Author: Andy Lee

Introducing LongMill MK2 Beginners Kit

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The LongMill MK2 Beginner’s Kit is a, “everything you need to get started with CNCing” package. This package comes with the LongMill MK2 CNC machine and basic accessories that the large majority of users order. Not only does this help new users get everything they need to start, but also reduces lead times as it allows us to make pre-assembled kits in stock.

Table Of Contents
  1. What is the LongMill MK2 Beginners Kit?
  2. Why does the Beginners Kit exist?
  3. How does the Beginners Kit work?
  4. Beginners Kit Discount
Order the LongMill MK2 Beginner’s Kit

What is the LongMill MK2 Beginners Kit?

We created the LongMill Beginner’s Kit based on sales data for items that customers buy with their LongMill, as well as feedback from our customer service team on items we felt were most beneficial for customers to have when opening their boxes.

The Beginner Kit comes fully loaded with:

1 x LongMill Benchtop CNC MK2 – choose between 30×30 or 48×30

1 x AutoZero Touch Plate

1 x Starter End Mill Set

1 x LongMill MK2 Magnetic Dust Shoe

1 x Makita RT0701C Router

It should be noted that all of the items can be purchased separately, customers who wish to pick and choose what they get with their order can still do so through our Store.

It’s also important for us to mention that there are also certain items that we feel like although a lot of people buy them, they are either not needed for beginners or don’t bring a lot of value.

For example, let’s take the MK2 Lead Screw Dust Shield. For regular use, they are not needed at all. Since the lead screws and nuts on the LongMill are designed to be used in dusty environments, they do not need to be covered. In fact, they can be inconvenient in ways as they need to be removed every time the nuts have to be adjusted.

The other big omission folks might notice is the Inductive Sensor Kit for the LongMill MK2. This is because we believe that most beginners will find them unnecessary, and due to the complexity of setting them up, we find a lot of customers have issues due to improper setup and settings. Additionally, since crashing the LongMill won’t damage the machine, using limit sensors are not needed for limiting travel. All in all, we feel that for most people, they will be more trouble than they are worth. We recommend adding them once customers are familiar with using their machine and are ready to take the next step in doing more advanced work.

You might also have noticed that the 1/8″ Precision Collet for the Makita RT0701 also isn’t included in the list. That’s because the Starter End Mill Set comes with a 1/4″ to 1/8″ Collet Adapter included.

The items in the Beginner’s Package are there because we think they are the products we think you should get to have the best experience as a beginner. We don’t want to sell you stuff you probably won’t need, especially when starting out. However, if you want those items, feel free to add them to your cart, we won’t stop you!

Why does the Beginners Kit exist?

We decided to create the Beginners Kit as we believe it will streamline many of the processes at Sienci Labs and in the ordering for the customer.

One major thing we’re trying to work on, especially in the busy times of the year is keeping up with demand. Most customers will have experienced some sort of wait time for their machines. We’ve identified that if we can build the same group of kits with the same items over and over again, rather than customizing the kit for every customer, we can save a lot of time and money. 

We also found that customers were getting confused with what to order with their machines when first starting out, which meant that in some cases, they would need to make more than one order to get everything they want. In fact, one of the most common questions we get is, “What do I need to get with our machine?”

Additionally, by pre-packing machines, we can stockpile them during slow seasons and ship kits more quickly. This helps keep our packing team busy, better prepared for shifts in sales during the season, and allows us to ship machines significantly faster than before. And at some point, if this works really well, we can also start setting up distribution in the US and other parts of the world with pre-kitted machines so that we can save on shipping costs overall as well.

Another part of this move is also with regards to managing customs, as we found with certain orders with a lot of line items in the customs documentation were prone to being held up and there being more issues overall. We believe that by streamlining the machine kit into fewer line items, we can help clear customs more easily. 

Also, now that the pandemic is basically over, we’ve been getting a lot more people coming in directly to the shop to purchase machines and we’re planning on going to some shows and events, and we’ll be able to take some machines to sell directly!

So rather than having things set up so that customers have to pick and choose every single item, we bundle everything they need to get set up with their machine based on what the average person orders with their machine.

How does the Beginners Kit work?

Interested in ordering a LongMill MK2 Beginners Kit? Here’s what you can do!

  • Choose the version of the LongMill MK2 Beginners Kit you want and put it in your cart
  • If you want to order anything else at the same time, feel free to include it in your order.
    • IMPORTANT: Your order may ship together or in two separate packages. You will receive tracking info once your order ships and either one or two tracking numbers.
  • You should have your shipped out within the next business day. Most transit times when with courier within North America is 3-5 days, but could take up to 2 weeks.

Beginners Kit Discount

We are currently offering roughly a $100CAD discount on Beginners Kits.

Here’s why:

  • We are moving in October and we want to clear out as much inventory as possible
  • Since we’re expecting some cost savings in streamlining the packing and shipping process, we are passing along these savings to you!
  • This is also an experiment to see if the Beginners Kit will be a potential staple product for us in the long run.

This offer will be available until:

  • We run low in stock
  • We can’t keep up with the sales
  • We realize the beginners kit wasn’t a great idea after all…

But otherwise……………..

Order the LongMill MK2 Beginner’s Kit

Everything you need to know about the spring-loaded anti-backlash nut

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Hi everyone, I’m excited to share a small development, the Spring Loaded Anti-Backlash Nut! As we’ve continued to have LongMills out in the wild, we’ve recognized that the finickiness of the Delrin Anti-Backlash Nut was a pain point for our users, such as the need for adjustment on a regular basis, the potential for the adjustment screw to fall out, and improper tensioning causing jamming, especially at higher speeds.

The Spring Loaded Anti-Backlash Nut is designed to address these issues by using a set of springs to tension the nut against the threads radially, allowing smoother operation and no adjustment needed from the operator. We are now putting this out into the wild for field testing!

These nuts are drop-in replacements for any T8 size Delrin nut on the MK1 or MK2 LongMill.

Assembled Spring Loaded Nut

This new version is now available on sale and ready to ship in our store.

Order the Spring Loaded Anti-Backlash Nut

Flaws with the current Delrin Anti-Backlash Nut

For those who don’t know, the Delrin Anti-Backlash Nut design comes from the original Openbuilds Anti-Backlash Nut Block. At the time, this was more or less the best option for this type of hobby CNCing for T8 lead screws because it’s:

  • Inexpensive
  • Simple
  • Easy to manufacture
  • Easy to integrate
  • Low maintenance
  • Generally works pretty well

Since we were still in the early stages and didn’t have the manufacturing volume and capability to make our own designs at scale, we stuck to a lot of open-source and off-the-shelf components. As some users may have noticed, we’ve slowly been working on different innovations to improve and redevelop our own components to work better and more reliably.

The original design comes with a couple of flaws:

  • Requires constant adjustment to reduce backlash
  • Over-adjustment or incorrect assembly results in binding
  • Inconsistent resistance during its life cycle

To improve on this design, I worked on some different concepts using springs to pre-load the nuts, finally resulting in this shape:

V3-Spring-Loaded-Anti-Backlash-NutDownload

“This design incorporates OpenBuilds, LLC design work(s) shared Open Source under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License.”  

In this design, we use two springs in the gaps to apply radial preload on the lead screw threads. This allows the two “arms” to push into the threads as it wears, automatically reducing the backlash.

According to Helix Linear, another manufacturer for anti-backlash nuts, “the radial anti-backlash nut can handle loads greater than the spring force. There is also less of an increase in required drive torque compared to an axial anti-backlash nut.”

In this design, we use two arms instead of three typically used in industrial nuts, to keep the same form factor, so that the new nut can drop in to replace the current version with no modification.

Other benefits include:

  • Zero adjustments or maintenance after installation
  • Lower potential for binding
  • Smoother, lower resistance operation

Next steps

We’ve done some initial testing with 3D-printed nylon nuts, which have pretty good results, showing basically no backlash over testing. We’ve now ordered 400pcs (100 sets) of machined Delrin nuts. Our goal is to put them available for sale for people to use on their own machines. If they work well in the field we will switch to spring-loaded nuts as the default standard in LongMill kits.

I should include a disclaimer, which is that these are still a new, unproven product, and it is still possible that in the long term they may perform worse than the original nut.

We want to put these nuts out in the field so that we can get feedback and long-term testing done to validate the design. I’m very confident that this will make an improvement to the overall experience of using the LongMill, but before we make the switch, we want to make sure that we do some real-life testing.

There may be some small tweaks we may consider making, such as adjusting the spring force and length and spacing of the arms, which may happen based on the beta testing.

For this first batch of nuts, we will collect some survey data to help understand the experience of the user. At this current stage, we only have T8-size nuts, but we may expand it to the T12 size as well.

Vortex Rotary Axis is now shipping!

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Congratulations to everyone at Sienci Labs, we have completed packing the first few Vortex Rotary Axis Kits which are now awaiting shipping or pickup! For more information about the Vortex, please visit our blog here: https://sienci.com/2023/05/08/vortex-rotary-axis-launch-date-june-1-2023/

At the time of writing, the resources now include instructions on assembly and set up, as well as set up and software basics. We even have a guide on making your first project.

We’re super excited to get all of the pre-orders out to customers in the next few weeks! We are planning to ship around 40-50 per week until we are completed the queue.

Still thinking about getting a Rotary Axis? We still have some in stock, to order, visit the product page here: https://sienci.com/product/vortex-rotary-axis/

Our first excited customer
First few Vortex Rotary Axis packed
Assembly of bearings and shaft
Test assembly of the Vortex

Everything you need to get to for starting CNCing with your LongMill

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One of the most common questions we get from folks looking to order a LongMill is “What should I get with it?”. This article and video are designed to help you walk through everything you need.

The average order value for customers first purchasing a LongMill and accessories in the past 12 months is approximately $2850CAD or $2190USD, which means that for most customers, you can easily get a complete setup for under $3000. These numbers represent the total value of the order, which includes the machine, as well as most other accessories such as the software, router, endmills, a dust shoe, touch plate, and other items. You should allocate a few hundred dollars for other items that you may or may not have in your shop already, such as a bench, computer, and vacuum.

Here is the breakdown of the most popular items that customers order along with their LongMill by percentage.

Table Of Contents
  1. The LongMill
  2. Router or Spindle
  3. End Mills and Bits
  4. Bench
  5. Computer and Software
  6. Dust Collection
  7. Work Holding
  8. Touch Plate and Inductive Sensors
  9. Other Accessories
  10. Maintenance Items
  11. Conclusion

The LongMill

If it’s your first time getting into hobby CNC, you might be a little intimidated by what you need to get started. This video is designed to cover everything you need to have in your shop.

Your first, and largest purchase is going to be the machine itself. The LongMill Benchtop CNC is a capable option for hobbyists who are looking for a lot of functionality found on more expensive machines but in a more budget-friendly package. Depending on the size, you can get a LongMill for around $1800 to $2300CAD or around $1400USD to $2000USD, which makes it one of the least expensive options for the size.

While there are cheaper and more expensive machine options out there, we believe our specific machine is best suited for customers who:

  • Are looking to do this as a hobby, with some interest in production and business work
  • Need high-quality resources and support
  • Willing to make a small compromise in cutting speed but still be able to produce the same type of work as more expensive machines

Our main goal as a company is to make CNC accessible to everyone. This comes down to a number of commitments to our customers and products:

  • To make products that are affordable for the average hobbyist
  • Provide resources, support, and instructions so that we can make sure our customers can be successful in using our products.

We feel that customers not only choose the LongMill because it is an affordable option, but because we created a helpful and supportive community around our products.

If you’re not sure what size to choose, we recommend considering the working areas of each version of the machine, and determining what size fits in your shop as well as can do the type of projects that you’re interested in doing.

Router or Spindle

The base LongMill kit does not come with a router, since we wanted to let customers choose which router they want to use with their machine. The LongMill can work with several different palm routers, but the one that is the most popular and the one we recommend is the Makita RT0701, as it’s inexpensive, readily available, and has more than enough power for general woodworking use. You can order this directly through us, or at most local hardware stores.

The LongMill also can be retrofitted with an aftermarket spindle, and we provide 71 and 80mm router mounts for larger spindles, however, due to cost and complexity, we only recommend this upgrade to experienced customers. More information about routers and spindles can be found in our resources.

End Mills and Bits

You’ll also need to get some end mills and bits to start off your CNCing journey.

Assuming you have a Makita router, you’ll mostly be using ¼” shank tools, or if you get either the ¼” to ⅛” adapter, or the ⅛” Precision Collet, ⅛” shank tooling as well.

We provide dozens of different bit options and packs on our store. If you’re not sure what to get, we recommend checking out one of the End Mill Sets, such as the Signmakers Set and Machinist Set.

If you’re starting out for the first time, I recommend the Starter End Mill Set, which comes with all of the bits that we think you’ll need and a collet adapter. The Starter End Mill set, which we recommend for first-time users, is about $45USD or $60CAD, and come with 9 different bits and accessories.

Prices for bits vary a lot, especially when you get into high-end tools, but for the average user, you should expect to pay a few dollars for smaller tooling, and up to around 20 dollars for a larger bit.

End Mills & Bits

All our bits are designed and tested specifically for CNC routers and spindles.

Shop now

Bench

The last thing you must get for your CNC is a bench and spoiboard. This is just a large surface you can put your machine on. It should be noted that the surface should be as flat and strong as possible, since any flex or irregularity may show up in your cuts as well. Some people will make a bench from scratch, which can cost $100s of dollars, but even an old sturdy desk or dining room table can work as well.

Some different ideas and inspirations can be found in our resources.

You’ll also need a spoil board or wasteboard, which acts as a consumable surface for your projects to sit on. We recommend ¾” MDF, as its cheap, readily available, and dimensionally stable. You should be able to buy a 4×8 sheet and cut it into 2-3 wasteboards for about $60.

Computer and Software

There are two main pieces of software you’ll need with your CNC machine. First is the gcode sender. We build gSender as a feature-filled, powerful sender specifically for the LongMill. This program lets you send jobs, change settings, control your machine, and integrate with accessories like the touch plate and inductive sensors. Best of all, it’s completely free!

There are other gcode sending software, such as UGS and Openbuilds Control, but we think you should use gSender.

I recommend checking out our resources where we talk about different CNC software (Broll of scrolling through the resources, https://resources.sienci.com/view/lmk2-choosing-software/ or checking out our video on software to help you choose which software to get.

If you want to read about our thoughts on Free vs Paid software, we recommend reading our article on the topic.

Dust Collection

CNCing can be really messy, which makes dust collection an important part of your setup. 

At our shop, we use a Rigid Shop Vac and Dust Deputy, both of which can be purchased for about $200. This sort of set up will be more than capable for hobby CNC dust collection use.

To help clean up dust while cutting, we have the Dust Shoe, a $60USD, $75CAD attachment which goes on the front of the machine to suck up dust while your job is cutting. This particular one works with the 2.5in hose from the Rigid Vac perfectly.

Work Holding

To keep parts from flying out while cutting, you’ll need some form of work holding. Certain methods, such as using screws or hot glue, are very inexpensive and are easy to use. 

Some users will set up a t-track table on their wasteboard which allows you to use t-clamps and ¼” bolts to have a fast and adjustable system for workholding. A full set costs about $100USD or $125CAD.

I should note what makes our t-tracks unique is that they use ¼”-20 bolts rather than t-bolts which are harder to find, so that you can buy different size bolts from the hardware store if you want to make your own t-clamps.

There are a lot of workholding options, so I recommend checking out our resources page for different options.

Touch Plate and Inductive Sensors

When starting your job, the LongMill needs to have a set origin point. You must choose a starting point for the machine to start from, and it will perform the movements sent by the computer from that point, in relation to the starting point.

The important thing is to setting the starting point. You can choose the starting point manually by just jogging the machine to the place you want to start and “Zeroing” the machine, but we’ve created the touch plate to help semi-automate the process.

We currently have a simple touch plate for around $30, and a more advanced AutoZero touch plate for around $100. 

Additionally, you can add limit or homing switches to your machine. These are sensors that are set up at specific corners of your machine so that you can return the machine to a specific position over and over again (Broll of homing). For the LongMill, when you shut off your machine, it does not remember the specific position relative to itself, and so by having a specific homing position to return to, you can use this to reference the positions of the machine automatically. For example, if you want to set up a job in the same position over and over again, you can home your machine and find the origin of the part relative to the home position after you’ve shut your machine off.

You can get an inductive sensor kit for about $50-60 dollars from our store, however, we generally recommend this to only advanced users, since the setup and process for using it can be complicated, and we generally recommend users who are already familiar with their CNC machines to use it.

Other Accessories

The LongMill also is compatible with other accessories, like the Vortex Rotary Axis and LaserBeam add-ons that provide additional functionality. Over the past few years, we’ve developed these add-ons to plug and play with the LongMill. We plan, over time, to continue to create new add-ons and accessories that help our customers do more things.

For a full list of other add-ons and accessories you can get with your LongMill make sure to check out our add-ons section in our store (https://sienci.com/product-category/addons/mk2-addons/).

Maintenance Items

The LongMill requires some regular maintenance which is easy and straightforward to do. Recommended maintenance checks can be found in our resources.

There are only two consumable items, the Delrin Ant Backlash Blocks and Delrin V-Wheels which we recommend replacing every 1500-2000 hours, roughly once a year of regular use. Some customers choose to have them on hand just in case.

Conclusion

I hope this helps answer the “what should I get with my LongMill” question we get all of the time. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out!

August 2023 Production Updates

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July was a bit of a slow month due to the Vancover port strike holding up shipments for us to ship LongMills in the queue. However, now that parts are back to arriving again, we’re picking back up with our regular routine.

We have a lot of news to cover, especially with the pending release and shipping of the Vortex Rotary axis and new development around the SuperLongBoard.

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UPS reaches labour deal with Teamsters before strike

This July, we found out that Teamsters working for UPS were preparing for a strike in August, which would have disrupted shipments going to the US. However, UPS and Teamsters have settled on a new UPS contract which increases worker wages across the board and improved working conditions.

We are happy to hear that a resolution has been made, especially as we get into the busiest part of the season for our business.

LongMill and Extension Kit Orders

July has been a slow month for us shipping out LongMills as we have been affected by the port strike that delayed our shipment of controller boards. However, I’m happy to announce that we will receive the boards today and expect to clear the queue in the next 2 weeks.

The large majority of the pending 100 LongMill orders have been packed and are waiting to have the controller boxes done to have them shipped out.

Some LongMills waiting to be shipped

As some folks may know, we’ve continued to work on smoothing out the process of dealing with customs for shipments going to the US. Recently, we’ve been assigned a single contact with UPS to handle all of our LongMill shipments that need customs clearance going to the US. We found that some items were being miscategorized for duties and taxes, and we suspect it is because a big part of this is a manual process that causes human error. We believe that having a single contact who is familiar with the line items will speed up the clearance process with fewer mistakes.

A few new design updates on the LongMill MK2 design include a focus on phasing out of using M3 bolts in the assembly process and replacing them with M5 screws, including parts such as the couplers and ACME locking nuts. We are phasing out components using M3 screws in the LongMill assembly process because they are prone to stripping the heads more easily. Eventually, a full LongMill will be able to be assembled with just one M5 Allen key and our special wrench that we provide (as well as a drill and bit to mount your LongMill to a wasteboard of course).

Some new prototypes of the assembly wrench for new hardware
New T8 locking nuts replacing the brass ACME nuts

We are also starting to use longer Z motor cables for the motors so that LongMill 48×30 kits, which are now the most popular variant, will not need a motor extension cable, simplifying the assembly process as well.

Additionally, now that the design of the LongMill MK2 has matured over the past year or so since its launch, we are moving to figure out injection molding parts for it for the first time. If you didn’t know, we 3D print several components for the LongMill MK2, including the dust shoe and feet. We found that due to the large number of feet we print, moving to injection molding would be a natural next step to reduce our need to rely on the 3D print farm, which is harder to scale production for.

We are entering into the first day of August with around 100 pending LongMill orders, but we expect to clear the queue in a week or two, after which we expect to shorten lead times again.

Vortex Rotary Axis

The last of the Vortex Rotary Axis parts have arrived at the end of July and we are now starting production and assembly!

First batch of machined parts looking beautiful
Test assembly of the Vortex kit
Switch assemblies for Y axis to rotary mode

Our team has been continuing to work on different areas of the Vortex so that when they get into the hands of our users, they’ll have everything they need to get started. This includes:

  • Thorough assembly and installation instructions. We just completed initial trials and tests of the assembly process to make sure that we provide clear instructions to make it easy to put together. We found that everything came together really easily, except for the cam clamping system for the t-track, which we are currently working on to make it less finicky. We estimate that most users should be able to put it together in about 30 minutes. Full instructions will be found on our Vortex Resources soon.
  • Video content about the Vortex. We understand that not a lot of how-to and tutorial content exists for rotary CNCing. Our video production team and the engineers are working on the next steps for creating content so that our users can learn how the Vortex works and how to use it.
  • The gSender team continues to work on completing Rotary Axis implementation into the gSender, including homing and visualization for rotary. These features will be in gSender Edge at the time of launch and will be merged into the main version of gSender down the line. You try and learn about the latest version of Edge here.

We will start to trickle out Vortex Rotary Axis kits over the next week or two as we iron out the last bits of details. We expect the first batch of kits to start shipping out at the end of this week or early next week.

LaserBeam

LaserBeam production continues to move along smoothly, with most orders shipping out within a few days. We have stock available for the LaserBeam ready to ship now.

SuperLongBoard

Work for the SuperLongBoard (SLB) continues on. The team has been able to successfully test the main functionality with excellent results. However, we found our initial tests with the onboard compute module to be unsuccessful, as the Broadcom and Rockwell-based processors used on smaller compute modules to not be powerful enough to accommodate the visualization of g-code directly onboard.

Revised SLB

While additional software development was able to make significant speed improvements, we felt that the compute module would most likely need more headroom in the future if we were to implement other features down the line such as having a camera monitoring system, which we felt would be difficult to add due to a limitation of system resources.

We have now started looking at higher power compute modules, single board computers, and other hardware that we feel would ensure that the onboard gSender experience would be smooth and seamless, as well as provide headroom for future applications. However, the downside is that higher-power computers also cost more, and while our initial budget was around $80CAD/60USD for the compute module, we expect the computers to cost somewhere around $100-$200USD depending on the specs and configuration.

That being said, since we don’t need to have certain components and other parts to support the onboard computer directly, some of the cost of the computer is offset by the lower cost of the SLB itself.

We’ve decided to split the development of the SLB into two parts, one for the board itself, which will use grblHAL, a new, more advanced firmware and all of the improved motor control and drivers, and the computer itself. This means that the computer will live off the board in one fashion or the other.

While it would have been really cool to have the whole system integrated, we believe that by dividing and conquering, we can have the main portion of the SuperLongBoard out of the development process and into production first, and focus on the computer addition after. We felt like we could tackle some of the main problems with the current LongBoard with the new controller, and that it would be better to have the improvements we’ve already developed reach users sooner rather than having everything wait on further development on the onboard computer side.

This means that users will still need to connect their computers to the board to control their machines when the first batch of SLBs release, but better communication protocols, electronics, and shielding will make the USB connection significantly more reliable than before. Andrew, our main developer on this project, assures me that unreliable connections that cause issues with some users with the current board will be a thing of the past.

This version of the SLB natively supports communication over Ethernet, as well will have onboard storage which allows for streaming onboard rather than through a cable, which will improve reliability as well.

We are making the final design changes to prepare this version of the SLB for prototype production, and we hope to have production boards available near the end of the year. If you want to learn more about the SLB, please read: https://sienci.com/2023/04/10/first-look-at-the-superlongboard/

2023 Vancover Port Strike Resolved

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Last week we wrote about a port strike that was going on in Vancouver that was looking to impact the delivery times for our control boards and rotary axis parts. I’m happy to share that the strike has been resolved. However, the ports are still backed up and we are expecting some delays in receiving the rest of our materials.

In the meantime, we’ve ordered another batch of controllers to be produced and shipped rush in the case the delay for controllers causes a major delay in delivery times for pending LongMill orders. We expect this batch to be ready in around 3 weeks.

As we shared in the last update, while we don’t have an exact timeline on when the parts will arrive, we are optimistic that our shipment will be one of the first to be on its way toward Toronto as our container has been unloaded from the ship and is waiting in the railyard. Additionally, since we’ve been approved for ERS (express rail service), which prioritized our cargo first, we expect that this shipment will arrive before the rush order for additional controllers will arrive.

That being said, we still are not sure of the overall impact of the strike, and the backup order should allow us to continue production in the case that delays extend. We’ve received word that parts for the Vortex are already on the way and are expected to arrive end of next week, and we are still waiting for word about the controllers now we have received confirmation that we will receive the controllers around July 28th.

If you are waiting on a LongMill order to ship, please check https://sienci.com/order-status/ for more info.

July 2023 Port Strike in Vancouver

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Due to a major strike happening in ports on the west coast, some of our shipments coming in from overseas have been delayed. This affects the arrival time of LongBoard controller and certain parts for the Vortex Rotary Axis.

We’ve communicated with our shipping companies who have assured us that our items, due to the timing of the arrivals, are in the railyards awaiting to be sent by train. Thankfully, this puts as one of the first shipments to start moving once the strike ends, but we do not know how long the strike will last.

Based on our research and communication with shipping companies, there is a lot of pressure to resolve the strike, as it is estimated by Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters that the strike is disturbing $500M in trade per day, and creates the potential to damage trade relations with overseas companies.

We are optimistic that the strike will clear soon, and since we are currently in a slower period for shipping, that the impact will be limited. However, we would advise customers to expect a 2-3 week delay for new LongMill orders which require the LongBoard. In the meantime, we are working on alternative methods to get more control boards to continue shipping and production, and we will be pre-packing orders in advance as we wait for the boards to arrive.

The Vortex Rotary Axis is now being assembled and prepared with the parts that we currently have on hand and preparing everything in advance before our last few parts arrive. We continue to keep our set expected shipping date for late-July or early-August.

We will put another post out once this situation resolves and we are closely monitoring the situation. We will reach out to any customers with orders affected by the strike directly.

July 2023 Production Updates

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Hey everyone, happy July!

Want to get news like this directly in your email inbox? Make sure to sign up for our mailing list.

Our inventory manager Kye taking stock of new end mills and bits

In general news, we’ve done a few things in the past few weeks:

  • A new batch of end mills have arrived from our manufacturer and are being packed. New bit packs should be restocked by the time this post comes out
  • We’ve officially signed all of the paperwork for our new office. This means we’ll start moving in August 2023 with partial access. Starting October 2023, we’ll have full access.
Office layout planning

Content Insight Survey

Hey guess what! We just passed our 7000th subscriber on Youtube! If you didn’t know, we make tons of how-to, assembly, and tutorial videos on our channel.

Our team wants to keep making amazing content. If you want to help us figure out what we’re doing next, make sure to take our Content Insight Survey, which will help us understand what content you like and what we should be focusing

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDnCmhtGyHiGcHjle54Rbs8bT8OokMTe3MPa22pOjxpPFOBQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Vortex Rotary Axis

The Vortex Rotary Axis was launched on June 1st! We now have about half of the batch accounted for, interested customers can still get on the pre-order. This launch was probably the smoothest product launch we’ve ever had. Although some customers weren’t able to make a purchase right at the time we opened up orders due to some website caching, after we had that cleared up, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I just want to thank and congratulate everyone who worked on this project as all of the prep work, testing, and resource development that went into this product made sure we had a smooth launch.

Production for the Vortex Rotary Axis has been ramping up, as we get things made up and printed for shipping in late July. We’ve now received most of the parts for the Rotary Axis, and the last remaining parts we are still waiting on are expected to be ready in the first week of July.

There has also been a substantial amount of resource development done for the Vortex, some of which is now being uploaded to the Vortex Resources. You won’t see everything on there yet much of it is in draft form, we are getting everything ready and set up for launch.

LongMill and Extension Kits

We continue to have fairly short lead times on LongMills, however, we are running low on control boards which may increase lead times for some customers. We expect to reach the end of Batch 8 in August, and have around 270 units left in stock. Pending delivery of new control boards, lead times are expected to be 1-2 weeks, but could extend later this month to +3 weeks. Once we receive the new control boards, we expect lead times to go down again.

Lead times are expected to be short for the time being, but lead times may vary a bit depending on how quicky we can get a few kinks resolved including:

  • We are running low on controller board parts, and we are expecting to restock in the first or second week of July
  • Some rails from production are twisted out of spec. We are currently shipping rails that are within spec, and are waiting on replacements to be made.
  • Some poor threading on T12 Delrin nuts means we are making replacements currently. We expect them to be completed in the next 1-2 weeks, but we don’t expect this to be a bottleneck since we still have quite a few in stock.

We are working hard to get ready for the busy season coming up this fall, which means doing lots of pre-packing, restocking and prep!

Rail twist measurement system

We have a few other things coming down the pipeline, but this is all for today. Make sure to stay tuned for the next update.

June 2023 Production Updates

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Happy June everyone. I am sure the rest of the team shares this sentiment when I say we are enjoying the sunnier weather.

A couple of UW students working with us for the summer

Want to get news like this directly in your email inbox? Make sure to sign up for our mailing list.

You can also read last month’s production update here: https://sienci.com/2023/05/01/may-2023-production-updates/

LongMill and Extension Kit Orders

As we go into the summer season when things start to slow down in terms of orders, we’ve been catching up with the rest of the queue. We also increased staff to speed up our packing. We now have a turnaround time of just a few days. There are a few items we are running low on, such as the Delrin Anti-Backlash nuts and the v-wheels, but our new order should be arriving in the next week or two.

The past half year has been pretty busy, as this is the first time since August/September 2022, or almost 9 months that we’ve been able to get caught up. Even though it seems like a really long time for us to get caught up, during this time, we also experienced orders nearly double over the last few months, which means we’ve been playing catch up.

May has historically been the slowest time of the year for us as well, but we expect things to start to ramp up significantly in August. You can see the trends below.

Last month in May, we mentioned our extrusion die being damaged unexpectedly. The silver lining to this however is that with the fresh die, we are getting better tolerances across the length of the rail. For those not familiar, extrusion dies have to be replaced over time once the die wears and the profile changes shape to enough of a degree that the extrusion it produces is not of the correct dimensions. This means that the quality of the new Y rails should be slightly better than before.

A recent batch of T12 lead screws has arrived, with half of them being out of spec. Due to bends in the screw, we’ve been working on a way to straighten them out. Although in the long run, our priority is to make sure that they are straightened by the manufacturer, due to the large number of bent screws, we wanted to figure out a way to fix them if possible. We expect to receive the full batch of lead screws in the coming weeks, so we’ll have stock available.

While we have some QA issues to tackle, since we have parts stocked up, we expect to be able to go through our existing parts for the time being.

This lull period will allow us to divert energy into the production and assembly of the Rotary Axis, as we expect to see parts start to arrive this month.

Parts for Batch 8 continue to trickle in, with a significant number of parts slated to arrive over the next two months.

We are at the last third of machines in Batch 7, and we expect to go into Batch 8 around August 2023.

LaserBeam Orders

New LaserBeam orders are shipping generally within 2 weeks, but usually faster.

Vortex Rotary Axis

Preorders for the Vortex Rotary Axis will be available for pre-order on June 1, 2023 at 1PM Eastern Standard Time and is expected to ship in August 2023. All important details can be found in this article.

We are expecting parts to start arriving in the coming weeks, and we are prepping assembly and QA for the Rotary units. We’ve started receiving production, and we are expecting the last batch of parts to complete production around mid-July.

Price increase on Makita RT0701 Router

Due to price increases from our supplier earlier this year, we’ve increased the price for the Makita RT0701 from $150CAD to $165CAD.

Shipping Holdups from UPS from Canada to the US

We have now obtained our US EIN number and set up an entity in the US to help facilitate shipments from Canada to the US. Over the last few months, we’ve generally seen fewer holdups, but they are still occurring. Once we get everything set up, we hope that number will drop to zero.

We just set up US bank accounts so that we can also start setting up payment processors in the US. Although for most customers this probably won’t make any impact, this means that we can save on some banking and cross-border fees that happen due to the fact we are doing everything through our Canadian banking network.

There continues to be a bit of friction setting this up, since there are a few extra steps, such as setting up a physical mailing address that can forward mail to us to Canada, learning about the US tax system, and fixing some technical issues with our payment processor as we switch over.

PSA: Nylon washers are no longer needed for the assembly of LongMill MK2 machines

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Customers have been calling and messaging in about missing nylon washers used for assembling their machines. Those who are watching the video instead of the assembly manual will encounter this issue.

NYLON WASHERS ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR THE ASSEMBLY OF YOUR MACHINE.

For the most up-to-date instructions on assembling your machine, please always follow the online instruction manual.

Early in the production of the LongMill MK2, we ran into some resonance issues. The patch fix was to use nylon washers between the motor spacers and gantry to help mitigate the transfer of vibrations into the machine. However, soon after, we found a better process for tuning the motors so that they can run faster with less vibration, eliminating the need for nylon washers completely.

https://resources.sienci.com/view/lmk2-issues-and-fixes/#y-axis-is-skewing-one-side-moves-further-than-the-other

Adjusting Current on your LongMill MK2 drivers

In fact, improperly assembled nylon washers could introduce other minor issues, such as the chance of misalignment and skewing of the motor, due to the uneven compression of the nylon. However, if you already have nylon washers on your machine and it is working fine, please keep them on as usual as they shouldn’t cause any further issues.