This thread spawned from a conversation on one of my posts which is why I'm jumping in with a lot of words
So let's get down to the meat of this. This is going to be a lot of information dump but some of it is critical to answering your question.
For those who don't know, not only do I own F3 Pens (Fisher of Pens before that) but I also have an engraving business and run The Tinkerverse on YouTube doing laser reviews, software training, etc... so I have a fair bit of knowledge and experience in this realm. That said, my opinions are just that, opinions. They are not always popular but I do try to be fair.
There is likely only one type of laser on the market that will be a jack of all trades for pen makers. That's a UV laser. Unfortunately they also have the highest cost of entry into the laser world by far so I'll skip them for now.
Fiber / IR (1064nm)
Fiber lasers which are IR lasers in the 1064nm wavelength and a typically a galvo head (there are gantry options as well) are great for metal engraving on "most" metals. What you can do with them depends entirely on the type of laser source, the most common in our budget being Raycus or JPT. JPT is your Mopa lasers that will allow you to vary q-pulse and have a larger frequency range allowing a much wider variety of engraving options, colors, depth, power, etc... but again they come at a cost. Your typical 2w to 20w or 30w IR laser is usually Raycus so right off the bat it's capable but not as capable as it's more expensive kin.
Fiber lasers are best suited for metal but they will also work for dark opaque acrylics, leather, paper, circuit boards and occasionally you can get a burn on wood and some plastics. I'm sure there are more but this is the most common materials. I will tell you from lots of experimenting, your typical fiber laser won't mark a resin based pen body and if it does it's a very rare instance. I've been able to mark maybe one mix in my blank stash while others just pretty much ignore the laser.
CO2
Next up is CO2. CO2 is a very versatile laser. It will cut and engrave a huge variety of material, but not metal. You can get around this with an intermediary layer like a metal marking spray that will react with the laser and surface mark metal but it won't engrave metal. I have used CO2 heavily for engraving wood, Alumilite and acrylic pen bodies and if you get the settings dialed in you'll get reasonable results, but on plastics it will always have that melted appearance when viewed up close. So it's not even close to being as clean and crisp as a mechanical engraving for example.
Diode
Blue light (455nm +/-) Diode lasers are the entry point for most. They're inexpensive and fairly capable for a lot of crafts. They can engrave and cut a wide variety of opaque materials, wood and will even surface mark some metals. However as you move into materials that are transparent or as your material gets closer in color to the wavelength of the diode, the more it will reject the laser to the point where it won't even register on many colors. If you work mostly in wood, a diode laser is actually a pretty good choice, however if you use a lot of acrylics then diode won't be the answer for you.
So as you can see, there is not really a single laser technology that can do it all...
Where am I going with this?
(Full disclosure, I own an XTool P2 CO2 Laser)
Now along comes companies like XTool who start combining different laser types into a single machine. They saw a niche, came up with a relatively capable machine and went on a marketing campaign that would put most major brands to shame. Unfortunately that marketing campaign carries a hefty price tag and it's reflected in their machines. XTool is a marketing / hype company with reasonable hardware. For what you get, it's generally accepted that their machines are anywhere from 20-40% overpriced. True they have some neat features and they're starting to improve, however they're also closing themselves off from the market and locking you so tight into their ecosystem that it will cost you more to buy another manufacturers product as a supplement than to buy their next machine. It's a slick move on their part for the general population but leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
As a long time advocate and online instructor of LightBurn, which is the most popular and capable laser software on the market, XTool has gone out of their way to lock their machines down by using closed hardware systems and non-standard g-code controls that if forces you to use their Xtool Creative Space (XCS) software. That in itself isn't the rub, it's that they advertise as being LightBurn compatible which is only about 50% true. LB can control the most basic features but if you want to be able to focus the laser, or use the camera, or rotary, or 3d engraving, you have to use XCS. So claiming LightBurn compatibility but not having it for the features that actually make your machines decent is extremely misleading.
I'm sure the last 2 paragraphs come off as biased, and they are, but they are also based in fact. I'm not saying that those who own XTool have a piece of junk, far from it, I'm just saying that dollar for dollar there are other choices to consider.
I have plenty more I can share but I have a work meeting in a few minutes and wanted to get my initial thoughts out.
