New Sculpfun S10 Laser Engraver Hands-on Review – Better Than The Sculpfun S9?

Sculpfun has produced another beast of an laser engraver! It is suitable for hobby and even for professional work as it is capable enough to run a small business with it! In this review I'll go over all those features in detail so you can decide whether or not to invest in one for yourself! We will also show you the difference a honeycomb board and air assist can make! If you're considering buying a laser engraver but don't know where to start, read on!

Sculpfun S10 Laser Engraver Review and Test With Honeycomb and Air Assist Pump

Contents of This Review

What is the Sculpfun S10?
Specifications
Laser Diode
Special Features, Addons and Upgrades
Software

Our test results:

Wood engraving
Anodized Aluminum engraving
Laser Focus Distance Test
Acrylic Cutting and Engraving
Plywood cutting
Hardwood Cutting
Engraving Stainless Steel
Upgrades and Accessories
Conclusion

What is the Sculpfun S10?

The Sculpfun S10 is the newest and the strongest laser machine from Sculpfun right now. It features a 10W laser module which is ready for an air assist system. It should offer a good cutting performance.

The machine also has an upgraded x-axis. It boasts a proper industrial linear rail, which should offer more stability of the laser module. This should make a big difference when engraving small text at high speed. We have tested this machine with the dedicated Sculpfun air assist pump and the honeycomb plate.

In this article, we will put it through a series of tests which will show what this machine is capable of. In this article, you will also see the benefits of using the honeycomb plate and air assist can bring.

The assembly of the Sculpfun S10 machine is easy and it takes less than half an hour to assemble it thanks to a good manual.

Specifications

Parameter	Value
Engraving Size	410*400mm
Engraving Materials	Wood, Bamboo, Cardboard, Plastic, Leather, PCB Board, Aluminum Oxide, Non-reflective, Electroplating Layer and Paint Surface Layer Metal, 304 Mirror Stainless Steel, Glass, Ceramics, Cotton Cloth, Slate;
Laser Output Optical Power	10W
Laser Wavelength	445±5nm
Focusing Method	Fixed focus laser
Operating Software	LaserGRBL, LightBurn, Benbox, GrblController, LiteFire, Support Windows system, Support OSMAC system. Supported file formats NC, BMP, JPG, PNG, DXF and other image formats.
Input voltage	AC100-240V, 50/60Hz
Weight	3kg
Warranty	One Year

Laser Diode

The Sculpfun S10 laser module is a 10W module with a fixed focus which is ready for an air assist. This should offer good performance and superior cutting performance.

And if you want to upgrade your existing laser engraver, you can purchase the Sculpfun S10 laser module separately. We have measured the true optical output power and it is right on the spot! HERE are the measurements for all other machines.

I would also recommend getting more quality protection googles with OD6+ protection. You only have one pair of eyes. Protect them! These lasers work in visible light spectrum and even reflections can be very harmful for your eyes!

Save your eyes! The included safety googles are not the best. Do yourself a favour and get a good quality OD6+ safety googles which offer a few magnitudes better protection for your eyes!

Focusing procedure

The focusing procedure is the same as with the Sculpfun S9, Sculpfun S6 Pro and the S6 we tested previously. The only difference is that the focusing block is taller for this machine. You can also easily remove the light guard if needed. This comes in handy when engraving weird objects like spoons, axes and other unevenly shaped objects. The laser head is tightened by thumb screws on the rear side which makes the focusing procedure fast and easy.

Special Features Addons and Upgrades

Compared to other machines, the Sculpfun S10 has some special features that are definitely worth mentioning!

The Improved x-Axis Linear Rail

The problem with rubber roller design for the x-axis was that if one of the rollers was worn out or bent, the laser head would not produce a straight line in the x-axis direction. The line would be wavy with the length of the waves corresponding to the circumference of the rollers.

This improved linear rail on the Sculpfun S10 does not have this problem and it provides much more stability to the laser head which will help a lot in precise engravings which we are going to test later in this article.

If you have a Sculpfun S9, you can upgrade it to this improved x-axis mechanism with THIS UPGRADE KIT.

Air Assist

The Sculpfun S10 laser module comes air assist ready with all the necessary parts except the air assist pump. The Sculpfun AP-30A assist pump is not included with the machine and needs to be purchased separately.

The air assist pump is very strong and blows a lot of air. later in this article we will show you the difference using an air assist can make when laser engraving or laser cutting.

The difference using an air assist for laser engraving can make!

Look at the photo below to see how clean can an engraving get when using an air assist with the Sculpfun S10!

Other addons and Expansions

The air assist pump goes hand in hand with the HONEYCOMB BOARD. Together they make a huge difference for laser engraving and laser cutting with the Sculpfun S10.

Here is a comparison on how the rear side of a laser cut looks when using honeycomb board compared to using a steel plate!

The honeycomb also prevents the air from blowing away your boards as the air can escape in the honeycomb holes. See the YouTube video a few chapters below!

And you can use THESE HOLDING PINS THAT WE HAVE DESIGNED for holding down the material. Or you can use magnets too as the honeycomb is magnetic.

And if you want to upgrade your existing laser engraver, you can purchase the Sculpfun S10 laser module separately.

Upgrades

And if you want to engrave cylindrical objects, the Sculpfun Rotary Attachment is a great buy! We have reviewed and tested it HERE.

You can also expand the work surface of this machine with the Sculfpun Expansion kit, which expands the working area more than two times. We have tested the expansion kit HERE.

Cutting and Engraving Different Materials

Engrave: Wood, Bamboo, Cardboard, Plastic, Leather, PCB Board, Aluminum Oxide, Non-reflective, Electroplating Layer and Paint Surface Layer Metal, 304 Mirror Stainless Steel, Glass, Ceramics, Cotton Cloth, Slate

The Sculpfun S10 is also a very capable cutter:

Cut: Cardboard, Non-woven Fabric, Wood Board, Acrylic, some plastic boards, Sponge, cardboard, all kinds of wood (including walnut, cherry and other high-density woods), MDF, bamboo, leather, PCB boards…

You can cut more than 10mm thick stuff with this laser engraver. The machine can cut wood very well, especially Poplar plywood which is soft and it is the preferred wood for all laser cutters. Check the cutting performance test later in this article to see how well it performs!

Caution! I would avoid some plastics like PVC and vinyl since it releases hydrogen chloride gas while being cut. This gas is toxic and very corrosive (your machine will rust quickly).

We have tested the machine with engraving and cutting different materials. You will find the results of our tests few chapters lower.

Software and Supported Formats

You can use the Sculpfun S10 laser engraver with free LaserGRBL software which works OK, but it is a little bit clumsy to use. It is great for some tests, but I chose Lightburn instead which is much more capable software, and it is very intuitive to use. It is not free though, but the license costs 60$. But, the software offers 1 month fully functional free trial which will help you decide if it is worth it to you. For me it was definitely worth it because it saves so much time (which is not free).

With LaserGRBL you can import vector files (NC, BMP, JPG, PNG, DXF…) and bitmap image files (bmp, jpg, png and gif),

Lightburn supports more formats: AI, SVG, DXF, PDF, HPGL, PLT, and RD for vector formats and PNG, JPEG, BMP, TIFF, TGA, and GIF for image formats.

Vector format is preferred format for these machines because it contains the paths around the shape edges on which the laser head tracks. Engraving vector files is faster because the laser directly cuts on the path versus scanning like a printer and making dots when engraving bitmap images (photos).

You can get millions of free vector designs on the internet, or you can use free vector drawing programs like Inkscape or QCAD (for more technical drawings)
You can also import tons of vector designs and images from free vector sites or you can buy great laser designs on websites like Etsy. This really expands your capabilities.

Our Test Results

In the video below we made a full review of the Sculpfun S10 and tested its performance at laser engraving, laser cutting and showed you the difference an air assist and honeycomb board can make. We also compared some of the results with comparable 10W machines like the Atomstack A10 Pro (X7 Pro), our current favourite machine – the Sculpfun S9 (5W laser). You will find the results of the Sculpfun S10 in this post. For the results of other machines, read our other reviews HERE.

We have performed the more or less standardized test which we perform on all the laser engravers and cutters. This way, it is easy to compare results between machines. Here you have the video showing how the tests were done and below you will find detailed images of the test results together with explanation.

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