Laser Design Pumpkin

My office was having a Pumpkin carving contest and while this isn't strictly carving, just rastering, it still was novel and fun.

I wanted to print my company's logo onto a pumpkin and so I replicated the logo in CorelDRAW. I could have easy just copied the logo from the website but I wanted it a specific size and I wanted to make it so that I could have it very well defined.

In the settings I experimented with different power and speed settings. If you increase speed you need to increase power. (Imagine it as putting your hand through fire.) I found that 55% for both speed and power usually did the trick. At TechShop you are encouraged not to go above 60% power for small projects. Make sure that your piece size is set to the piece size in CorelDraw of you will have issues when you go to print.

I had to buy a smaller pumpkin for it to fit in the laser bed. This particular pumpkin was usually used in making pies. To keep the pumpkin stable in the laser bed I used some scrap cardboard that was lying around the laser lab. This is because I am not using the rotary attachment and I do not want the pumpkin to roll. I also choose a pumpkin that was slightly flat on one side.

As with any laser design make sure you have the home set correctly according to your laser. I set the home to the top left of where I want the design to start. I also ran the printing with the top glass open just to see where it will print. When the lid is open the Epilog laser will show you where your design will be printed.

When I was confident I had my settings correct I began the job and observed the laser at work.

Here is the finished product. Store in cool dry place and maybe spray with hair spray to prevent the sugars from the flesh from oozing out.

Oh yes, and I made it at TechShop.