Laser Etched Lima Beans

Here at San Diego FabLab we needed to make some memorable takeaways with our website for a local crafts fair. Having 0 budget and only what was available in the Lab (which happened to include my weekend groceries) E came up with engraving the Lima beans I was going to have on saturday with our url... Came out pretty neat!

Step 1: The First Try

The first time we tried it we just put the bean on the cutting bed. It flew off thanks to the air assist. So we made a 'jig' using sunday's lentils. The lentils help to both stabilize the lima bean as well as to help with leveling it (them eventually). First we tried it with one bean to get the settings right (turns out 60-80% power at 100% speed on a 35 W Epilog Mini works fine)

Step 2: Multiple Beans!

Then we went forward and placed multiple beans on our jig. But manually repositioned the jig under the laser for each bean. It worked great but was slow going.

Step 3:

Finally E made this 4X5 (we used two) grid out of cardstock. We took a wood box from Michaels, filled it with lentils, measured (Ok E Measured) and went to work! 40 beans in 3 minutes (counting populating and depopulating the jig) the orange tile you see is to level out the 'lid' of the box.