December 2024 Production Updates

packers | Sienci Labs — Our beautiful production team

AltMill

Due to port strikes in Vancouver, some parts that were expected to arrive earlier in November have been delayed. We have been working on packing and preparing everything else so that we can make a big push for the end of the year to get the remaining AltMills in Batch 2 out the door.

Rails and other parts have just arrived at the start of this month. and we are resuming shipping AltMills.

All of the parts in Batch 4, which is our next 250 AltMills, are expected to finish production and arrive at the end of January.

Ben and Daniel have been chipping away at the packaging layout for the 2×4 AltMill, here’s a photo of some 3D modelling that’s been done. We are now officially starting production for the 2X4. More info to come. If you’re interested, please feel free to fill out our survey. https://forms.gle/LV9erqPFEr1boPWx7

Screenshot 2024-11-15 at 35116 PM | Sienci Labs

Also, amongst other cool stuff we’ve been playing around with, here’s a look at Mike and Jon’s “SmaltMill”, designed to automate some of the tapping we do for LongMill and AltMill parts. This is part of us dabbling with the idea of using our own machines to do some of the machining and production for the LongMill and AltMill.

LongMill Spindle and Dust Shoe Kits

We are now fully stocked on LongMill Spindle and Dust Shoe Kits and they are expected to ship within 1-2 weeks of ordering.

Vortex Rotary Axis

Vortex Rotary Axis including the closed-loop stepper motors are now shipping!

LongMill

LongMill kits are shipping without delays. Our team has recently pre-packed around 150 LongMill in advance of the AltMill parts coming in, so we can focus efforts on clearing the rest of the queue.

gControl Panel Computer

We have now shipped the first 45-50 computers out! We are now in production for another 300 computers. We are expecting them to arrive in mid-January and ship to the remaining customers in our queue. We are also working on a new production batch for another 500-1000 computers as the gControl computer has been more popular than expected.

We have received a small number of customers who have not been able to turn on their computers. After working back and forth with the manufacturer, as well as doing some of our own testing, we found that a standoff may contact part of the screen driver board, causing it to turn off. We’ve addressed this problem in the upcoming batch that is currently in production.

Otherwise, we’re super excited to see that folks have already set up and started using gControl, and we look forward to getting them out to the wider audience soon.

Screenshot 2024-12-05 at 34413 PM | Sienci Labs

In other news, a lot of customers have been asking if the gControl has upgradable RAM and memory. After going through the process of opening up the computers, the answer appear to be yes. Although we believe that users will not need to make changes to their computer, we believe that having the peace of mind that these parts can be upgraded and replaced is valuable to the user. You can learn more about memory updates here: https://resources.sienci.com/view/gcontrol-memory-and-storage-upgrades/

LightBurn Seller and Pricing Changes

There are some changes happening with Lightburn. If you guys don’t know, Lightburn is a software for laser cutters including the LaserBeam. We have been an official reseller for this software for some time.

The first major change is in the pricing. The original price started at 60USD and is now going to come up to 100USD. While we understand that a higher price isn’t necessarily great for customers, we do think that the software at 100USD is extremely reasonable and provides incredible functionality for lasers in general. Additionally, given that the Lightburn team has continued to provide support and updates frequently, the additional income from license sales are expected to help push development and improvements on further. This is called “Lightburn Core” now

The second major change is in the licensing structure. Originally, we were able to freely sell the software. At this moment in time, although there is no specific agreement in place, Lightburn wants us and other sellers to only offer the software as a bundle to another product. This is to reduce the number of unsavory sellers in the market who do things such as selling the same license code three times. Since each Lightburn license can be installed on three computers at a time, they can sell the same code thrice. When customers have tried to install licenses on multiple computers as they should be able to, they have found that they are not able to and adding extra burden on the Lightburn team to resolve.

I am not really a big fan of “bundling” software with products, as I believe that users should have as much freedom as possible when choosing software, especially when there are multiple options, which is why at this time we haven’t bundled or offered the software for sale on our site at the moment.

We are discussion possibly using an online portal instead, where users can buy software direct from Lightburn, but allow us to take a commission and provide some support to customers as well. I have found this to be a fairly straightforward and easy way to allow software providers to have control over the software distribution.

We are still working through this, as we do want to make sure Lightburn is able to sustainably provide software. If you want to purchase the software, you can still do so directly through them on their website.

LaserBeam and UltraBeam

As you guys might know, Ikenna has been at the forefront of the LaserBeam and UltraBeam projects. Not only have these been big projects in general but also brought to light thoughts and discussions about the structure and ownership of these projects and products. While initially, the plan was to keep UltraBeam under the Sienci Labs umbrella, it became more clear that we had to reconsider this as the project progressed.

Since the UltraBeam CO2 laser project has encountered complications as we previously noted, we have put that project on hold until we figure out the best path forward. We have heard from customers regarding our current LaserBeam product, and we continue to support the LaserBeam. However, as we’ve revisited our LaserBeam line, we’re making plans in developing and offering newer improved versions of a diode laser attachment soon. Make sure to stay tuned for more news.

You can read more about this in this article here: https://sienci.com/2024/11/26/discontinuation-of-the-ultrabeam-project/