Xlaserlab X1 Pro, The Experience

Modern technology is amazing. Sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes that is a bad thing. Buying tools has always been an enjoyable experience that I think is hereditary and I think I was born with it. Ever since I was a teenager working at Sears, in the tool department no less, I have always enjoyed buying tools and welcomed opportunities to buy more. Fortunately, I started in the building, flying and maintaining kit airplane world. A whole new world of new tools and reasons to buy them.

I once heard someone say that women buy shoes just so that other women can't have them. I firmly believe that the same concept runs in the veins of men regarding tools. For every job there is a tool and every few years, someone designs a new tool to do that job so, naturally, I have to buy it. The old tool still works just fine, but the new tool is, well NEW.

It is amazing the kinds of technologically advanced tools that are now available to home users. Many things that were only practical at the industrial level just a few years ago are now available to the home hobbyist. The most exciting to me, at the moment are Laser Welders and Plasma Cutters.

The contents of the two boxes that arrived.

Welding is a skill that has always eluded me. I got an introduction to both Oxy-Acetylene and Arc-Welding in Coast Guard Technical School in 1982. We spent a couple of hours learning the basics of gas welding and making a few practice welds on simple, flat plate steel. I was just starting to get the hang of it when it was time to move across the hall for some Arc-Welding. I found Arc-Welding to be more difficult.

My only real interest in welding was for building airplane fuselages. Most of the airplanes that I was most interesting in building (Starduster Too, Steen Skybolt, Hatz Classic, etc.) were all welded steel tube fuselages with wood wings. I was pretty confident in my ability to build the wood wings, it was the welding that had me concerned.

Again technology marched on and new and different, and supposedly easier to use, gas welding torches were developed, all promising to make any idiot able to weld thin-walled, chrome-moly tubing with ease. Well, not this idiot. I was never able to get a decent weld going without burning through the tube and making things worse.

At some point in time, MiG and TiG welding came along sort of combining gas and arc welding into a single machine with "easy" to use guns and filler. Lincoln Electric used to have a booth every year at the old Arlington Fly-In and my Dad and I would sit there and watch the magician behind the glass as he did seemingly impossible things with a little welding gun. We kept trying to find an excuse to buy one, but had sort of moved on to other projects. Also, we came to find out that TiG, though not as much as gas, still required practice and experience to make passable welds.

In short, we never got one.

There are many shop aids and projects that I would like to take on, but they usually require some form of welding, so I usually pass.

That all changed one cold wintry evening in the waning hours of 2025 when I got a video link from my Dad showing this amazing new Laser Welder that was available to the general public. We discussed it the following Friday and decided that it would be a good investment if we were to add one to our tool collection.

We ordered it that Friday night. Most of the guys that review the welder seem to have a link with a discount code to buy one. We chose one and placed an order. I think the "discount" was enough to cover the sales tax, maybe a little more and it had free shipping. What's not to like.

We really had no idea where it was coming from or how long delivery would take, since they are made in China. We figured they must have a US distributor and sure enough, the unit was shipped from Rialto, Ca.

There was a little bit of uncertainty, but the unit was delivered by FedEx, in two boxes, the Thursday after we ordered it, so not quite a week. Pretty good service.

The first step was to assemble the Harbor Freight Welding Cart that I bought the day before. This turned out to be easier said than done. The first mistake that I made was to try to follow the directions. This took me back to my days at Sears where I had to assemble all of the floor display tools with less than clear instructions using lots of little bolts and nuts. This was exactly the same thing, it was much easier to ignore the instructions and just make it look like the picture. For instance, the instructions say to assemble the pieces with bolts and nuts. OK, I'll do it. They didn't say anything about the flat washers and lock washers. I thought those were for use elsewhere, but I noticed that there were supposed to be the same number of each. Same number indeed, I was short two flat washers and had three more lock washers than needed (yes, each nut had a lock washer on it, I didn't just miss a couple). So, I had to take the first bit apart and add those pieces. After that, I threw the instructions away.

Assembled welding cart.

It has three shelves and a chain to secure an bottle of inerting gas, in this case either nitrogen or argon.

Now it was time to move on to the boxes that the actual tool came in. The box with the main unit in it weighted 69 pounds, at least according to FedEx. The box containing the single spool wire feeder, there is a dual spool wire feeder available, was 21 pounds.

Foam "bucket" that the wire feeder came in.

The lighter box contained the wire feeder, in a custom made foam "bucket. This box also contained the welding helmet, apron, and gas tube. All of the other stuff came in the "heavy" box. The big box was a seriously sturdy cardboard affair with plastic reinforcements at the corners.

Pretty sturdy for a cardboard box.

Inside that box, the contents were very securely packed for their long voyage from China.

All of the innards were captured in a large plastic bag.

At the top was a foam shelf that contained the accessories.

Very well secured.

Under that was another shelf that supported the gun and it's cable. The gun and cable are permanently mounted to the main box, so some care is needed in unboxing them.

More secureness.

At the very bottom, was the main unit with gun and cable.

Pretty snug.

Once I got all of the bits out and laid out on the table as shown above, the first hurdle to be overcome presented itself. It is always comforting when one gets stuck on step one. When they said to plug in the power cord I said, huh?

The pug at the end of the supplied power cable.

The receptacle for my available 220V outlet.

What may not be immediately obvious from the above pictures is that the vertical and horizontal spades on the connector are reversed between the plug and the outlet. As you can see from the picture, the vertical spade would go on the left and the horizontal spade would go on the right. On the plug however, the vertical spade is on the right and the horizontal spade is on the left. In all other aspects, the two are identical in size.

I stopped by Lowe's on the way home hoping that there would be a simple adapter to make it work. There isn't. The guy I talked to said they don't carry such a thing, but he thought something might exist. I tried to Google it and didn't have with any luck. I may be able to cut the current plug off and attach another, but I'm not sure where to get one.

I have left a comment with the guy who made the original video that got us hooked and asked how he did it. I will also send a message to the tech support folks at Xlaser Labs. Hopefully I will get a solution. It must be doable because there are obviously people in this country using them.

Once I get that figured out, the next fun trick will be to figure out how to attach the gas bottle and then figure out how much pressure to use. The manual says "... make sure the air pressure is >0.2MPa (2kgf/cm2) and the air flow rate is >15L/min." The video on the manufacturer's YouTube channel says "make sure the pressure exceeds 0.2 MPa". I have no idea what that means. OK, I'm pretty sure that L/min is liters per minute, though that still means nothing to me. I need to figure out what that is in normal (PSI). I don't think normal regulators give a flow rate, nor adjustment for such, only pressure, which seems to be the important factor anyway.

Stay tuned for more, hopefully, of the same kind of excitement as above.