REVIEW – I’ve been in a position to evaluation a number of laser engravers/cutters for The Gadgeteer. I’ve come to take pleasure in the advantages of proudly owning and utilizing a laser engraver/cutter to make items, and initiatives for paying prospects, and simply utilizing it as a hobbyist. Earlier machines have been “open-framed” laser engravers. This implies the smoke and fumes from the laser doing its factor are simply launched into my workshop. I’ve to make use of a store vac to suck up a lot of the fumes and transfer them outdoors—a really noisy and cumbersome course of. The Creality Falcon2 Professional 40W Laser Engraver is an enclosed machine. It consists of an connected “hood” that captures all of the fumes and vents them by means of a tube to the skin world—maintaining my store and my lungs very clear and glad.
What’s it?
The Creality Falcon2 Professional 40W Laser Engraver is a full-featured, highly effective, enclosed laser engraving and slicing machine. Creality, well-known for its many very good 3D printers, has entered the laser engraver discipline with a number of well-made and full-featured choices. This mannequin, the Falcon2 Professional, is their flagship mannequin. Additionally they supply an much more highly effective 60W model of this mannequin.
This Falcon2 Professional is supplied with a strong 40W laser, that may simply engrave and lower by means of a variety of supplies, together with wooden, paper, acrylic, leather-based, and even some metals. The machine affords high-resolution engraving capabilities with a positive spot measurement of 0.08mm (0.06mm with the included 1.6W laser module), making certain detailed and sharp outcomes. Its massive working space of 400 x 415 mm (15.75×16.34 in.) offers sufficient room for each small and medium-sized initiatives.
The Falcon2 Professional helps software program like LightBurn (free trial after which paid license) and LaserGRBL (free), making it user-friendly for each newcomers and skilled customers. It additionally consists of quite a few security options corresponding to an computerized shut-off in case of overheating, fireplace, extreme tilt, and a unclean laser lens. The laser gentle filtering enclosure traps exhaust and the built-in fan strikes the exhaust outdoors.
What’s included?
- Falcon2 Professional Aluminum Body and Gantry
- Crumb Tray
- Aluminum Slats
- 40W Laser Module
- 1.6W Laser Module
- Exhaust Body and Laser Mild Filtering Plastics
- Exhaust Fan and Vent tubing
- Mild Panel
- Air Help pump and tubing
- Laser Goggles
- Energy Provide
- Focus Block
- {Hardware} and Instruments
- USB A to USB C cable and Adapters
- Reminiscence card
- Safety Keys
- Pattern supplies
- Digicam Calibration Card
- Person Guide
- Stickers
Tech specs
- 40W Diode Laser Module (with 22W Exact mode)
- 1.6X Diode Laser Module included
- Focusing: Guide
- Pace: Up To 25,000 mm/min
- Laser Wavelength: 455+5nm
- Engraving space: 400×415 mm (15.75×16.34 in.)
- Exhaust hood, fan, and tubing
- FDA Class 1 Security Certification
- Triple mode monitoring: Airflow, Hearth and Lens
- Constructed-in Digicam
- Constructed-in Mild Bar
- Laser Engraving Software program: LightBurn, LaserGRBL
- Supported Supplies: Cardboard, wooden, bamboo, rubber, leather-based, material, acrylic, plastic, and so on.
- Supported File Codecs: jpeg/jpg, png, bmp, svg, dxf, and so on.
- Product Measurement: 664x570x328.4 mm (26.1×22.4×12.9 in)
- Product Weight: 18.56kg (41 lb)
- Energy necessities: 100-240v
- Working Temperature: 5º-35º C (59º-95º F)
- Working System: Home windows /MacOS
- Certifications: EC60825, FDA, CE, ROHS, FCC, UKCA, UL Report, PSE
Design and options
The Creality Falcon2 Professional is a really full-featured machine. There are lots of options to cowl on this evaluation, and I hope to present a superb account of my expertise with it. The group at Creality must be given kudos for a really well-thought-out and intuitively designed machine.
Building
The development of the Falcon2 Professional is top-notch. The vast majority of the machine is powder-coated aluminum. All the connections (energy, pc cables, air hose, and so on.) are positioned on the left and proper sides of the machine. This retains the cables and such out of the best way and safe. There’s nothing extra irritating than bumping the USB-C cable going to the pc halfway by means of an engraving job. Having the cables on the facet eliminates that headache.
The entrance of the Falcon2 Professional has a easy set of buttons for transferring the laser module to the house place (front-left) and arrow keys for transferring the laser module in all 4 instructions a number of millimeters at a time. The machine has a set of security keys which are wanted for use to show the machine on. There’s additionally an emergency-stop button for instances when a job will get uncontrolled (i.e. fireplace). Laser engraving and slicing are completed by burning, so fireplace is a risk. See extra on that under.
Exhaust Hood
As talked about earlier than, the perfect characteristic of the Falcon2 Professional (in my view), each visually and value, is the distinctive purple exhaust hood. The purple plastic filters out the dangerous points of the blue diode laser gentle emitted by the laser modules. The exhaust hood traps all of the fumes and smoke of engraving, particularly slicing, and vents them out the facet by means of the exhaust hose to the skin world. I did discover the exhaust enclosure did leak a bit of bit, however as an entire, it captures and exhausts the fumes and smoke adequately.
The exhaust hood has a sliding door that’s opened to entry the fabric getting used and that needs to be closed for a job to be began. If the door is opened whereas the laser module is working, the machine will pause the job till it’s closed once more. That is one other nice security characteristic that Creality has put into the Falcon2 Professional.
Crumb Tray
The very backside of the machine has a big sliding “crumb tray” to catch any small items which are lower out of the fabric. The tray additionally acts as a barrier between the laser and the desk or desk you have got the Falcon2 Professional sitting on. Similar to the sliding door within the exhaust hood, when you open the crumb tray throughout an engraving or slicing job, the machine will cease working till the tray is closed again up.
Laser Modules
The Falcon2 Professional comes with two completely different laser modules. The bigger 40-watt laser module is what can be used largely. It may well engrave and lower a large host of supplies, corresponding to cardboard, wooden, bamboo, rubber, leather-based, material, acrylic, plastic, and so on. It may well additionally engrave chrome steel, which I discovered fairly thrilling. Stainless-steel produces colours you wouldn’t anticipate when uncovered to sure laser powers and varied speeds of the laser module’s motion. The 40-watt module might be into what is known as “Exact” mode which reduces the utmost energy to 22 watts and makes the laser spot smaller and extra detailed when engraving.
The Falcon2 Professional 40-watt package deal additionally comes with a smaller, much less highly effective 1.6-watt laser module. This laser can be utilized to supply engravings which are finer element. The laser spot on the 40-watt is, at its smallest, 0.08mm, and the 1.6-watt laser’s spot is way smaller. Each laser modules connect to the Falcon2 Professional’s gantry arm with a slide-in mounting bracket.
This image reveals a comparability between the 1.6-watt and the 2 modes of the 40-watt laser module. As you may see, the 1.6-watt laser module produces a sharper, extra outlined engraving. Whereas the 40-watt in “exact” mode does a superb job additionally, the “regular” mode appears much less detailed and blurry. (The grainy look of the engravings was brought on by the bamboo materials I used for this check.)
One lacking characteristic of the Falcon2 Professional I want to have been included is an auto-focus of the laser module, particularly the 40-watt laser module. Creality features a small focusing bar that needs to be used manually to verify the laser is on the optimum distance from the fabric to engrave or lower completely. Auto-focus would make the Falcon2 Professional price extra, so possibly a future Falcon mannequin would come with it.
Air Help
The Falcon2 Professional consists of an exterior, quiet air-assist pump, which is nice. The air strain is dialed in by way of a knob on the facet of the machine. When engraving, it’s possible you’ll not need as a lot soot from the engraving being blown onto the highest floor of your materials. Nevertheless, when slicing, air help is required to help within the slicing course of and maintain the fabric freed from soot, which is produced in abundance.
Digicam
The Falcon2 Professional features a very good built-in digicam contained in the exhaust hood. The digicam makes the location of art work a extra exact endeavor. Calibrating the digicam within LightBurn was fairly the lesson in frustration. Perhaps it was simply me, but it surely took me three runs by means of the calibration wizard earlier than it was performing to my liking.
The primary check I did was to randomly place a circle of wooden with a bit of plus signal on it onto the Falcon2 Professional’s engraving mattress. LightBurn then takes an image of the Falcon2 Professional’s engraving mattress so you progress the art work over the fabric within the image. If the digicam is calibrated and aligned correctly, then the machine will engrave (or lower) the fabric exactly. My check was profitable, though not good. You’ll be able to see within the picture above that the picture I drew and positioned in LightBurn is nearly engraved on the little mark I made on my materials. It’s a couple of half of a centimeter off. That will not look like a lot, however may throw off an engraving on an costly piece of fabric, and break it.
Laser placement earlier than beginning a job is essential usually. What different laser engravers I’ve used included a crosshair laser connected to the facet of the laser module. This provides very exact placement of the laser to start the job exactly. The digicam is nice for nearly exact placement, however I don’t suppose laser alignment with a digicam is the perfect. I’ve since added a laser crosshair to my Falcon2 Professional’s 40-watt laser module. It was a quite simple and cheap course of so as to add it. This makes my Falcon2 Professional significantly better in my view.
Right here is one other instance of utilizing the digicam to put art work at varied places across the engraving mattress. As you may see the result’s off on a number of of the engravings, whereas on the display screen, the art work was positioned as shut as attainable to the place I wanted it to be. Additionally, the interior gentle bar on the entrance of the laser body doesn’t throw sufficient gentle to see a dark-colored merchandise to be engraved. I had to make use of a flashlight to place extra gentle into the machine for the digicam to choose up the little aluminum playing cards.
Engraving and Slicing
Engraving and slicing are the true causes anybody would desire a laser machine. As anticipated, the Falcon2 Professional engraves in a short time and with nice element. Slicing is quick and really highly effective. These are some things I made whereas testing the Falcon2 Professional over the time I’ve had it up to now.
One factor a extra highly effective laser module just like the 40-watt of the Falcon2 Professional is the power to engrave chrome steel, which produces some superb outcomes. Every coloration is achieved by the facility degree and pace of transferring the laser module. (The final row of colours is crooked as a result of I by accident bumped the desk. Oops!)
Security
The Falcon2 Professional has a number of security options constructed into it. Before everything is the purple laser-light filtering plastics used within the exhaust hood. You’ll be able to safely watch the engraving or slicing job because it progresses with none fear of zapping eyeballs. Imagine me, you don’t need these yellow splotches in your imaginative and prescient from uncovered blue diode laser gentle.
The Falcon2 Professional additionally screens for fireplace whereas it’s working. Some wooden will burn from slicing at a sluggish pace and at top-most energy settings. I examined this characteristic by attempting to chop by means of some 1.5-inch (38 mm) wooden in a single move. The wooden did catch fireplace barely, and the Falcon2 Professional shut off and sounded an alarm. Good security characteristic that labored fairly nicely.
The Falcon2 Professional additionally screens the 40-watt laser module’s lens to be clear. When it detects the lens must be cleaned, the machine is not going to begin a job till it has been cleaned and the alarm reset. This alarm sounded a number of instances throughout my testing, particularly after engraving some rubber-stamp materials to make a humorous Bluey stamp for my granddaughter.
As famous earlier, the management panel on the entrance of the machine has an emergency cease button to make it simple to close off the machine rapidly. It is a widespread characteristic of laser engravers.
The Falcon2 Professional additionally has a characteristic to close off the engraver if it tilts to an excessive angle. I assume that is to forestall the machine from falling off a desk if somebody journeys on the facility wire. I didn’t check that security characteristic.
Meeting, Set up, Setup
The Creality Falcon2 Professional comes very nicely packaged and surprisingly, largely assembled. The principle body and laser module gantry all come pre-assembled and completely sq. from the manufacturing facility. The belts had been all good for the sleek actions of the laser module.
The distinguishing characteristic of the Falcon2 Professional is the purple exhaust hood. The hood is what took 90% of the time in getting the Falcon2 Professional prepared to make use of. The exhaust hood consists of 5 items of sturdy aluminum body and 4 items of purple, laser-light filtering, plastic. Two of the items of plastic are thick and used for the edges, with one having the exhaust fan pre-installed in it.
The a part of the meeting that took the longest for me was sliding the very skinny items of the exhaust hood cowl into the body items. The 2 items of canopy plastic are very skinny and floppy. Getting the plastic to line up correctly and slide into the body easily took fairly a little bit of time and effort. As soon as it was accomplished, the quilt and sliding entry door labored very nicely. The exhaust fan has a protracted wire to hook it as much as the Falcon2 Professional’s controller on the very entrance of the underside body.
The Falcon2 Professional comes with an engraving mattress of kinds made up of 25 aluminum bars that match into slots within the backside body rails. This mattress is required to present the fabric getting used, a spot to relaxation whereas engraving or slicing. Small items which are lower fall into the “crumb tray” on the very backside of the machine. The crumb tray slides out the entrance of the machine like a drawer and permits you to accumulate the small items with out having to do any disassembly of the engraving mattress.
As soon as all the things is assembled and attached, the machine is able to be found by the chosen software program. I take advantage of LightBurn with my engravers, so I used it for all my assessments of the Falcon2 Professional. Lightburn has a free trial after which you have to purchase a yearly license for $60.00 USD. Yearly license renewals are $30.00 USD. I believe it’s nicely value the associated fee. LightBurn found the Falcon2 Professional and I used to be able to go.
One nice characteristic of the Falcon2 Professional is the built-in downward-facing digicam. As said earlier than, the digicam must be calibrated utilizing the software program of selection together with a calibration card included with the Falcon2 Professional. This was considerably tough (no less than for me), however I finally bought it working as mentioned above.
Remaining ideas
The Creality Falcon2 Professional 40W Laser Engraver is a superb product and I extremely advocate it. It’s by far, the perfect laser engraver I’ve owned. It has all the good options that make proudly owning a laser engraver a invaluable addition to any hobbyist’s toolbox. The Creality Falcon2 Professional line of laser engravers can be an awesome addition to somebody desirous to make some cash on the facet by providing a laser engraving service or making merchandise to promote.
What I like in regards to the Creality Falcon2 Professional 40W laser engraver
- Highly effective and Quick
- Smaller, very exact laser module included
- Enclosed with exhaust fan
- Crumb tray and mattress included
- Labored completely with LightBurn
- Digicam positioning of art work is nice, however not good
What must be improved?
- Exhaust Hood Meeting is a bit tedious and finicky
- Auto-focus can be a pleasant future enhancement
- Crosshairs on the laser module can be an awesome addition
- Enclosure leaks a bit of
The place to purchase: Creality and Amazon
Supply: The pattern of this product was supplied free of charge by Creality. Creality didn’t have a closing say on the evaluation and didn’t preview the evaluation earlier than it was revealed.
