A couple of months ago I reviewed Mr. Carve’s first laser engraver, the M1.
It’s a great portable laser engraver for all kinds of metals.
I spoke highly of that unit.
Yet there are two cons I mentioned.
One is the lack of phone app, the second is the inferior performance on cylindrical objects.
Now, they came back with their latest M3 laser engraver.
I’ve tested this a lot in the past few days, and in my opinion, I think it could possibly
be the best all-round laser engraver so far in this year, and possibly many years to come.
Because it not only solved two issues from the M1, but also offered much more.
In this video, I will cover the assembly, design, tutorial, tests on all kinds of materials,
and my conclusions, which includes pros and cons.
Yes, it is going to be a long video.
I’ve marked the timeline for each section so you can just jump to the part you want
to watch.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
I’ve already done an unboxing and assembly video a couple of days ago, so you can check
it out from here if you are interested.
Mr..
Carve was kindly enough to send me almost every accessory they listed on their Kickstarter
page, which includes two laser heads, we’ll talk about that in a second.
A Rotary Roller, 4 Lift Stands, a Honeycomb board for laser cutting, and an Air Filter.
Of course, different perks come with different content.
More of that you can find out from the link in the description.
About assembly, well, it’s not like its predecessor the M1, it’s almost ready to
go out of the box, for the M3, you have to spend some time to assemble.
But, it’s not a big hassle.
We first connect the cables inside the main frame, and connect the frames.
Then we screw tight the frame.
One thing I have to mention is make sure to use the right types of screws in different
steps.
I’m glad they have marks on each bag so we won’t get it wrong.
After that, we install the laser head.
Again, screw it tightly.
Then we connect the frame and the laser head through cables that come in the box.
Fix the cable by using the buckles, it makes your M3 more organized.
Finally, we plug in the power.
Bang, the machine will enter self-calibrating process and after a few seconds, you are ready
to go.
Overall, it took me about 20 minutes to get it ready, though it’s my first time to assemble.
No complicated cables here and there, and not so many steps.
Regarding the design, there is nothing too much about it.
We have the power button, an off-line key.
We’ll talk about that in a second.
Then the USB-A port to connect that rotary roller, a data line socket, and the power
port.
There are also three type-c ports that connects the X axis and the laser head.
Overall, the M3 looks high-end, but once you get your hands on it, you will know, the frames
are not all metal, one side is made of the ABS engineering high hardness plastic and
the other side is aluminum alloy.
Compared to those all-metal laser engravers let’s say the xTool D1, it comes with good
and bad sides.
The bad side is it feels less premium and robust.
Good side is its much lighter and more economic.
So, which one is your favorite?
All metal design or hybrid?
For me, I’m all OK, as long as it has good engraving results.
Speaking of which, let’s finally move to the tests.
There are two ways to connect the machine, one is through the computer.
If through computer, you can either use the software LightBurn, that open source one,
or the Mr..
Carve’s in-house developed software.
I haven’t had much fun with these two pieces of software as I was keen to get this review
video out and did not have much time to use them.
But seems it’s very much like that SeaCad one I used for the Mr. Carve M1, or they are
all much of a muchness.
Anyway, in this video I will just use Mr. Carve’s phone App “Engraver”, which
was also developed by themselves, to demonstrate everything, otherwise, this video would be
endless.
On the App’s home page, we tap “Not Connected” on the top right corner, allow to turn on
your Bluetooth, wait for a few seconds, we’ll see a line of characters starting with “Jinsuko”,
whatever that means, tap to connect, and you’ll get connected.
The App hardly looks aesthetic, but glad it’s simple and straightforward.
It offers 6 ways for you to import whatever you want to engrave on the home page and each
is just what it says.
“Photos” is for you to import photos.
“Camera” allows you to take a photo for later engraving.
They also offered some pictures in the “Image Library”.
Here I will just choose this butterfly image to demo how to engrave.
Here you can edit the picture by cropping, adding text, or even erasing.
After that, go to next page, here it offers different carving modes.
For which is which, I’ll just list 4 main modes on the screen, if you are new to them,
just a couple of tryouts would explain all.
I chose Black & White mode since this was a simple line picture.
Go to next step to fill out the size, press “Smart Positioning”, then the M3 will
start previewing the image, move the object under the laser engraver to make sure it’s
right on the place.
Adjust the size in the app if it’s too large or too small whenever needed.
After that, we adjust the focal distance by using a small cuboid, which is what they called
the Fixed Focus Column.
The height of it is 5mm, which is the exact focal distance of this blue laser head.
We place it on the surface of the object and loosely screw the laser head to let it just
touch the column.
Next, tighten the laser head and remove the Fixed Focus Column.
Then go to the next step.
Choose the material.
They offer a wide range of materials.
After that, you’ll see the engraving parameters, normally you don’t have to adjust any of
that.
Finally, press “Start Carving”.
Then the app starts uploading the image and the M3 starts engraving.
All you need to do now is just wait until it finishes.
Yes, those are the basic steps for how to engrave on a flat object.
They also offer a rotary roller for cylindrical stuff.
For this, you first have to click the icon on the top left corner, go to Device Info,
find Rotary Roller setting and turn it on.
Please note that the height here is the diameter of the cylindrical object.
The rest of the steps are basically the same as how you would engrave on a flat object.
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the highlights of the M3 is its swappable laser head design.
You can swap to the infrared pulse laser head as well.
Basically this one has exactly the same laser module from their first generation M1, powerful
enough to deal with all kinds of metals.
Regarding how to use this laser head, it’s the same as the blue laser head, just one
difference is the focal distance, which is 15.7mm.
Since what I got is a prototype, it doesn’t come with a ranging rod like what’s on the
xTool D1, though Mr. Carve told me they will add that on the final version.
Good to know that.
I have to be creative now by creating a hand-made ranging rod.
Another highlight is the offline key, which records your last engraving and enables you
to engrave it without connecting to your phone or your computer.
Short press to preview, press again to stop previewing, press and hold for 3 seconds to
engrave.
That’s it.
If you want to engrave again, just press for 3 seconds to start over.
And now let’s move to the most important part: the engraving quality.
For the blue laser head, I’ve tested it on the bamboo, large area bamboo; Wood, lots
of wood, including a wood rolling pin.
I also cut the wood.
That’s right, how can I miss this part.
Mr. Carve offers 5w and 10w blue laser heads.
The former lets you cut up to 5mm thickness and the latter up to 8mm thickness of wood.
It is quite good.
And the speed is fast.
Then I used that infrared laser head to test metals like aluminum card, steel, copper,
and also plastic, etc.
I didn’t test too much for this part because as I said before this laser head has the same
laser module as the one used on the M1.
It engraves on all kinds of metals.
I did test one type that I missed on the M1, which is gold, hmm, gold-plated coin.
Even small text can be shown clearly.
Personalizing items is something that never goes out of fashion, is it?
Now my conclusion.
Pros and cons.
For the pros, let me just recap the reasons why should you get this Mr. Carve M3.
It’s easy to use and assemble.
It is versatile, it’s the first engraver that supports swappable heads so you can basically
engrave almost every material.
And it has large area engraving ability, so should be able to handle your needs.
And the results are great.
As always, like reviewing all products, I always mention the negative stuff in addition
to all the positive stuff.
I think the only thing I hope for the M3 or any such large area laser engraver is if they
can offer us something new form factor, that would be perfect.
You see all they come with this same look, including big brands.
They take lots of space and may not fit that easily if we have a small desktop.
Anyway, currently that’s how it is.
Maybe there will be some companies in the future that come along with better ideas?
Maybe from Laserpecker?
No one knows.
To conclude, in my opinion, the Mr. Carve M3 again surprised me with its excellent overall
performance and it is by far the best all-round laser engraver you can buy on the market right
now.
It combined many good features from many other types of laser engravers and merged into one
so you can save much time and money buying different laser engravers for different materials.
This one, solved all in one time.
If you are interested in this product, you can find out the link in the description.
I’m Sami and I will see you in the next one.