After a few months of daily cutting with the P3, we now have a parameter notebook that works. This is the public version of that notebook, and the idea is to keep it alive: every time we master a new material, it goes here.
A warning before copying anything: these values are a starting point, not a universal truth. Change the wood supplier and everything changes. Always do a test grid on a scrap before cutting a whole sheet.
First of all: xTool presets are useful
And we say this because it’s fair, not to sound good: the parameters that come with xTool Studio are well designed and a good starting point. They’re not just decoration. What you need to understand is that they require prior validation for two honest reasons:
- In some cases, they are calibrated for xTool’s own brand materials, and your plywood from the corner supplier isn’t exactly that.
- In other cases, there are factors that xTool can’t control from a preset: ambient temperature, humidity, material origin. Two "identical" sheets from different suppliers behave differently, and that’s not a preset fault, it’s physics.
Still, having a starting value close to the right one is a luxury. To understand the difference: in LightBurn, with a new material, you start with a blank map and have to explore from scratch. With Studio, you start from a sensible reference and just fine-tune. We definitely prefer fine-tuning over inventing.
What you need to know before the table
Machine limits
- Engraving: up to 1200 mm/s.
- Cut: limit of 300 mm/s.
- Score (surface marking): limit of 400 mm/s.
That cutting limit is a software limitation, not hardware. It’s worth knowing because it explains a trick we use a lot: with thin materials, switching the operation from cut to score gives you an extra 100 mm/s and a much less burnt edge.
The three lenses, and which one to really use
We have all three, and the actual usage distribution is very uneven:
| Lens | For what purpose | How often we use it |
|---|---|---|
| S (1.5") | Fine engraving, small detail | Occasional |
| M (2.0") | Everything else | The vast majority of the time |
| L (2.5") | Thick material cutting | Just released |
If you are deciding whether to buy the complete lens set, this is our honest experience: the M that comes standard will serve you for almost everything. The S makes sense if you regularly do very fine detail work. The L only if you often cut thick material, and we have used it so little that we cannot give you our own parameters with it.
Affiliate link: if you buy through it, we may earn a small commission at no cost to you. The analysis is independent.
Air assist is global, not per layer
Software detail to keep in mind because it affects parameters: air assist is set for the entire job, not material by material or layer by layer. It is in the device settings.
This matters especially with acrylic, where too much air worsens the result: if you are going to cut acrylic, you have to go to the machine settings to disable it, and remember to turn it back on afterward. No profile does this for you.
The table
Plywood — our main material
| Material. | Lens | Power | Speed. | Air assist | Notes. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plywood (production) | M | 90 % | 30–50 mm/s | Low | Our daily setting. Cuts perfectly in one pass |
| 3 mm plywood | M | 40 % | 10 mm/s | — | Reduces scorching, does not eliminate it. Very slow |
| Laser-compatible 6 mm plywood plywood | M | — | 40 mm/s | — | Community data |
| DIY plywood 6 mm plywood | M | — | 12 mm/s | — | The glue is what slows you down. More than 3× slower |
| Solid wood 3 mm | M | 80 % | 25 mm/s | — | Watch out for the machine's left-right asymmetry |
The most cost-effective conclusion from this entire table is in the comparison of the two middle rows: the same thickness takes three times longer if the glue is not laser-compatible. It is explained in the scorching article.
With these settings, the engraved wood plaques and much of the wedding details we sell come out, which is where most of our machine hours come from.
Acrylic
| Material. | Lens | Power | Speed. | Air assist | Notes. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cast acrylic 25 mm | L | 100 % | 1 mm/s | Disabled | 1 pass, autofocus lowered 3 mm. "This is really the limit" for 80 W |
This is community data, not ours, and we include it because it marks the machine's limit: 25 mm of acrylic is the maximum you can expect from 80 W, at 1 mm/s. If your work involves cutting thick acrylic, this is not your machine.
Two recurring details with acrylic: air assist is turned off — air worsens the finish — and it’s the material that produces the most odor when opening the lid. If you work with a purifier, leave it on a couple more minutes before opening.
Thin materials.
| Material. | Operation. | Speed. | Notes. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thick cardstock. | Score (not cut). | 400 mm/s. | Edges clearly less burned than cutting at 300. |
What we haven’t achieved.
Soft grays on slate. It’s not a matter of finding the right setting: the CO₂ tube has a minimum firing power below which it doesn’t emit stably. That makes the fine gradient that a diode achieves impossible. There is a “minimum output power” setting you can try to adjust, but don’t expect miracles. It’s a limitation of the source type, not a defect of this machine.
Glass, leather, and doormats.
Besides plywood, these are the materials that regularly go through our machine:
- Glass. A lot, especially in summer season. Here the RA3 rotary changes everything: it has greatly eased our work with bottles and steel thermoses, and it’s one of the tools we use the most.
- Leather. Only for large batches. For single pieces, another setup is more cost-effective for us.
- Doormats. Occasionally. It’s a forgiving material, with the downside that it generates a lot of fibrous residue: you have to clean afterward.
Working with cylinders using the RA3: what you need to know.
Since cylindrical glass and steel are an important part of what we do, and the RA3 has its quirks, here’s a dedicated section.
Our assessment is very positive — it’s one of the tools we use the most — but in the owners’ forum there are legitimate complaints worth knowing before buying it, because almost all have a catch:
- It doesn’t anchor to the bed. It rests on a cradle, without locking. At high speed it can shift and ruin the engraving halfway through the piece. If you’re going fast, check that it hasn’t moved between pieces.
- The automatic diameter measurement fails in two specific cases: when the T-clamps align with the top part, and with bottles that have a cap or thread — it measures one inch and stops. Solutions: rotate the holder, put the cap on, or switch to manual mode.
- The chuck mode is slow: about 15 minutes per glass, while rollers are much faster. The official explanation is that in automatic cylindrical mode, three axes move at once. If the surfaces aren’t parallel, the system asks to raise them, and when it does, the speed increases a lot. It’s worth spending that minute adjusting.
- The workshop lighting affects it. A case documented by another owner: with the fluorescent light on, the system didn’t ask for the 3° tilt and the job took 55 minutes; turning off the light, it dropped to under 25. It’s the same interference problem that autofocus has.
- For full wraps, the automatic diameter falls short by 30 to 40 mm. If the design goes all the way around the piece, measure it yourself.
And the community trick that saves the most material: wrap the piece in painter’s tape and do the test pass on the tape. You see the result, adjust, and don’t waste a glass on every iteration.
About the glass, two things we've learned that aren't in any chart: the finish depends much more on the consistency of the focus throughout the entire rotation than on the power, and that's why the RA3 parallelism adjustments we mentioned above aren't just a quirk, you can see it in the piece. And with dark glass, it's best to test the design on a low area before running the whole thing: the actual contrast changes quite a bit depending on the glass tone.
The work bed: honeycomb or bars
For a few weeks now we also have honeycomb panel, and since it directly affects the result, it goes here.
The good: it’s very convenient to keep small pieces from falling to the bottom of the machine. When you cut forty tiny pieces from a sheet, this alone justifies the accessory.
What you need to know: it doesn’t completely prevent flashbacks — those rebound marks on the underside of the piece — so don’t buy it expecting that problem to disappear. And the clips to hold the material aren’t very comfortable.
In practice, we alternate between honeycomb and metal bars depending on the job: honeycomb for small, loose pieces, bars for large sheets where the piece won’t fall anywhere.
How long it really takes
To put the parameters in production context, two references that help size it up:
- A sheet about 30 × 60 cm with about twenty engravings plus cuts: around 40 minutes.
- A job that took three hours on a 10 W diode machine is done here in less than half an hour.
That difference justifies a machine of this price in a workshop that produces. It’s not that it does impossible things: it does the same things in a fraction of the time, and that changes which orders you can accept. Corporate orders, which come with large quantities and tight deadlines, stop being scary.
How we use this table
Our method with an unknown material, in case it serves as a template:
- Look for the most similar row above.
- Test grid on a scrap, varying power and speed around that value.
- Start fast and slow down, never the other way around.
- Write it down. The notebook is what turns a machine into a process.
We will keep updating this page as we master new materials.
Written by Noemi and Javi, from Picasita. We are affiliates of xTool and our workshop is a brand demonstration space; we bought our P3 on the day it was released. More about this blog and our relationship with xTool.
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