The xTool P3 arrived home in early October 2025, a few days after purchase. Our workshop is on the upper floor of a family house. The machine arrived at the doorway, on a pallet, and from there the problem was ours.
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We share this because it’s the question we’ve been asked most often since then, and because when we looked for an answer, there wasn’t one. On the brand’s owner forum, it comes up frequently—someone with a workshop on the first floor wanting to know if it’s feasible—and for a while, we were among the few who could answer because we’d done it.
The short answer, for those who don’t want to read the next eight paragraphs: it’s possible, but we don’t recommend it. If you have any reasonable alternative—a ground floor, a garage, a freight elevator—take it.
What the spec sheet says, and what that means on stairs
xTool states 105 kg for the P3 and the manual asks for four people to move it. We haven’t weighed it ourselves, so we won’t give you our own figure as if it were a fact: what we can say is that it feels much heavier when carrying it upstairs, and there are owners on the forum openly questioning the stated weight. Take the 105 kg as a minimum, not a maximum.
But the weight, and this is important, is not the main problem. A hundred-plus kilos handled by three or four people horizontally is manageable. The problem is everything else.
Transportation ends at the doorway
It’s good to be clear before buying: the shipping service left the machine in the doorway, on a European-sized pallet. It doesn’t go up, it doesn’t fit, it’s not unpacked. From the doorway inward, it’s your responsibility.
This causes quite a bit of frustration on the forum, and we’ve read all kinds of stories: people hiring movers for about a hundred euros, people removing doors from their hinges, people tilting the box on its side to get it through, rented stair carts, and a few who got hurt. This isn’t an internet exaggeration. Plan this part before the truck rings the bell, not the same day.
The climb: three adults and a narrow space
We carried it up three adults through a narrow stairwell. Don’t try with fewer than three, and if the stairwell turns, measure the actual diagonal of the machine and your landing with a tape measure first, because the size of the P3 is what makes the passage most difficult.
And here is the detail you won’t find in any technical sheet or unboxing video:
The P3 has no handles. The casing is completely smooth. There are no handles, no recesses, not a single spot to put your fingers. The person below can push by supporting the base, but the person above can only pull by squeezing the machine’s sides, holding over a hundred kilos by pressing hands against two flat surfaces. It’s exhausting, unsafe, and what really makes lifting it unpleasant. If you’re going to do it, wear gloves with good grip and long-sleeved shirts: friction will be your only way to hold on.
The second psychological factor is the lid. The P3 has a huge transparent lid on top, and lifting it by gripping the machine’s sides with that surface just ten centimeters from your face, knowing how heavy it is, doesn’t help keep calm.
The lid opens by itself when you lay it down
This deserves its own section because it caught us by surprise and we haven’t seen it documented anywhere.
The P3 lid has two pneumatic modules — the typical gas pistons — that push it upward as soon as it opens a bit, so it stays open without you holding it. With the machine horizontal, it’s a convenience. With the machine on its side, it’s a problem: those pistons keep pushing in the direction they were designed for, and the lid tends to open on its own.
If you’re going to lay it down to get through a space, secure it first. Generous packing tape around the body, or two people dedicated solely to keeping that lid from moving. Having it open halfway up a staircase, with your hands full, is not a scenario you want to explore.
The two mandatory things before moving the machine
They are useful both for the initial lift and for any subsequent moves. These are not recommendations: they are the two things that, if you skip them, could cost you money.
1. Lock the laser head
The machine comes factory-locked with retainers, and it’s important to understand why. With the P3 turned off, the stepper motors do not hold the axes: the head moves at its own free will. If you tilt it or give it a bump with the head loose, it tumbles inside the machine, hitting the stops and whatever it encounters.
Keep the original seals. If you no longer have them, secure the head against one end with something that won’t scratch and can’t come loose halfway through.
2. Empty the refrigerant reservoir
The P3 has integrated liquid cooling. Moving the machine with the reservoir full is asking for the liquid to end up where it shouldn’t. Empty it first. It’s a step that adds fifteen minutes and prevents an expensive problem.
A nuance about the refrigerant that almost no one explains
Speaking of the reservoir: we add the minimum amount of antifreeze, and we do this because we use the outside temperature as a reference based on our latitude and climate.
There’s a clue on the machine itself that helps understand this. The level gauge has a scale with temperature marks down to −50 °C, and that scale refers to the outside temperature: it’s there because the manufacturer assumes workshops will be set up in garages at street temperature. In other words, it’s not designed for our climate, but for places where an unheated garage can reach twenty below zero in January.
So it’s worth saying clearly, because it causes confusion: if the machine is in a store, a closed workshop, or any space that doesn’t drop in temperature —that is, if it’s not a garage exposed to the elements—, distilled water alone should be enough. The antifreeze is there for the risk of freezing, not because the circuit needs it to operate. If your workshop doesn’t freeze in winter, you’re making things more complicated than necessary.
Distilled water, we insist. Not tap water.
Since we’re on that side of the machine: the specification label shown in the photo states 1,700 W input power and a storage temperature range of 10 °C to 45 °C. That second detail matters if you’re thinking of an unheated garage, and we’ll revisit the first when we talk about costs.
The AP2 Max was a different story
Since we had no external ventilation, the AP2 Max purifier came in the same order, which also had to be set up. And there the experience was much better.
The AP2 Max turned out to be much more manageable, and we recall the key was that it came disassembled: the filters on one side and the main body on the other. A filtration purifier’s weight mainly comes from the filters, and separating them turns an impossible lump into two manageable packages.
A good reminder: if any accessory lets you choose how it’s packed or transported, disassemble it.
Once upstairs: two things before turning it on
Remove the transport screws. The P3 comes with screws that immobilize internal parts during shipping and must be removed before use. It’s in the documentation, but with the adrenaline of having carried it up, it’s exactly the step that gets forgotten.
And check the optical path alignment. Our machine arrived with the laser path factory misaligned. It took us almost an hour to fine-tune it, and it was our first time aligning a gantry laser: you have to get the hang of adjusting the angle bounces. There are two mirrors involved. If you’ve never done it, set aside an afternoon and don’t rush; if you come from another CO₂ laser of this type, it will all sound familiar.
We don’t know if it arrived like this from the factory or if it shifted during transport. With what we know now, we suspect that a pallet trip plus carrying it up stairs doesn’t help. Plan to check it thoroughly after moving it.
How much space it needs once it’s in place
So you can measure before diving into this: the legs of the P3 rest on a rectangle of approximately 64 × 115 cm, and it needs between 17 and 20 cm of clearance behind for the extraction tube. That rear gap is the one most people forget when planning, and then it forces the table to be separated from the wall.
Here, a success worth highlighting: the specific wheeled table for the P3 came included with the machine —we believe it comes by default and, certainly, it was included in the bundle— and it is very well designed. And this is no minor detail: it perfectly supports the over 100 kg of the P3, which is no small feat, because there aren’t many tables capable of reliably holding that weight. It’s exactly what we recommend to solve the "what if I want to move it around the workshop later?": moving the machine on its table is trivial; the only problem is getting it up there.
What xTool said when we asked them
Before moving it up, we wrote to support, and their response was honestly appreciated: they told us which parts needed special securing — the head and the coolant we mentioned above — and at the same time they clearly told us that they do not support that operation. Translated: if it breaks while moving it up, the problem is ours. That was the message, no sugarcoating.
And we think that’s the right thing on their part. We assumed the risk with our eyes open, because the laser’s place was upstairs and it was a non-negotiable condition. But let it be written for whoever reads this: no one will cover this for you.
So, would we do it again?
We did it, the machine has been running since then without any problems attributable to the move, and we don’t regret having it where it is.
That said, and this is the part that really matters: we do not recommend it to anyone. For two reasons, and neither is the machine. The first is people’s safety: more than a hundred kilos with no grip points through a stairwell can cause serious physical injuries if it falls on someone — a foot, a hand, the back. The second is financial: if it falls, no support or warranty will cover it, and a broken P3 on the landing is a very costly wrong decision.
Between the actual weight, the size, the total lack of grip points, and the lid that wants to open by itself as soon as you tilt it, there are too many ways for things to go wrong. If you’re considering buying a P3 and your only possible location is an upper floor with stairs, it’s not a reason to rule out the machine — it’s an excellent machine — but it is a reason to dedicate an afternoon to planning, have at least three people, and seriously consider if there really is no alternative to those stairs.
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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