Xlaserlab E3 is a powerful UV laser engraver for makers

Laser engraving has become a new hobby of mine as of late. I’ve been tinkering around with blue diode lasers that can engrave, but seem to function better as organic material cutters. I also have an IR laser that’s good for some metals. But after running UV for a while now, it’s become pretty clear that UV is the king of etching. Glavo UV lasers are unmatched when it comes to sheer speed and fine detail. Not to mention less smoke, less soot, less warping, and less “Ahhh! It’s on fire again!”

When I saw that Xlaserlab – which I’d written about before with its easy-to-use X1 laser welder – had posted up a new campaign on Kickstarter and it was a UV laser, my mouth watered a little.

The Xlaserlab E3 is a 10-watt (and there’s a 7-watt flavor), 355-nanometer UV laser with a ridiculously tiny spot size of 0.005 mm. Do you know what else is 5 microns? Dust mite poop. Bacteria. Tardigrade toes.

For comparison, the IR laser on my Falcon A1 Pro is 30 microns. And my blue diode is even wider at 80-100 microns. Good for cutting, less good for ultra-fine detail. Xlaserlab calls its E3 “16K engraving resolution.”

And because UV lasers are “cold light,” the E3 isn’t melting your materials. It’s basically breaking molecular bonds apart through photo-ablation. That’s why UV lasers are especially good at engraving clear materials like glass, crystal and clear acrylic. That’s also why UV can produce full color on metal instead of a plain black or white mark. If you’ve ever seen a nice pair of titanium headers, you’ve seen the rainbow effect from heat. A UV laser like the E3 just controls that effect with precision, heating to exact temps to zap up about 200 different colors onto some metals. It can even auto-separate colors in your artwork for multi-pass metal coloring.

And the UV E3 works on pretty much everything – metals, glass, stone, ceramics, plastics, carbon fiber, rubber, leather, PCB boards … if it sits still long enough, it’s getting engraved.

The thing that caught my eye in particular with the E3 is the workflow. It has two internal cameras, one for taking time-lapse videos of your creation as it takes shape – which is fun and all, but … it also has one pointed at your work bed to show you exactly where to drop your artwork onto an object in the software. Even batches of objects. That is where the money’s at.

Having fought with perfect alignment and ruining plenty of good blanks from a teensy mistake in placement, I can tell you that the pain is real. And making and swapping jigs for every shape and size to reproduce items over and over gets really old, really fast.

For makers, Etsy sellers, and small shops … camera overlay is one of those features you don’t realize you need until you have it. Then it ruins you for every machine that doesn’t have it. My laser cutter has one, and I love it. My UV engraver does not, and I oh-so-yearn for one.

Xlaserlab

The E3 has a built-in “AI Copilot” that can identify colors in your artwork for reproduction, turn 2D text and images into 3D designs (meaning no need for Fusion and the like anymore to make a 3D object), and even use the onboard camera for automatically detecting items on the work bed to engrave in batches.

Frankly, when Skynet eventually goes rogue, the E3 should be the first thing to be unplugged … but until then, I think the E3 will be hard to beat. There are other laser engravers on the market that use AI-vision to assist with automation and batch production … like the US$18,000 Muse UV Galvo.

Xlaserlab is making these high-end features more accessible for makers and hobbyists with the E3. Not just ability, but physical size as well. For example, the Muse is 175 lb (79 kg) and sits three feet tall (~92 cm). The E3 is 31 lb (14 kg) and stands at 15.5 inches (39.3 cm) tall. Even though it’s physically small, its working area is still pretty much the industry standard 150 mm x 150 mm.

Toss in the optional conveyor system, and 150×800-mm-long engravings become an option too. The E3 has a rotary option for engraving stuff like glasses, mugs, etc. The E3 is compatible with LightBurn, which is the industry standard software for laser engraving, and it ships with both 110-volt and 220-volt compatibility, so the E3 is ticking all the right boxes.

Another thing the E3 has that caught my attention is “Dual-Point Triangulation.” I, too, like making up words (though I’m generally told not to). But in all realities, the E3 uses two auto-focus points – like a stereo range finder – for engraving over uneven or concave/convex surfaces. If you’ve ever tried to engrave anything even slightly roundish or irregular, you’ve seen how the edges defocus and go soft and/or warp. The E3 can adjust focus on the fly to match the surface height being engraved – a feature that could have saved me a lot of money in blanks while cutting my teeth.

Between its camera preview, AI copilot, dual-focus system, and time-of-flight sensors, it looks like the kind of mo-sheen, as Johnny Cash would most certainly say, where you stop guessing and start actually getting accurate placement on the first try …

Xlaserlab

… which is good, because UV galvo lasers are really fast. Xlaserlab says 10,000 mm per second. That’s right on par with my much bigger ComMarker Omni X. You can ruin a piece lightning-fast if your placement is off, even by a fraction of a millimeter.

As I mentioned, the range of materials that UV lasers are good for marking and engraving outshines pretty much everything else. And as I also mentioned before, it’s not superb for cutting. Xlaserlab says it’ll cut through about a millimeter of metal, 10 mm of acrylic, 12 mm of glass, and about 12 mm of wood. That’s not bad, but it’ll take a while, lemme tell ya. If you want a proper cutting laser, stick to fiber lasers.

It’s worth mentioning two things: 1) This isn’t Xlaserlabs’ first Kickstarter. The company had a pretty successful campaign with the X1 Pro laser welder earlier this year (I want one of those too) that’s had really rave reviews. And 2) Since it is a Kickstarter, the specs, shipping dates, etc, could change a bit. I haven’t seen any samples out in the wild yet.

Xlaserlab

The Xlaserlab Kickstarter page says “less smoke” right there at the top. Notice it doesn’t say “smokeless.” Though UV is a “cold laser,” it can still produce fumes, some of which are worse for your health than others. The E3 has its own optional fume extractor with 5-stage filtration that’ll capture 99.97% of all particles and odors, and it’s good for 600 hours of use before needing a filter replacement.

All that being said, “Yes please, may I have another?” I’ve worked with lasers just enough to know what features would make life a whole lot easier, and it looks like the E3 has ’em. If I can get my mitts on one, I’ll certainly provide a write-up on it.

Xlaserlab says they’ll start shipping in April of 2026 if the campaign meets its $100,000 goal. Pledges start at US$4,299 for the 7-watt model and go up to $5,199 for the 10-watt. It raised just over a million bucks in the first 12 days, so I think it’s safe to say it’s happening.

Source: Xlaserlab Kickstarter

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