Hey everyone, just a small update. We now have LightBurn software available on our store!
For those who aren’t familiar, LightBurn is a laser cutter control and design software that we’ve been using extensively with our LaserBeam laser system for the LongMill and our own CO2 laser we use for production.
If you have a LaserBeam or are thinking of getting one, we recommend checking out LightBurn software as this software is fully compatible with running and controlling your laser.
Hey everyone. Over the last couple of months, we’ve had some of our customers report having resonance and vibration issues on their LongMill MK2s. We’ve spent some time investigating this issue and have identified one area to help reduce resonance and vibration.
Going forward, we have been tuning the drivers on the drivers individually before shipping to eliminate customers from running into this issue, but some customers who received their machines earlier in the batch between March and May 2022 may want to consider looking at their current settings only if they have resonance issues.
If this is an issue you have, you’ll likely experience some vibration at a feedrate around 3700mm/min to 4000mm/min on the X and Y axis. Before you change your current settings, make sure your Delrin nuts and v-wheels are properly tensioned, as this can affect what sort of vibration you might be getting with your machine. You can learn more about changing current settings on each driver in our Resources.
If you are not experiencing any issues, we recommend keeping everything as they are. These issues do not apply to the majority of users. We’ve decided to present them as a way to share different areas of the engineering and design that goes into our products and things that we are working on to continually make improvements.
We’ve determined that one of the reasons for vibration is caused by something called “mid-frequency resonance”. In simple terms, when the vibration created by the motor as it rotates matches the resonant frequency of the motor itself or the things that it is attached to, the vibrations build upon each other.
To talk more about the vibrations coming from the motors, it’s important to understand on how a stepper motor works. The video below does a pretty good job in explaining how it works.
As the video describes, by alternating the coils that are energized, we can move the rotor at different speeds and directions.
Once we start to move the motor faster and faster, the rotor will undershoot or overshoot it’s position causing the motor to vibrate as it springs back and forth between the positions we need the motor to be. Having slightly more current than needed can cause the motor to under or overshoot its position based on how well the coil can control its inertia. Having too much current can cause the rotor to completely overshoot its position, and having too little current can cause the motor to not find its position at all, causing a stalling situation.
In any case, we want to find a balance in the current setting that allows us to have smooth and consistent movement within the range of speed required for the application. Based on our testing, we’ve found that running between 1.8A to 2A on the X and Y drivers balance resonance and provide more than enough torque through the whole range of operating speeds on the LongMill.
Thankfully, it is fairly easy to adjust the current on the motor by using the blue potentiometer on the driver.
While we were doing the testing, one hypothesis was that the accuracy of the potentiometer as well as the actual current setting silkscreen around the potentiometer was not correct or had variance, but we actually found that the levels around the dial were fairly accurate and consistent.
We believe that we didn’t see this issue on the MK1 machines because the plastic that the motors were attached to offered more damping than the MK2, which rigidly connects everything with metal. However with the new MK2 design being a more rigid system overall, the effects of vibration have a bigger impact on the machine as well. The overall mass and resonant frequencies, as well as the resistance of the machine’s components, such as from the Delrin nuts and v-wheels can create additional dampening.
We also believe that there are some very small electronic differences between batches and controllers overall, which may cause more vibration in one driver than another.
Also, we’ve found that stalling due to resonance often requires the machine to travel beyond the max feedrate default of 4000mm/min.
In cases where people are experiencing resonance, we suspect that:
We also think that our recommendations of tightening some of the components have eliminated mild to medium resonance and vibration issues, which leaves us with users that need to adjust their current settings.
The drivers that we use, Toshiba TB6600 chips, are simple, inexpensive, have plenty of power, and are widely available, making it a good option for CNC applications where a balance in affordability and power are important. However, modern stepper drivers can now integrate additional technology that can improve the performance of the stepper motor by having a finer control in modifying the way current flows in and out of the stepper motor have been coming down in price over the last few years.
We are continuing to explore improving the performance of the machine in this area through continual research and testing, including testing new driver systems and motor technologies.
In future development, if we want to enhance the performance of the LongMill, exploring different stepper driver options is a great option. This should help us drive the machine faster and more efficiently without requiring more power.
One of the things that I admire about Ed is his focus, commitment, and passion for delving into the technical side of the things that he does, and the LongMill was no exception. Please meet Ed, our second beta tester for the LongMill MK2.
Just as a quick intro about the beta testing program, at the end of last year, we recruited three different people of different backgrounds and skill levels in our area to test the LongMill MK2. At this point, we were at the final stages of our development for the MK2 and were looking to iron out the rest of the kinks to finalize the production of a few of the parts. All beta testers paid for their machines, albeit with a small discount. Each beta tester volunteered their time and space to observe and interview them at each step of the process as well as testing prototype and production parts as they were made to update their machines.
It was fantastic to work with Ed in the beta testing program. Especially during the early stages of testing, he provided us with lots of thoughts and feedback on the engineering design, especially in terms of improving the accuracy of the machine with regard to the process of setting it up and assembling.
Just to give some context, here’s a photo of his first project (https://forum.sienci.com/t/first-project-needlessly-complicated-torsion-box/4791/4):
It should be pointed out that Ed:
This project gave some additional perspective on the limitations and possibilities of how accurate the machine can be, and what sort of things we can do to improve the accuracy overall, especially for technically challenging projects.
It is wonderful to continue to see Ed work on technically challenging projects and see how capable the LongMill can be in the hands of someone so technically capable. I also admire his drive to jump straight into the deep end in terms of what a CNC machine can do and come out with some amazing projects and knowledge to share. If you want to see some of his other projects, make sure to check them out on the Forum.
May has been a pretty rough month, dealing with some QA issues and other manufacturing delays. Overall, we’ve been able to keep time to ship to time to order for LongMills down to about 1-2 weeks for most customers at this current time, but we’ve faced some challenges in keeping production moving smoothly.
This is our June 2022 production update. We’ll touch on some news from May and talk about stuff to expect in June.
Lead times currently are 1-2 weeks on MK 12×30 and 30×30. Our lead time is mostly affected by when our newest batch of Y gantries will arrive. We are expecting them to be ready for coating by Thursday and come back to us at the start of next week.
*UPDATE Jun 3, 2022* Our new batch of Y gantries have arrived today and have passed QA inspection! We are packing up machines now to ship and should have things continue to go out!
About two months ago when we first started manufacturing the new batch of 1000 Y gantries, our manufacturer jumped the gun and started producing new plates before we provided the new revision of plates. Due to this, we needed to recut another 1000 Y gantries with the new revision and keep the old version in storage for use in the future potentially. Because there were already quite a few other parts getting processed at the time, the overall time for us to get the materials down to the coating shop was unaffected.
It took another week and a half to get everything coated, but just as the finished parts were loaded up onto the truck, the pallet fell, causing many of the plates to get damaged. We received a partial order of undamaged parts (X gantries, Z gantries, front and back feet, and controller box parts), but unfortunately, all of the Y gantries were damaged and needed to be fixed.
In the meantime, we continued to fulfill orders with the remaining number of gantries we had on hand. However, at the current time of writing, we are out of Y gantries.
About a week later, we received the fixed Y gantries, but then we ran into another issue.
We had changed to a new process of drilling and tapping holes, which referenced the center bearing hole to cut some of the smaller holes on the plate. Previously, we were laser cutting all of the holes, but we switched to the CNC method to speed up the process and automate the tapping process.
Although we are investigating the incident, it we suspect that the workholding was not done correctly on this batch of parts, causing all of the holes to be slightly off from where they need to be.
Initially, we did find that 1/3rd of the plates had the holes in the correct place, but after doing further checking we found that the tapping angle of the threads was also dramatically off, and none of the plates were able to be used.
Thankfully, our manufacturer which we’ve worked with for the last 6 years has been working hard with us to rectify the issue and implement new processes to eliminate this issue in the future. We’ve also sent a few of the members from our manufacturing team to set up another tapping cart and make a new batch of gantries as quickly as possible. At the time of writing, I’ve been informed that we’ve just finished 500 Y-gantry plates and will be shipping them to be coated on Thursday.
We’re currently working with our coating manufacturer to get this batch of parts to get coated as soon as possible and are looking at sometime next week when we’ll be able to get them.
For the original post: https://sienci.com/2022/05/31/bittele-sent-1oz-boards-again-makerfab-drivers-waiting-to-be-cleared-at-the-local-center/
Of course, to add to the issues for this month, the second batch of repaired driver boards for the laser still has issues. We are waiting on another batch of drivers from another manufacturer that should be arriving this week.
We have now started packing and prepping the parts for the MK2 48×30 machines and the Extension Kits. We are waiting on the production for the wiring and Y gantries to be done over the next couple of weeks, but progress on those is moving along on time and we are still on track to ship in July.
Parts that are being processed currently include:
Parts to start packing include:
At the current time, we starting packing and processing the new kits. Once we get the wiring and Y gantries we’ll have full kits ready to go. Here are our rough estimated delivery times:
Although production of these parts is coming along fairly smoothly so far, I am currently expecting the resources for the assembly to be one big hurdle to get through and may make a big impact on the timing of shipments. Of course, we don’t want to delay shipments, but we also don’t want to hand the product over to the customer without proper instructions on using it. We will put out more updates on the timing of shipments as we continue to develop the resources for the 48×30 machines.
So far, our beta testers have been using the extended version of their LongMills with lots of success. If you want to see Dana, who’s had his extension kit for testing for the last little bit, check out the video below:
We just finished filming our last beta tester’s interview this past weekend. It’s been such a great journey to follow along with each user to see how they grow and learn to use their machines.
Our last beta tester interview will be posted in about 1 week from now.
If you want to see the interviews, please check our playlist here:
Hey everyone, the assembly videos for the LongMill MK2 are now live on our Youtube channel. To watch the videos, please visit our Youtube playlist. These assembly videos provide just shy of 5 hours of viewing content, which goes through the nuances of assembling your machine.
Of course, if you get tired of Chris’ commentary, we have an excellent instruction manual as well.
A few weeks ago, Leandro, Scott, and I went over to visit Dale and interview him about his experience with the LongMill. It was a fantastic and fun trip for all of us, especially spending time with a fun character like Dale. Here’s our interview!
Just as a quick intro about the beta testing program, at the end of last year, we recruited three different people of different backgrounds and skill levels in our area to test the LongMill MK2. At this point, we were at the final stages of our development for the MK2 and were looking to iron out the rest of the kinks to finalize the production of a few of the parts. All beta testers paid for their machines, albeit with a small discount. Each beta tester volunteered their time and space to observe and interview them at each step of the process as well as testing prototype and production parts as they were made to update their machines.
It has been so fun to work with Dale. Just as a background, we would consider Dale a “superuser”. Dale initially had the LongMill MK1 in his shop that was used regularly for his side business. You might also recognize him as a very helpful and active member of our Facebook Group as well.
Because we knew how much he was using his MK1 and how long and intricate many of his projects were, we knew that Dale would really put the MK2 through its paces. And this happened to be true, especially as he took this opportunity to transition from working a job for someone else and transitioning to working full time for himself.
As someone who’s more focused on building, engineering, and selling CNC machines, it’s really satisfying to meet people like Dale who’ve gone from working a regular 9-5 and being able to work for themselves and express their creativity in their craft using our machines.
Dale is now also beta testing the extension kit on his original MK1 machine. We’re looking forward to all the new creations that’ll be coming down his pipleline!
If you’re looking for some project inspiration and want to follow Dale on instagram, make sure to check out his profile: https://www.instagram.com/theknottyhaches/
A common query we get here at Sienci Labs is “What should I order with my LongMill?”.
We’ve created a new step-by-step configurator to help customers figure out what they should be ordering with the LongMill. The LongMill MK2 Configurator covers all of the add-ons and toolings that we feel are relevant for someone getting set up with a new machine, as well as providing better info and transparency of what each item does.
One of the interesting results of being in control of how the order page looks on our website is that it influences the purchasing decisions of our customers and changes what is and isn’t easily visible to the customer. The consequence of this is that most of our customers purchase all of the add-ons we have on the product page, even though some of these items may not be needed for most beginners.
For example, we typically do not recommend beginner users to use or install inductive sensors until they have gained some experience using the machine. For the dust shield, we also don’t feel it is required for most customers. However, more than 50% of customers choose these options as default. Although it means more money in our pocket at the end of the day, we would prefer customers to be able to purchase the things they need and have the best experience possible.
Another result of this layout is that there are some confusion and order changes that happen, as we don’t list all of our add-ons on the product page. For example, we have our regular touch plate on the list, but not our AutoZero touch plate. Many customers have ended up getting in touch with us to change their regular touch plate to the AutoZero touch plate. With an improved system like the configurator, we can lay out more options and give people the opportunity to compare their options more easily, as well as reduce the overall clutter of the page.
We’re hoping that this improves overall customer and ordering experience, while better informing customers on what they need with their machine.
Depending on the reception of the configurator, we may implement it on other products, like the LaserBeam and LongMill Extension kits. If you have any thoughts or feedback, feel free to reach out and let us know!
Hey everyone, here’s our May 2022 production update.
Overall production continues to move along smoothly and machines are going out the door at a good pace. In a good way, we don’t have too much to report on.
Just as a reminder, if you’d like to get these updates as a weekly email newsletter, please subscribe here: https://sienci.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=720f140325aaa668a8aa09916&id=e18d59a085
We’re excited to be getting through the rest of the queue on the LongMill MK2 12×30 and 30×30 orders sooner than expected. Patrik and the rest of the packing crew have now pushed out over 400 machines over the last four weeks, and are expecting to complete the rest of the queue sometime next week. This means that new orders should ship in 2-3 weeks placed today.
Production has been moving along slowly without part shortages. Once the queue is complete, we are expecting to have enough parts to pre-pack and ship another 70 machines with the gantries and steel parts that we currently have. Another batch of these parts is expected to arrive in about 2 weeks, so we believe that we’ll be able to continue packing and shipping as orders come. After these parts arrive, we’ll have plenty of material to keep us busy for the next 2-3 months.
It’s been a while since this has happened, but we’re now at the point where our production capacity is exceeding our demand, and our goal is to get things packed up and ready to go as more folks get their machines and word on the LongMill MK2 continues to spread.
Hey everyone, just wanted to let everyone know that the completed order emails with the tracking information issue from last week have been resolved and the site is operating as normal. Customers should now continue to be getting emails with their tracking numbers as their orders are complete and shipped.
If you had an order during this time period, we sent the tracking order manually as they were shipped. If you didn’t get one, please feel free to contact us. You can check if your order has been shipped and where it is in the queue with our Order Status page.
Customers with order numbers 39363 and higher, or orders placed after April 28th, should see the tracking numbers emailed as normal automatically.
Thank you everyone for their patience, we’re glad this has now been resolved.
It appears that starting from April 14th, completed order emails for some orders (specifically for the ones that are for LongMill MK2s) were not being sent. We were not aware of the issue until we returned from our long Easter weekend. Our current system has been set up to send emails in several different stages:
In some cases, there may be additional emails, such as for software licenses and if we need to notify you of packing status.
At first, we checked the status of different plugins of the site, as updates were done on different areas to see if there were any changes to the site between the 14th and 18th. However, there were no changes to the plugins during this time, and reverting back to older versions of the plugins for testing did not fix the issue.
First, we received some error notifications from the site, citing some issues with the software license system. However, the issue was still not fixed after testing with the system disabled and rolled back.
Next, we also started receiving error notifications in parsing code in the code used to generate the emails. At first glance, the HTML was correct and was code that had been used previously for a long time. However, we found that the PHP version was updated on April 14th, which may be causing issues with parsing HTML in this case. Removing this code has fixed this issue, and the emails are now being sent without the parsing error.
We have reverted the email to the same format as previously through another method for customizing emails, which we expect will help keep the system working in future updates.
Hey everyone, here’s just a quick update about the production here at Sienci.
By the way, we are having a livestream on Youtube tomorrow, if you’d like to be part of it, we’ll be live at noon (EST) on Friday April 22! This livestream will cover some of the development work happening at Sienci Labs as well as a bunch of stuff about the LongMill MK2.
We’ve been working hard to get as many machines out the door as quickly as possible. Now, at the time of writing, we’ve just about shipped 250 machines. Our support team has been reporting that issues have been fairly low and comments about the machine have been overall very positive! If you’d like to follow along on our progress, feel free to check out our page here: https://sienci.com/order-status.
We’re expecting to keep up with packing as we are currently. Please make sure to stay tuned for more updates.
UPDATE: As of April 28th, we have fixed the email notification issue and tracking information is now being sent automatically as orders are completed. For more info, please see our post here: https://sienci.com/2022/04/28/completed-order-emails-and-tracking-notifications-are-back-online/
We’ve recently run into an issue (since April 18th) where shipping notifications for LongMill MK2 orders are not being sent. All other email notifications for orders (parts, bits, and other products) are being sent, and the only orders that are being impacted are the ones with LongMill MK2s. In the meantime, we are sending out the notifications manually, so please keep an eye out for them. We are continually working on fixing this issue, and if your order is showing completed on our Order Status page, please get in touch with us for the tracking info.
We suspect that there may be some bugs with the system as there was some updates that happened around this time. We’ll continue monitoring the emails being sent out so that we can keep folks updated as best as we can.
We are also experiencing some issues with auto-syncing orders with the Order Status page, so we have been updating it throughout the day. Please note that there may be a bit of delay day to day on the status of the items on the page until we fix the system.
We’ve now reached the first 500 machines sold for Batch 6, which means that we are now about a third of the way through. We currently are stocking 1500 machines worth of parts, with the exception of the rails and the gantries. We initially ordered 500 sets of rails and gantries to start the batch and we’ve placed another batch of those parts to come in soon.
Materials for rails which were slated for early June arrival have been completed early and are expected to be delivered to us soon. Some will be here tomorrow and some will be here next week. This also covers the rails we need for the 48×30 machines and extension kits, which means that we’ll be starting prepping and cutting for those orders as well.
Gantry plates and feet are in production currently, and we are expecting all of them to be cut, formed, and painted at the start to middle of May. Once those parts are available, these parts will be used for machines for the next 500 units.
Initially, we were expecting to start shipping machines after the first 500 in June, but it looks like we’ll be able to chug along with production without interruptions.
If you didn’t see Ikenna’s update for the LaserBeam, please make sure to read it here: https://sienci.com/2022/04/14/laserbeam-driver-delay-update/
We are currently working with Bittele and other PCB manufacturers to work on getting drivers in as soon as we can.