OMTech 60 W Laser: Plant Markers

While calibrating the laser’s scan offset, I also tried various fonts:

Offset cal - text - overview
Offset cal – text – overview

Putting two lines of the most-readable font inside an outline reverse-engineered from a few handwritten samples let me cut out a bunch of plant markers from white-on-black Trolase acrylic:

Plant Markers - cutting
Plant Markers – cutting

Which look downright dignified in real life:

Plant markers - African Violet
Plant markers – African Violet

Admittedly, sweet potato slips don’t require such extensive documentation:

Plant Markers - sweet potatoes
Plant Markers – sweet potatoes

Cutting the sheet flat on the honeycomb platform worked well, modulo Sadler’s warning about cutting acrylic, and a few smudges on the back of the markers will go unnoticed.

This was actually an excuse to use LightBurn’s Variable Text feature, so the tags contain formatting codes:

Plant Markers - Variable Text template
Plant Markers – Variable Text template

The codes give the position and format for text fields in a CSV file containing one line for each tag:

Austrocylindropuntia subulata,Eve’s Pin Cactus
Euphorbia,abyssiniaca
possibly G. Carinata,var. Verucosa
African Violet,Maui
Sansevieria trifasciata,Mother in law’s tongue
Plectranthus,'Mona Lavender'

The rules governing quoted strings and suchlike remain to be explored, but single quotes in the CSV file pass through unchanged.

Putting a tab at the point of the marker will prevent it from falling free when cut out, should you want to try raising the sheet above the platform to reduce the amount of crud accumulating on the back side.