Personalized golf tees are a great thing to engrave, whether you sell them, give them as a gift, or use them on your own round. They're really simple to do on the xTool F2.
Below I cover loading seven at a time, setting up the text, framing each tee, my settings, and a tip that cut my engraving time from 2 minutes 19 seconds to 49 seconds.
Jump to: The tees · Placement and focus · The text · Framing · Seven at once · Settings · The time saving tip · Finishing
1. The tees
These are 63 mm wooden golf tees, the longer variant. You can also get medium and short ones. I bought a bag of 100, but you can buy as many or as few as you need.
2. Placement and focus
You can lie them on the bed, but they're a bit wobbly. It is an option, though.
I use my Golf Tee Engraving Jig, which fits the xTool F1, F2 and F1 Lite. I'm not telling you about it to sell you something. It makes your life easier. Up to seven tees slot straight in, centered and level.
Focus manually with the knob on the side of the laser head. I turned it counterclockwise (to the left) to bring the head down until the dots joined.
In xTool Studio, click New project in the top right. It connects to the machine and updates the picture so you can see the tees. You'll see a number in the thickness box from your manual focus. You can run auto measure too if you like. It dims the lights, focuses on the top of the middle tee and gives you a distance. I was happy with mine, so I skipped it.
3. The text
- Click the T on the left, then click anywhere on the workspace. You'll see the word Hello.
- Type your text. I wrote Chris from L3D (Golf Tees) to show you can fit quite a lot on.
- Click Engrave on the right so the letters are filled in.
- Change the font in the top toolbar (Arial is the default). I like Cambria. It's a classy looking font and it fits well.
A good thing about a jig: once you've got this right, you can save it as a template and reuse it every time, just changing the text.
4. Frame and nudge
For text on tees I use the rectangular frame. With an outline frame it's very hard to see if the text is straight. A rectangle lets you line the box up with the edge of the tee.
- Select the text, click the arrow next to the framing button in the bottom right and choose the rectangle.
- Start framing and watch the tee.
- While it's framing, tap the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge the box in tiny steps until it sits centrally along the tee. I take a wireless keyboard over to the machine for this.
The F2's camera is brilliant, but the higher an item sits off the build plate, the more its accuracy can drop. Mine wasn't central based on the camera alone, which is why you should always frame.
5. Set up all seven
- Copy and paste the text six more times and roughly place one on each tee.
- Drag a box around everything, open Align at the top and choose Horizontal align center. I always want to pick vertical, but horizontal is the one that lines them all up down the middle.
- Frame each tee one at a time. Click on each piece of text and the frame switches to it, so you can check and nudge each one.
Even after framing, the text on screen might not line up perfectly with the tees in the camera picture. That's fine. You've framed them, so trust that.
6. Settings
You can try xTool's material library, but I came up with my own settings because I liked how they looked. I saved them as a material for white golf tees, with a preset called Text Engraving. Select everything and apply:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Laser type | Blue light (diode) |
| Power | 90% |
| Speed | 300 mm/s |
| Lines per cm | 300 |
| Passes | 1 |
| Engraving mode | Bi-directional |
All of these values matter. You'll find them in my free Laser Settings Library with the rest of my xTool F2 settings.
7. The time saving tip
When I clicked Process with the default path, it said 2 minutes 19 seconds. That's because by default the laser sweeps side to side down the whole area.
- Go back and open the processing settings next to the Process button.
- Change Auto planning to User defining.
- Turn on Smart. This is the critical part. It works out its own path, a letter at a time, instead of sweeping across everything.
Click Process again. Mine dropped to 49 seconds. If you're making a lot of these, that saves so much time.
Click Start. Close the lid, because the blue diode is bright, and make sure you have good extraction. It produces smoke and a smell.
8. Finishing
You get a lovely dark finish. If you want them a bit more pristine, spray them with isopropyl alcohol and give them a wipe with a cloth.
That's it. Simple, effective, and you can turn these out quickly if you're selling them.
Questions?
If you have a question about the jig or the settings, ask in the comments on the video.
