigger business
Right, we’ve reached the end of our laser cutter adventure, but I’ve left the beast till last, and that’s no typo. With a whopping work area of 100 x 60cm, a laser rated at 100W, and the ability to engrave on – deep breath – wood, plastic, MDF, acrylic, cardboard, paper, leather, stones, rubber, textile, foam, glass and some metal coatings, alongside the ability to also cut most of that not so little line up, you know the OMTech means business and also what it could mean for your hobby business.
Engraving at a maximum rate of 600mm/s and capable of cutting through the likes of 23mm walnut at 2mm/s, the OMYTech features auto-focus, dual height adjustment platforms, and comes compatible with multiple software for absolute flexibility, not to mention every image format under the sun. Plus, happy to hook up via USB stick, USB cable or ethernet cable, your connection options are reasonably open too.
Add to all that an advanced water cooling system that deals with internal heat and built-in Air Assist to save you from all the smoke and dust this kind of work brings with it, and this is one of the most accomplished laser cutters/engravers on the civvy market.
Okay, at 160 x 124 x 100cm in size it is, as I said at the beginning, a bit of a beast, but what’s “space” when you’ve got the coolest cutter tool in the capitol?
- Processing area: 100 x 60cm
- Engraving materials: Wood, acrylic, plastic, MDF, leather, paper, cardboard, stone, textile, rubber, foam, glass, metal coating
- Cutting materials: Wood, acrylic, plastic, MDF, leather, paper, cardboard, stone, textile, rubber, foam
- Laser power: 100W
- Engraving accuracy: 0.01mm
- Software: Lightburn RDWorks (free), CorelLaser, LightBurn (Windows, MacOS), CorelDRAW, AutoCAD
- Input format: AI, BMP, DXF, GIF, HPGL, JPEG, PDF, PLT, PNG, RD, SVG, TIFF, TGA
- Connection: USB flash drive, USB cable, ethernet cable
Buy now £3149.99, Amazon
