Hey everyone, happy new year! It’s time for a very exciting 2026!
Potential Resolutions for UPS Issues
We had some interesting visitors from UPS, including Sean Griffin, president of UPS Canada, Dean Tabakos, Director of Business Development at UPS, and Frank Perez, UPS President – Americas Region & International, Healthcare and Supply Chain Solutions (SCS) Engineering, and our UPS rep, Todd McCracken.
As we mentioned in our previous updates, we’ve been having some issues with UPS shipments, primarily with things getting stuck at the border. This meant that we were getting a lot of shipments being sent back without any reason. We were also being charged a lot of taxes and duties when we weren’t supposed to.
With all this going on, some of the high-level execs from UPS decided to stop by our office to take a look at what was going on and let us know some of the work they were doing to get shipping back on track.
Reducing issues with customs declarations
With the change in regulations requiring all shipments entering the US to have customs clearance (before it was just for shipments above $800), UPS and other shipping and logistics companies were slammed with a significant volume of declarations needing to be made. With a big part of this process being human-driven, many shipments were being held at the border or sent back for customs issues and errors. We were told that with the implementation of new systems and AI, they are now able to automate more than 95% of the processes, meaning that the error rate and speed have gone up dramatically.
Reducing border hold-ups
When a multi-part shipment is created, but all parts of the shipment are not in the same truck, every item in that truck is sent back. Initially, this caused a huge number of shipments to be shipped back. With the change in generating separate manifests, shipments are accounted for on a truck-to-truck level, which eliminates issues created when multi-part shipments don’t travel together.
This is expected to reduce the number of shipments being sent back from the border, but also reduce transit times and lost packages because prior to this change, multi-part shipments needed to be held in a facility until all of the parts of the shipment are ready to cross the border. This specifically impacts us because most of the machines that we ship must be shipped in several packages, which means that if all boxes for that shipment are not together, they will wait in a warehouse until they are. This creates more opportunities for damage as they get transported around the warehouse as they wait, or get lost if they are misplaced.
—–
It’s hard to say how much things are going to change in the short term, but we are obviously optimistic that as we get settled into the new normal of more complicated reporting and customs processes, we will have fewer shipping issues.
Tax Registrations for Nexus
Some customers may have seen us charge sales tax for certain US states. This is because we have reached Nexus in these states (usually $100,000 or $200,000 in annual sales, although rules and calculations vary by state). Taxes will be automatically calculated and charged, and we will remit them directly to the state to comply with US state tax laws.
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Florida
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Maryland
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- North Carolina
- New Jersey
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wisconsin
Some of these states are new, some of them we have reached Nexus for some time ago and we have been collecting taxes already.
AltMill 4×8
Production for the AltMill 4×8 continues to move forward, with business as usual with:
- More short and long term wear testing ongoing
- Packaging planning and design
- Resource development for the 4×8
- Working with and gathering feedback from beta testers
ATC
Auto Tool Changer work continues on as we wait for production to complete for parts. Some work done for December and ongoing include:
- Continued testing for software and hardware
- Packaging design and optimization
- Testing of different compressor sizes and configurations
ATC production and development continue to move forward.
Closed-Loop Stepper Motors
First off, our closed-loop stepper motor kits are now available for sale! This kit allows users to install closed-loop stepper motors onto their LongMill.
In other news, we got a batch of closed-loop motors which had the wrong firmware onboard, which gave us a chance to reprogram and look into the tuning parameters for motors. Going through this gives us an opportunity to look at continual optimization of different aspects of our machine systems.
Certified VFDs
As we mentioned in some of our previous updates, we have certified our VFDs for the Canadian market. We initially certified around 100 VFDs in our first batch and are in the process of getting our next large batch of VFDs to ship to customers still waiting on their units. We were able to get around 40 units done early, so we will ship them to customers currently in the queue. We expect the remaining units to arrive in January to complete the rest of the queue.
LongMill MK3 Development
LongMill MK3 is in official development. Here are some design goals:
Reduce part count and variability
Reducing the number of parts reduces the amount of time needed to assemble the machine. Additionally, reducing the number of unique parts also allows the assembly process simpler by copying the same processes across different areas of the machine, plus reduces the amount of supply chain and inventory management we need to do. We expect the LongMill MK3 to have 30% fewer unique parts over the LongMill MK2.
We have a mix of parts that come from the LongMill MK2 and the AltMill, plus a bunch of new, unique parts that are specific to the LongMill MK3.
Improve reliability
The LongMill MK3 will use the latest family of SLB-EXT and closed-loop motors, self-adjusting anti-backlash nuts, and linear guides to provide significant improvement to machine reliability over the LongMill MK2.
Keep affordability
With improvements to our assembly and QA process, changes to the design, and larger economies of scale, the LongMill MK3 will have a target price with beginners and hobbyists in mind.
Lower the barrier to entry
The LongMill MK3 comes in conjunction with many new features and products, including:
- The AutoSpin T1, which aims to provide spindle-like features and functionality at a lower price point
- Inductive sensors included by default, implementing homing and other positioning checks
Currently our main focuses are in:
- Producing and testing our first batch of prototype rails (expected to arrive end of Jan)
- Producing and testing our first batch of laser cut steel gantry parts
- Designing and developing a new set of electronics (currently code-named the SLB-lite), to bring down the cost of the electronics used in the LongMill to better fit the needs of beginners
AutoSpin T1
As mention in the last month’s blog post, we have now completed production of the AutoSpin T1 and are currently waiting on the arrival of the tools. We are expecting them to arrive mid-February.
10 Year Anniversary Party
Can you believe it’s been 10 years since we started Sienci Labs? We’re planning something to celebrate. Details are still percolating but this is what we have in mind.
Open House (afternoon): Shop tours, demos, and hang out/meet our team
After Party (night): Big, casual party and rave in our back warehouse
Everyone is invited, stay tuned on our social media for more details coming soon.
Our first Kickstarter video from 2014:
