So this is the Hydra 9 from 1LASER, the latest industrial style big boy version of a laser engraver as well as cutter. Now we're gonna walk through all the features of this machine and I wanna compare it directly with some of the competition. So if you are in the market for a more professional style machine like this, you can know if it's the right one for you. But before we start with that, let's start with this guy right here. This is the 1LASER X series, specifically this is the XRF, which is an RF tube they have on the back. They have a CO2 glass tube version as well, but it's like 1LASER's Glowforge, X-Tool P2, Ohm Tech Polar style competitor. Now there's two different versions of that machine. There's two different types of laser tubes it's got on the back. There's only one version of this machine because the most unique feature about this laser actually has two different laser sources inside of it. And that is a feature I have not seen on any other machine that I've reviewed in my shop. But before we talk about the laser source, let's talk about the Hydra in general as like a product line. So there's actually four different versions that they offer. You've got the Hydra 7, 9, 13, and 16. And those numbers relate to the distance in the X. So the Hydra 7 is 700 millimeters wide. In this case, this is the Hydra 9 or 900 millimeters wide. And then it goes up from there. And even though this is the first industrial style machine from 1LASER, they pretty much have packed in all of the features that you find from other manufacturers directly into this machine. And if you're not familiar with 1LASER, they basically launched both of these machines in late 2024. There is a pretty close relationship with 1LASER and ThunderLaser. And if you do watch the X-Series desktop review, I go through some of the specific features that are like identical to the Thunderbolt. And so there's actually a lot of crossovers between those two brands. So I know a lot of times when people see these new manufacturers, they get a little bit nervous, like, is this gonna go away? I definitely have seen my fair share of companies that have disappeared in the past, but I do feel pretty confident about them because there is a good bit of crossover with existing laser manufacturers, specifically ThunderLaser, to where they're basically using Thunder's production capabilities to manufacture all these. But then they also design and support all their machines in the United States. Their offices are actually in California. But regardless of the company, what really matters is the machine you wind up getting. And this is one beefy machine. It got shipped to me on a massive pallet. Caveat with this, this is actually a pre-production unit. So some things might look visually different than the one that is being manufactured. I've got an affiliate relationship with Windlaser. So if you decide to pick any of these machines up, I'll get a kickback. Pretty much all of the lasers that I talk about, I have affiliate relationships with. So I try to stay as unbiased as possible, but keep that in mind as we're going. But in general, it's basically the same form factor you're gonna find in these other cabinet-style machines with nice high-end components internally, specifically on the speed side of things. So their internal gantry and motors, you've got a top-end speed of this at 1,200 millimeters per second. That's basically at the top end, especially at this price. And it's got an acceleration of 3G, which is also going to be at the top end. And basically you can't get anything faster with this style machine until you get well over $10,000. So like the new Aeon Redline series, if you get their top-end specs, which I think use servo motors, and you actually have to get a ceramic tube on the back, so it's gonna be even more expensive. You are thousands and thousands of dollars more expensive than what you can get for this. And we'll do some price comparisons here in a second. Now a feature that's starting to be a lot more common is an inline red laser beam. So hopefully you can see that red laser beam right there on my hand. That isn't the actual laser that's going to be cutting. That's like a little red laser pointer, laser. But you're gonna use that for positioning. So especially when you're framing, which I can do right here, you're gonna get a red laser dot to see where that's gonna go. Now, cheaper machines, a lot of times, that's gonna be like offset from the laser head itself. I know my budget style bigger Omtek 60 watt unit, that's the case. Where in this case, that red laser dot is in line with the actual beam path itself. Now again, the Hydra 9 specifically is 900 millimeters by 600. So a very large work bed. And then when you move into machines like this versus desktop style machines, typically to have a higher Z-axis, like if you wanna do rotary stuff, or you're working with like thicker material, you have to wind up having some type of external accessory. In this case, you can get a riser or one laser calls it a base boost, which is what's underneath this machine. The X-Tool P2 has a pretty similar setup. But with this, there is no riser because you have a very large Z-axis underneath to where this entire work bed will drop down. That's opposed to the laser head itself moving up and down, which you typically will find on the desktop style machines. What's good about the work bed moving is you have a lot more room for it to go up and down versus having like a laser head that would have to go like way up here and then way down. The bigger industrial pro style machines, this is normally the way they do it to where the entire work bed will adjust. And then another element about the work bed I wanted to point out is actually the movement of the Z-axis. So again, you've got all of those controls right here so I can drop the Z down. And when I do that, this entire bed is moving down. And you've got these screws on all four sides that's driving that movement. But with some designs, you can actually get a good bit of racking, especially with a larger work bed like this to where the stepper motors that are driving those screws aren't completely in line. So it's gonna get a little bit off, especially if you're doing some fine engraving, which you definitely will with this machine. But I just pulled the bottom tray out to give you a better idea of what's going on. You can see how we've got a single belt that is going throughout the entire work bed. So that one belt is driving all four of those screws that bring the bed up and down. And it actually goes to the stepper motor. But this stepper motor is what's driving that entire system. And this is a really nice thick belt. And if we take this up and down, you can see that we're getting movement throughout the entire system. And since it's all being driven by the same motor that is synced and with how the belt is routed to all four of these screws, you're not gonna get racking. So everything's always going to be aligned as we bring this up and we bring this down. Speaking of the work bed itself, as I bring this all the way back up, you've got a few different options right now. I have the slats inside of it. And so these are removable, but there are slots on the front and the back. And then this also comes with a honeycomb work bed. It is a large metal frame. And then you've got your work bed underneath. But hopefully this gives you a little bit better idea of just the size that you're getting with specifically the Hydra 9. And then what's nice about this, and this is also something you're gonna find on their desktop series, are these pins. These are basically like index locking pins. And so you've got a couple holes drilled into the frame itself. Those pins will sit down on, which will lock the bed to the machine itself. And that's real nice, especially if you're doing repeat cuts to where you need the work bed to stay in the exact same position. You maybe have a jig set up in there and running the same thing over and over and over again. Being able to lock everything to the bed itself is great. But if that bed can move around, which it can on a lot of other types of machines, then it's really easy to get it knocked off. You can see there's a pretty beefy aluminum bar that these actually lock into in both the front and the back. And that just helps add overall rigidity to the frame. So when this is running at like high speeds, you're not getting flex in the frame itself. And that is actually compared to the other large machine that I have in the shop. And that is going to be the Omtek Pro. If we look inside of its work bed, you can see that the slots on this guy are a good bit smaller. And so they're a lot easier to flex, but especially how they connect to the work bed. This is a really thin rod. So I find that especially over this work area, which is a good size, that I do get some flex. So the design of this is a lot more robust and there's a lot less flex in the system. And then pretty much all of the panels on this machine are removable. So it's really easy to get to the electronics, get to the laser system for maintenance or if you need to adjust things. But one of the things you can also remove is this front panel right here. There's another one on the back as well. And this will pop out and this is your pass-through. So if this door was shut, it's actually going more than the full width of the machine with a good bit of clearance in the Z-axis. I believe it gives you like a max of one and a half inches in terms of thickness to where it can still fit underneath the laser head itself. So pass-through front as well as on the back. So you can slide material all the way through the machine if needed. Now, another panel that can open right up is down here at the bottom. And with this fully out of this bed bottom is actually on rollers. And this is removable. They've got handles on the sides. You can see I've already got a bunch of debris and stuff that gets cut out, especially when I'm using the slats, I'm doing smaller stuff. I'm so really easy to take that entire tray out to dump things out and clean it out. I'm really, really easy to get to versus kind of having to get in there with a vacuum and dig around. Now, another feature that is starting to be a lot more common, especially on the desktop style machines is integrated cameras. On this case, you've got a camera right here at the top of this lid. Kind of the only drawback with that is you can only take a picture of the work bed when the lid is open so that it is shooting straight down. You're going to be using Lightburn as your software. There's a few different walkthroughs that you'll use to calibrate the camera so you get an accurate view of what's going on. But because it's a Lightburn camera and this is kind of a drawback of any Lightburn based systems, which basically all of these are other than the X-Tool P2 is in addition to having just a normal computer connection, there's also another USB port out that is your camera connection. So if you want to be connected to the camera, you have to hardwire into the machine itself versus some of the other desktop style machines that are totally Wi-Fi. We're going to get a camera feed as well. And a lot of times that camera feed can be live or will update when the lid is closed. So like the X-Tool P2, their camera is actually in the back attached to the frame itself, not to the lid. So regardless of what the lid is doing, you kind of know what's going on inside. But I actually find when you get into these larger machines, your use of a camera is going to go down further and further because a lot of the positioning stuff you're going to be doing is going to be happening with the actual interface itself. It has built into the system. So using that red laser dot to do framing, setting different origin points, all that kind of stuff you normally would have to do on a computer. With this machine, you can do it all from the machine itself. So if you want a camera, you definitely got it, but you don't have to use it. And actually, I wind up not using the camera much myself. All right. But let's actually talk about this interface itself. As of today, this is the nicest style interface that I've seen on pretty much any machine. This is more or less the same one that you're going to find on the Thunderbolt. Not only is it a touch screen, so you can kind of jump around to all those different parts on the menu, but you have physical controls, which are great for jogging. You have access to jogging the machine really quick, really easy, as well as the Z axis. So I can drop this up and down, and then you can fire it. And then if you had a rotary setup, you could also control it from here as well. Then on the actual touch screen itself, you have access to like all of the controls that you would normally need. With autofocus right here, really easy to get access to, as well as setting your origin. And then you can also frame it really easy as well. So if I hit the frame button, you can see that fire real quick. And then you can just jump in here and run it. It also has a full file system. So you've got internal memory built in. The previews on mine are being a little bit wonky, but they normally do work. And you can go in and select whatever you want to run, hold it down. It's going to load that file up. And then you're going to be able to run it from there. Now, this is a DSP style controller versus like a straight G code style controller. This is going to find with the XTool P2. Some of the more budget end machines, they can just process stuff faster. They're nicer to work with, and they have more internal inbuilt memory, which is good as well, because you can upload a file to this machine, either by ethernet or by direct computer connection. But then it saves it to local memory. And then you can go through like all of your past files that you've used and then run it directly from the machine itself without having to be connected to anything whatsoever. And to kind of show you how fast this goes to get something going. So I'm going to put this out of focus. I'm actually dropping this down right now. I'm going to load up a file real quick. I am going to autofocus it. So you can do all that again, directly from the machine itself. I'm going to set the origin point because that might change. I'm going to hit frame. You can see it framing right there. And then I actually have some safety features turned off. We'll talk about safety here in a second. So I can run this with the lid open, but normally you can't, which you normally don't want to. So you don't want to do what I'm doing right now. And you can see it's already started going. That's going to do a fast engrave. And actually I believe this one right now is at like 900 millimeters per second. So kind of pushing the top end. That's actually using the RF tube, which we'll talk about here in a second. Now it's switching over to the CO2 glass tube to cut, which is what it's doing right now. And it's going to cut that piece out and we're good to go. So really, really easy to load something up, move stuff around, reset origin points, frame it, and start it all directly from the controller itself. And speaking of safety, you should have safety features turned on. And the big one is the lid. So you don't want to run a laser without the lid shut, but the lid has magnetic sensors on the side, which have to be engaged for it to run. And then the lid itself is coated, even though the beam itself is invisible. This is going to give you extra protection. This is like a thick polycarbonate lid versus like a straight glass lid. Glass still feels a little bit nicer, but what I like about these polycarbonate, and it's kind of hard to tell with the way I have things lit up, even though it's tinted, you have visibility into pretty much the entire work bed because you don't have like a frame structure right here. So you can kind of always look around the machine and see what's going on. You also have this big red emergency stop button right here at the top. Now, this one actually just cuts power to the laser. So you might've just heard the fans turn off, but not power to the machine itself. They're on like different circuits. So I still have the machine off. So giving me an error saying that I've got the emergency stop turned on. So I'll flip it back. The laser is going to rehome itself and be good to go. So there's a lot of times you might accidentally forget that your emergency stop is engaged, but since you can still turn the machine on, it's going to tell you, hey, you may want to turn it off if there's no emergency, but you can still turn off the machine itself. And not only does it have a switch, but that switch is on a key. So something really handy, especially if you're in a situation where you just don't want people turning the laser on itself. Maybe you've got kids or just people you don't want using your machine. You've got to have a key. You can turn it on and then everything will boot up and you're going to be good to go. Now, a couple other unique features to the Hydra specifically. One is going to be this visual indicator. And actually, if I just rerun that file, you can see this panel right here is a red LED light that is going to, I believe, pulse. Yes, it is pulsing while this is running. It's kind of hard to see with the lights that are set up. So you can visually see when this thing is going versus when it's not, when it's staying a solid state. And over here on this left side, they have a bubble level. It makes it really easy to figure out how to level your machine because underneath it, you do have this on wheels. So this can move around fairly easily, as you can see right there, to wherever it's going to live in your shop. And then finally, you have an air quality sensor readout. That is what you've got right here. That's something they also have on the X series. That sensor lives inside of the laser itself. So you always get an idea, especially when the lid is closed, how much like slit and stuff you have in the air and how you know when it's safe to have everything opened up. And the air quality brings us to what I'm calling the trifecta of accessories that you're typically going to find with machines like this. One is going to be a water chiller slash water pump. That's going to be for the glass tube on the back to keep it from heating up. And the one that comes with it is nice to where not only does it receive power from the unit itself, actually like a data connection, throw an air to the overall machine itself and not let it run. If it sees it doesn't have any water flow or if like the water temperature is too high, you might be in danger of damaging your machine. But then the other two things that you also are going to have included with this machine, one is going to be an air pump or like an air compressor. That's going to be for the air assist that is coming right here through this tubing. That's giving you really clean, especially cuts. You're not going to use it with engraving as much. And then finally, the third one is going to be an inline fan. So this is a fan that will just be in line with the ducting that you have with machine to where you'll be either venting outside or into some type of filtration box. But again, that power is connected directly to the machine compressor too. So those aren't running until they need to be. And all that is controlled by the software. Now, one last thing before we get into the dual laser source feature of this is the fact that these are larger machines and you may not be like in a garage or like in a big shop space with big doors. It may be a lot more difficult to get this inside of your house, especially if you're going through a normal doorway. And they're saying even with the Hydra 16, which is a massive machine, you could still fit that through a normal doorway because this is built kind of like a layer cake to where you've got three different layers. You've got your base layer right here. You've got your middle layer right here, which basically comes up to like right above your red LED. And then finally your top lid layer. All of those can be taken apart and be brought in separately and then reassembled inside. It's not just like one huge box. You got to figure out how to get inside of your shop space. You can break this down to get this inside of smaller spots as needed. So let's talk about the laser source, less sources and where the Hydra name comes from. Just like with Hercules, Hydra has multiple heads, all within one body, multiple laser sources, all within one frame and structure. So we've got our glass tube on the very back. That's pretty standard. If you've seen machines like this, it's actually sticking off to the side over here on the left side because this is the hundred watt version. They also have an 80 watt version for the Hydra nine as well. But then you also have a 38 watt RF tube that is a metal RF tube. That's actually kind of the fans that you're hearing right now. That's kind of living where the left back leg is. It's actually shooting up. And what's really cool about this is you can tell which laser source you want to use inside of Lightburn all within the same job. So these little like one laser rectangles I was cutting out. One laser engraved was with the RF source, and then the outside was with the glass tube. And inside of Lightburn, you can assign different laser sources to different layers. So I sent this entire file and ran it, then it engraved, then automatically switched to the glass tube and then ran it from there. So it's really cool. Not only do you have the option to do two different lasers, but the two different lasers can be controlled from the software itself. Okay, so doing a quick tour of the laser path on this machine. This is where the laser comes out. It bounces through this point right here and then comes over to our laser head. And they're doing a good job of making the alignment of the mirrors pretty easy. So you have all of these thumb screws at each of these points as well as on the flip side of this. But this is where it gets very interesting with this machine. So this is the Hydra 9, which is a 100 watt CO2 glass tube. That is what we've got here on the back. This is the interesting part. So this actually combines two different laser sources. Again, the glass tube is coming right here, bounces and then is going through the hole right there. But if we look down, you can see we've got another hole right down there. And if we flip all the way around to the other side of the machine, this is our RF tube. It's actually identical to the one they've got on the XRF right there. But what's cool is the laser gets generated there, bounces through there and then goes up through that laser path to where comes up and bounces on that mirror and then through the system. So the RF tube is actually firing right now. And in just a second, we're going to see this entire assembly move down. So you can see that drop down. Now the glass tube is about to switch on. And it might be hard to see with the light, but there is light going through it. And so now that is firing and then we are done. So really cool. You can have both the RF and the glass tube firing in the same file. RF you're going to use more for engraving and fine detail. And then glass, you're going to be able to get some really nice cuts from it. So how does this compare to the competition? First, let's compare it directly to the other machine that one laser offers. And actually, I think the Hydra 7 would be the more interesting thing to compare it to because it's going to get a lot closer in terms of price. So the Hydra 7, just the glass tube is going to be $5,000. And you don't actually have to get this machine with the RF tube. That's something you could actually add in the future. You're going to add $2,000 for that RF tube to any of these configurations. So just keep that in mind as we're going. So looking at just the glass tube, we're talking $5,000 for the Hydra 7 versus the one laser XF, which is also the glass tube version is going to be $3,200. Now, most of the features are going to be pretty similar between the two, but the seven, you're going to have a bigger tube at 80 watts versus 55 watts. And then the seven is going to have a much bigger work area, about 100% larger than what you're going to get with the desktop unit. Then if you compare it with the XRF, so the RF version of this, the price is going to go up. But again, you would have to add $2,000 to the seven to get that same RF tube inside of it. But then you're also getting the big glass tube in the bigger work area. So honestly, really, it's going to be more of like a form factor. Like what types of things are you making and like how much do you really need to make them? Because you can make more or less the same products between the two, especially if you have the base boost. So you have that additional Z axis, but obviously like with a bigger work area, you can make more all at once. And if you're doing a lot of cutting, being able to go from like 55 watts to 80 watts is going to be a pretty substantial jump. And that's at the low end. You can go way up from there. Oh, and quick plug, all of these comparison charts I'm pulling from machinesformakers.com. I pretty much took the database of all the machines that I know about that I used to make these reviews. And I tried to make it a lot more easy to use for anybody and hopefully be able to compare a lot of different machines quickly against the same type of spec. Also like different promo codes and deals I've got up there as well. Let's go on the top end comparison. So actually with Thunder. So this machine, the Hydra 9 versus the Thunder Nova 35, that is basically this style machine with the glass tube. And then after the success of the Thunderbolt, which is their RF machine, they're kind of introducing RF technology into the rest of their line as well. And so that is what the Thunder Nova Plus 35 is. That's more or less the same machine as the Nova 35 with an RF tube, as well as with some upgrades with motors and cameras and stuff like that. Now, the price you're seeing here, again, is just for the glass tube. But you can see, even if we were to jump from $7,000 to $9,000, that's still going to be less than even the Thunder Nova, which is just going to be that glass tube. And the specs are going to be pretty comparable across the board. The Nova is a little bit older, so the speeds aren't going to be quite as high. Also, it doesn't have an integrated camera. I actually have the Nova 24 in my shop. One feature I really do like about it is it's got a red light and a green light on the top. It'll be like green or red, depending on what the machine is doing. The pulsing beam is nice, but it's just easier to see like an actual red or green light from across the shop, but still not a huge deal. I haven't been hands-on with a Nova Plus, but I'll say overall, the build's going to be pretty similar to what you're finding with this machine. But at the time of this video, I would have a hard time recommending just the straight Nova 35 versus this. Now, I believe you're also going to be able to get a 75 watt RF version of this versus just the 38 watt, but that price is also going to bring it a lot closer to that 10k mark. Now, another interesting comparison is going to be between this and Omtek and also kind of Monport because a lot of their industrial style machines are pretty much the same thing as Omtek, just with a different name. But we're going to look at two different ones. One is going to be the AF2440, their 100 watt version, and then also their new Pronto 45, another 100 watt version. Really, the Pronto is kind of like their upgraded line. Now, one caveat with that is the Pronto seems to be shipping out really slow, so I don't know if there's some issues going on there. Now, for this, we're basically taking the RF piece of this completely out of the equation. All of these are glass tubes. The Hydra 9 is going to be the most expensive at 7,000 bucks versus about 6,000 for the Pronto, and then about $4,500 for the AF. But I will say having a version of the AF in the shop, I have a 60 watt version that's a manual focus, but basically the frame is the same. The build on this is much, much nicer, and then the internal components are much nicer as well. And you can see that reflected especially in the speed to where we've got like 3G acceleration at 1,200 millimeters per second versus 1,000 as the max on the Pronto, and then just 600 on the AF. And then you're not going to have some of the bells and whistles as like cameras and stuff like that as well. So overall, what are my thoughts of this machine? For the price point, this thing is really, really hard to beat, especially versus like the direct competition. Really to get a machine that is spec like this, you're going to have to go well over 10,000 bucks. And so the price for this, even just for the CO2 version of it is really cool. But then when you add on the Hydra aspect of it, the dual laser source that you can use all within one file that I pretty much haven't seen on any other type of machine, that feature is very, very cool. It's also very cool. You don't have to have the RF tube from the jump. You can like upgrade to that in the future. So the dual head Hydra nature of this for the price makes this thing really hard to beat. Now, I know this is a brand new machine. A lot of people haven't been hands on with it. If you have questions specific to it, be sure and drop it down in the comments. I would love to answer all that I've got. All right. Until next time, go make or break something in your shop. See you guys.
