I needed a way to remember which plant was my Hoya Krohnian Splash, my Hoya Burtoniae, or my Hoya Carnosa plant. I recently got several different plants, and they all looked very similar to me.
I had a few requirements for my plant name stakes. First, I wanted to waste the least amount of material. Second, I wanted them to be easy to read, so using the laser to engrave them instead of my handwriting was a must. Third, they needed to be easy to edit in the future, so when I add to my plant collection, it would be easy and quick to cut more. And last, I wanted them to be cut quickly.
I made the original file in Adobe Illustrator, however you can use your favorite design program. The original file included one outline of the plant stake that was not labeled. I will add the label them later in LightBurn. To make the plant stake I used my rectangle tool and drew a 6” wide by 0.5” tall rectangle. I then used the pen tool to add a single point to the right side line in the center. This will be the pointy party of the stake. Using the direct select tool click on it and press the right arrow key until the point is where you want it.
Materials
- ¼” thick Baltic birch plywood (I like the look of natural wood grain, but you can use acrylic if you would like the stakes to last longer)
- Laser- I am using an Aeon Mira 9
- Adobe Illustrator
- LightBurn software
Instructions
1. Open the file in LightBurn.
2. Click on the plant stake and using the Array tool, create a Grid Array.
3. Layout the number of plant stakes you want to cut using the X Rows and Y Rows. For this example I am doing 10 plant stakes. So the X Rows is set to 0 and the Y Rows is set to 10.
4. Under the X spacing and Y spacing tab, make sure it is set to zero. Since you did 0 and 0 on the array, you will be sharing cut lines. This will save material and time.
5. Type in the names of your plants and lay out the names how you would like.
6. Check your settings for cut and engrave for the material you are using.
7. Under Laser Cut optimization settings, click the button to remove overlapping lines. This will remove the overlapping lines and increase the speed of your laser.
I am using ¼” thick Baltic birch plywood since I like the look of natural wood grain. You can use acrylic if you would like the stakes to last longer, but since these are just for myself, I am using wood. Tip: If you would like them to last longer you can seal the wood with poly, paint, or flexseal.
I am using an Aeon Mira 9. My settings are cut 25 speed and 75 power engrave 300 speed 25 power 400LPI. It took 1 minutes to cut 2 plant stakes.
If you would like more information on the Mira 9, visit the Aeon website.