I have reviewed some laser engravers, I like a lot of them. Especially the Laserpecker 2,
they even come with a roller booster that enables you to engrave on almost any curved surface that’s
impossible for others. In general, all those engravers they can engrave on many things and have
really good performance, but none of them have particularly good performance on metal due to the
blue light laser that has less powerful energy for engraving. So when Mr. Carve reached out to me to
see if I’m interested in their M1 machine, which they claim they can carve on all types of metals.
I said why not. So here it is.
This is Mr.Carve M1’s prototype. I’ve been with it for several days
and I tried all kinds of metals, is it any good? Here is my review.
Alright, first let's check out the design.
It's very simple, on the base of the engraver, you get an up and down key for focusing,
and a power button. On the left side, there is a start button to let you start engraving when you
press it. On the back there is a power port, a pedal socket，which they said will remove on
the official version, and a data line socket.
Moving up is the brain of the M1, which houses the field mirror,
infrared focusing, and a giant galvanometer. We also see the ventilation there.
The design, I would say is “industrial”, which means it looks solid and practical but feels
less polished. Good thing is, you can always put some stickers on it like I did. But compared
to the design, maybe the most important part is its performance, how on earth is it?
To use it, just connect the machine to your power source and computer via the cables that come with the box.
Press the power button to turn on the M1. At this time, you will see two red dots on the surface of
the project you want to engrave, press the “Up” or “Down” keys to move the red dot until the two
dots overlap, and then you are almost ready to go. Yes, welcome to M1’s App. Here is the interface.
I know it may look a bit intimidating the first time of use, but once you get familiar with it,
you will love it, because you can control everything through the settings.
Here I’m not going to illustrate every detail, I will just show you the basics to get us started.
If you want to engrave text, then click the “T” icon from the draw toolbar area, and input whatever
you want to engrave. You can change the font, filling, and then click “Application”. Of course,
you have to make sure your content is within the square box, that’s the printing area. As for the
parameters on the right side, normally you just need to adjust the speed and power, normally you
set the speed to 500 and power to 100, and that’s it. All others just use the default settings. From
my tests, it doesn’t impact the results that much anyway.
Next, click the “Red light(F1)” button to preview the printing area.
You can always adjust your object’s position to make sure it’s on
the right spot. After that, click the button “Mark (F2)”, and you are now ready to engrave.
There is another interesting previewing mode which enables you to preview the whole text like
as shown in the video
You just check the “Red light outline” box
then you will see that.
As for picture printing, you click the picture icon from the draw toolbar area
to import the picture you want to print and adjust the size. As for parameter settings,
it’s a bit more complicated than the text, but still not very much. Make sure to check boxes of
Reverse, Grayscale, Fixed DPI, and Outlets. BTW, adjust the fixed DPI value to 500 and 500,
the higher number means the more refined results, but don’t set too high because it
would take forever to engrave, 500 is enough for normal usage. Also check the boxes of "Two-way
scanning" and "Adjustment power". And make sure to click the “Application” button to save.
As for the speed, power, or frequency on the right side, you can keep the same as you
would for engraving text, but you can also adjust a bit, it basically has zero effect on the printing.
And of course don’t forget to click to save. And let it start printing.
That’s all you need to know if you just want to do basic engraving. The software looks complicated
but within a few minutes of learning you will get familiar with it in no time. But of course,
in order to have the best results to engrave different materials on different metal surfaces,
you still need to read the manual and give it a few trials,
once you get it right, then you don’t need to spend more time to learn.
And now about the engraving quality. I would say the results are out of this world, they are
incredible! As you can see whether for pictures or texts, they all look crystal clear and precise,
the edges look smooth, and many details are being kept. It even has an outstanding performance on
stainless steel, this is almost impossible with many other laser engravers that I tried
previously. In addition to metal, the M1 has a good performance on plastics and leathers,
but due to the infrared pulse laser attribute on the M1,
it doesn’t work on wood, paper, or feather materials etc.
One sentence to conclude, it has the best results on metal.
As always, like reviewing all products, here is my pros and cons part. First good stuff.
It’s fast, super fast. With this speed, I don’t even need to compare with other laser engravers,
it is the fastest I’ve had so far. Second is it’s powerful and safe. Unlike blue
light laser engravers, the M1 uses an infrared pulse laser with a wavelength of up to 1064nm,
which is penetrating. As you can see the steel surface has been oxidized by the laser and left
a pile of black ash there. So with this powerful laser you can always get the clearest pictures
even on stainless steel! And with this power, you might think it’s dangerous, actually not. Because
of the infrared pulse laser it won’t generate blue light and hurt your eyes and it won’t hurt
your hands if you accidently touch it. Of course, I’m not using my hands, but he said it is fine,
nothing happened. But for sure, I suggest you always wear protection gear when engraving.
Third I think is the portability and usability. I know 6kg weight doesn’t sound that portable, but
if you compare it to those industrial grade metal engraving machines, they normally weigh 50kg!
That’s crazy heavy, so portability definitely is one of the advantages on the M1. As far as I know,
for these 1064nm wavelength infrared pulse laser engraving machines,
the M1 is the smallest industrial-grade and home-use engraving machine on the market.
It’s very easy to set up as well, basically you just put up the pole and line the engraving head,
screw tight, and you are ready to go. No cables here and there.
Now the less good stuff. I think for me the major thing I don’t like is the App. Unlike
Laserpecker has an intuitive phone app that lets you engrave things in seconds even if
you are newbies and offers many beautiful pictures and texts for you to engrave.
For the M1 you have to connect to a computer and learn to tweak this and that parameter. For sure,
it’s not that difficult but still a learning curve and might look intimidating for new users.
But this also comes with a good side, for those geeks or pros they can control every parameter
for engraving, that’s actually a big bonus. So, it varies for different people. For others it has
less good performance on curved surfaces, because the pulse laser has a high precision for focusing,
so to engrave curved surfaces it might have uneven engraving results. The M1 feels a bit
noisy too when engraving due to its powerful laser performance.
But beyond all those minor imperfections,
the M1 is a solid and awesome metal engraver, especially considering the price,
which you can find in the link. It’s a no-brainer for anyone who wants to have a portable,
consumer level engraver where the majority of your work is with metal. This is the one. If
you are interested in this Mr.Carve M1, definitely give it a checkout,
link is in the description. I’m Sami and I will see you in the next one.