The Maker’s Toolbox: xTool F2 Ultra Laser Review

Over the last few years, xTool has garnered a reputation as being one of the more “premium” prosumer laser machine brands and the F1 Ultra was the best fiber model they had to offer. Now, they’ve upped the ante with the new xTool F2 Ultra and I put it to the test.

The basics

The xTool F2 Ultra is a galvanometer laser machine available in two versions: single laser and dual laser. The former has a 60W MOPA fiber laser, while the latter has that and a secondary 40W blue diode laser. I received the single laser version for testing.

By itself, the F2 Ultra has a maximum working area of 220×220mm (8.6×8.6 inches) and users can expand that to 500×220mm (19.6×8.6 inches) with the conveyor accessory. The maximum material height is 150mm. There is also a rotary attachment available, but I wasn’t given one for testing and so I won’t be covering that.

This is a fully enclosed machine and as a galvo laser, it is capable of very fast speeds: up to 15,000mm per second. It features autofocus, a wired control interface, and dual cameras for positioning designs. It can communicate with the user’s PC (or Mac) via USB or WiFi. The F2 Ultra works with both XCS (xTool Creative Space) software and Atomm.

Why MOPA?

MOPA (Master Oscillator Power Amplifier) is a technology for modulating power to the fiber laser with pulses of adjustable duration and frequency. Compared to a standard fiber laser, a MOPA fiber laser can operate with much greater control over the energy transfer to the work material. In practice, that tends to produce cleaner cuts with less scorching, burning, and warping.

It is possible to cut and engrave many types of material with a MOPA fiber laser, but the technology is best suited to metals. xTool says that the F2 Ultra can cut brass, stainless steel, and aluminum, while it can engrave those and silver, platinum, titanium, gold, and plastics. In stainless steel, it can create colorful palettes through oxidation.

Most people buying a MOPA laser, like the F2 Ultra, are doing so to cut and engrave metal.

Unboxing, setup, and first impressions

In this market, xTool has positioned itself as a premium brand and that is apparent as soon as you open the shipping box. Everything is packed well and they even made unpacking easy, with straps to help you get the machine onto a workbench.

After removing the protective plastic wrap, I was impressed by the build quality of the F2 Ultra. The entire machine simply looks very nice and the materials are all top-notch. It is clear that this isn’t just a white label generic machine — it is xTool’s own design and they put real effort into the engineering.

I also loved how easy it was to set up. I didn’t have to turn a single screw to get it ready for use. All I had to do was plug in the cables (power, USB, and controller) and I was ready to go.

Software setup

After testing and reviewing a plethora of laser machines, I’ve come to the conclusion that software is more important than anything else when it comes to actual day-to-day use in the real world. I have laser machines that I almost never turn on, simply because I don’t want to deal with the software. The xTool F2 Ultra requires the use of XCS (xTool Creative Space), which may give pause to people used to LightBurn.

I use LightBurn a lot and while it is certainly functional, I don’t enjoy it. That is especially true for laser machines with more complex behavior and features, which tend to require complex setup or workflows that feel hacky.

This was my first experience with XCS and I liked it. The software automatically recognized the F2 Ultra and led me through a quick interactive tutorial. Even without that tutorial, it would have been easy to figure out as the interface is very intuitive. Everything works exactly how one would expect and there wasn’t any configuration necessary.

Even setting the cutting/engraving parameters was easy. Just select the type of work you’re doing (regular flat, curved surface, batch, etc.) and choose a material from the library, then you’re ready to go.

There are also lots of ready-to-go designs and templates you can grab through Atomm, which is Xtool’s design marketplace and sharing platform. Some of those are paid, but most seem to be free right now. On top of that, there are AI design tools if you’re into that sort of thing.

One minor downside to XCS is that it requires a current operating system. I keep a cheap “garage laptop” just for running machines and it has Windows 8, but that wasn’t supported by XCS and so I had to grab my nicer laptop. Not a big deal, but worth noting.

Running jobs

The basic workflow starts with opening XCS and either grabbing an existing design/template from Atomm or creating a new blank canvas. Make sure the F2 Ultra is selected, choose the mode (like “flat”), choose the material (there are hundreds in the library), and then create or import your design. From there, you can set the parameters for the job, such as speed and power — though they’ll be preset based on the material and may not need to be changed.

A single click autofocuses the machine and snaps a photo of the work area, so you can position your design on the material. You can then preview the work and, if you’re happy, process it and send it to the machine.

This is where the machine’s wired controller comes in. It has a nice full-color touchscreen that gives you status information. When starting a job, all you have to do is press the big green “xTool” button and the F2 Ultra will run the job.

I really like that controller, as you can position it wherever is convenient. Most of the time, the only necessary interaction was pushing the button to start. But it is nice that it provides information (like run time) and there are basic controls for other functions.

Performance

60 watts is a healthy figure for a MOPA fiber laser and is enough to get some real work done in metal. Experts tend to recommend at least 100W for cutting sheet metal, but the F2 Ultra’s 60W is enough for thinner sheet metal if you’re patient and careful. So, let’s go over what you can realistically expect.

When it comes to marking metal or engraving coated metals (anodization, paint, or powder coating), the F2 Ultra does extremely well. It can engrave an entire anodized aluminum business card in just a few seconds.

Actual engraving (that you can feel) in metal takes a bit longer, but the F2 Ultra excels at that, too. You can achieve really deep engraving in any common metal very easily and it is still pretty quick.

But things get a little more nuanced when it comes to cutting. The F2 Ultra absolutely can cut through sheet metal (aluminum, stainless, brass, and even mild steel). But, depending on the thickness, it can take some time and sometimes several passes.

Thin aluminum business cards (0.2mm thick) cut quickly and easily. Cutting out this star only took about 10 seconds.

But, in my testing, thicker material was much, much more difficult. In the F2 Ultra’s FAQ section, xTool says:

What’s the max engraving depth or cutting thickness for metals?

The F2 Ultra can cut brass up to 2mm, stainless steel up to 2mm, aluminum up to 1mm. Engraving depth depends on the material and settings, but the 60W MOPA fiber laser ensures deep and precise results across a wide range of metals.

I think that is, at best, optimistic. I wasn’t even able to cut through 1.5mm stainless steel, using high power, slow speed, wobble, and many passes. Based on posts I’ve seen from numerous others in xTool user groups, I don’t think my experience is unusual.

However, the F2 Ultra is very good at embossing, both in stone (like slate) and in metal.

With embossing (debossing is really more accurate here), the laser cuts away material to leave a 3D relief. It can even do that in very thick metal, as with this brass coin.

That led me to…

The secret to cutting thick metal with the F2 Ultra

Why can the F2 Ultra emboss thick metal, but not “cut” it?

I think there are two major reasons: heat and slag. With the focused point of a “cut” operation, you’re putting a ton of heat into the material. That results in massive warping, as with this keychain. You’re also leaving a lot of slag, which fills in the cut, so you’re just recutting the same material over and over.

Embossing doesn’t have those problems, because the area is wide. That spreads the heat and gives the burned off material room to clear.

The “wobble” setting does something similar when cutting, but it wasn’t sufficient for me. So, why not simply emboss all the way through the material to create a cut?

That’s exactly what I did!

My “depth map” was just a solid black outline for the cut I wanted. At 70% power and 200mm/s speed, I was able to cut through thick metal in 5-20 minutes — just changing the number of emboss layers to suit the material.

You don’t get the cleanest edges, as you’re essentially doing raster scanning rather than vector paths. But it does cut through the metal and doesn’t warp the material into a pringle.

And you may need to experiment with the parameters, which leads me to my second complaint about the xTool F2 Ultra…

The material library

One of the major selling points of the xTool F2 Ultra and XCS is that there is a large material library, which contains the cutting/engraving parameters you need for your materials.

If you want to engrave a stainless steel dog tag, just select that from the library and XCS will fill in the optimal parameters.

The problem I found was that the library is incomplete and inconsistent. There are many, many materials in the library that don’t have F2 Ultra parameters at all. And even the materials that do will often lack parameters for some operations, like cutting.

This was an issue with my experiments cutting metal. The materials were in the library, but they simply didn’t include cutting parameters — only engraving.

The solution is trial-and-error to find the ideal parameters yourself, like you would with any other laser machine. But it is still frustrating to have such a great feature (the material library) be diminished by incomplete information.

Moving on to more specific features:

The conveyor

I love the Auto Streamline Conveyor and I think it is a perfect example of what xTool does well. It is like a treadmill for the F2 Ultra that serves two purposes: extending the X axis for long parts and batch engraving.

Before I get to those features, I want to point out that the conveyor unit itself is well-constructed and easy to set up. It only requires six screws to assemble, and you only need to remove two of those when you want to take off the conveyor. Connection is done with a single cable and the software automatically recognizes it, so no configuration is necessary.

That puts it leagues ahead of the typical “slide extension” accessories I see for most laser machines, which are such a pain that they usually aren’t worth the effort.

Functionally, it works great as an extension. With it in place, you expand the working area to 500mm in the X axis, so you can engrave long things. That worked perfectly for me and my only complaint is that alignment is primarily visual.

But I think it is even more interesting for batch engraving. In that mode, you set up a design on one part. Then you can simply drop identical parts on the conveyor. As they pass under the laser, the F2 Ultra recognizes their shape and orientation, then duplicates the design on them. This lets you very quickly engrave dozens or even hundreds of identical objects. You can also do something similar with placing different designs on identical parts.

That worked well for me, with two caveats: 1. the placement wasn’t always perfect. Sometimes the engravings would be shifted by a couple of millimeters. 2. It would miss some parts, like it didn’t recognize them. In those cases, I could put the parts back on the conveyor and it would recognize them the second time around.

The first issue may or may not matter to you, depending on what you’re making. The second issue isn’t a problem if you’re checking the parts as they come off the conveyor, but could be a problem if you want a fully automated experience.

Ventilation and filtration

There is an air purifier available from xTool, but they didn’t send it to me and so I wasn’t able to test it. I do have several other air purifiers on hand, but chose not to use one at all in order to experience what a buyer might if they choose not to shell out an additional $1,000 for the SafetyPro AP2 Air Purifier.

Unless you’re working with wood, the F2 Ultra probably isn’t going to be spewing smoke. But it will be spitting out fumes and particulates, which can be dangerous (check the material you’re working with).

After doing an emboss in slate, I found that half of my garage was covered in a layer of thin powder. And fumes from stainless steel (and other metals) are pretty dangerous.

My recommendation would be to vent outdoors or to use an air purifier — ideally both. That said, I’m not sure if the SafetyPro AP2 is worth the price. You can find similar units from many other manufacturers at half the cost. But again, I didn’t test it and so can’t speak with authority.

3D curved surfaces

This is one of the best features of the xTool F2 Ultra and is one you don’t see on many other machines. It is capable of measuring the distance to several points on the surface of curved material to generate a 3D map, then can adjust focus while engraving to follow that surface.

That is very useful, because not everything is flat. For example, I’ve been wanting to engrave golf club heads and this is perfect for that. In this example, you can see that there is pretty extreme variation in the surface, but the F2 Ultra was able to adjust focus to engrave across it without any problems.

When using this feature, you can adjust the scanned size and the number of points it measures to generate the 3D mesh. It works with text, vector paths, and images.

This is the kind of feature that every laser machine should have, but few do. I’m really happy to see it on the F2 Ultra.

Final thoughts and recommendations

Overall, I think the xTool F2 Ultra is a very, very good machine — I will certainly be keeping mine. It is well-built and intelligently designed, with both the hardware and software working together to provide a really pleasant experience.

That extends to the conveyor, which I like a lot and think was executed very well. Because I didn’t receive them, I can’t speak to the rotary extension or the air purifier.

However, I do think potential buyers need to go in with the right expectations and I’m not sure that xTool’s marketing sets those correctly. Namely, cutting thick metal (anything more than 0.5mm or so) is very difficult. There are workarounds, as I described above, but I wouldn’t recommend buying the F2 Ultra if your primary use case is cutting metal.

But for marking, deep engraving, and embossing, the F2 Ultra is fantastic. It is powerful, fast, and intuitive.

Yes, this is an expensive machine compared to most of the competition. But that cost shows in the build quality, features, and experience. “Buy once, cry once” as they say. I’ve used enough budget models to really appreciate the xTool F2 Ultra and absolutely recommend it.