Hey everyone. NEMA 23 Motor Extension Cables and Inductive Sensor Extension Cables are available on our store!
We’ve had quite a few customers ask us on assisting with relocating their controllers further away from their CNC, which involves doing some rewiring on your cables on the CNC machine. Because the LongMill MK2 48×30 needs longer cables to work with the longer X-axis rail, these cables were initially designed for that application but will work to extend those cables in general as well.
Just to note, both the motor cables and inductive sensor cables as stock is 2500mm, which should be long enough in you’re keeping your controller close to your machine as most folks do, you won’t need to order these cables.
We’re excited to share a new product, the AutoZero Touchplate! This has been a long and complicated project that has been in progress for more than a year, with lots of design and manufacturing hurdles to get over.
Introducing the product
The AutoZero has one main purpose, to find the origin point of rectangular pieces of material. One of the main drawbacks of using conventional touch plates however is 1)the inability to use non-straight bits such as v-bits, tapered bits, and ball nose bits 2) needing to specify the size or diameter of the end mill you are using for the probing sequence.
Some higher-end touch plates can calculate the diameter of the bit to assist with probing by touching off the inner wall of the touch plate to find the distance traveled across two surfaces.
However, the AutoZero Touchplate is unique since it also offers a chamfered surface that allows the tip of v-bits, tapered bits, and ball nose bits to be used.
Lastly, we’ve made some general improvements to the new touch plates including:
Improved designs for touch plate wires, resulting in more reliable connection at the magnet and touch plate ends.
Nickel plating to help with conductivity and improved asthetic finish.
Integration with gSender, to make the set-up process super easy.
Cutout design to make removing the touchplate easy and to help visually confirm accuracy.
Pricing and availablilty
We now have around 600-700 units in stock and ready to ship. Pricing will be $120CAD/$95USD. Now to discuss the elephant in the room, these new touch plates are a lot more expensive than the original basic touch plate. There are a couple of reasons for this.
The cost to manufacture the touch plate itself is substantially more expensive
The product times for this item is very long and unpredictable
The AutoZero provides features not found on any other touchplates
In essence, the pricing decision for this product comes down to the fact that these are expensive to make and we can’t make a lot of them quickly.
To also make sure we’re transparent about our pricing, we’ve also compared our prices with some of our other competitors, and the pricing for this touch plate is in line with other high-end touch plates which lack the functionality of the AutoZero. In terms of a value standpoint, we believe that the AutoZero offers more than any other touch plate currently on the market.
We are hoping that we can continue to improve the design and manufacturing process of this product to bring prices down and make it more accessible to our customers. However, we feel that this pricepoint still allows us to be competitive and still provides enough profit for us to invest in research and development, as well as lowering the chance that we’ll run out of stuff (a common trend the past two years).
In terms of recommending this product, this is a very nice-to-have but absolutely not a need-to-have. The original touch plate offers a great value at $35CAD/$27USD, and has many of the same features and functionality as the AutoZero. The AutoZero is not needed for general use.
The engineering that has gone into creating this project
It’s safe to say that a lot of research, thought, and design went into this product. Here’s just a small peek at some of the things that we went through with creating the AutoZero.
Physical design and functional improvements
Here’s an excerpt from Chris’ design documentation:
Desired Functional Improvements for V2
There are many things that the current touch plate does well but there are possibly more features that we could integrate into a newer design while retaining the existing functions:
Stabilizing the touch plate when placed on stock material before & during probing
This can be accomplished by moving the plate’s COM (center of mass) to be further overtop the stock material, placing more of the plate’s mass overtop the stock material, or increasing the coefficient of friction between the touch plate and the stock material
This creates a more reliable probing operation where the plate’s position is less affected by the movement of the wire harness, the small force imparted from the bit onto the plate during the probing procedure, or by other mishaps like the user grazing their hand past the plate before running the probe sequence
Probing without the need to specify end mill diameter
Touching off two known surfaces rather than just one can allow for bit size compensation during probing, removing an extra step for the user
This can be done most easily by using a circular or square cutout or extrude
Need to ensure that enough wall contact exists to catch the mill flute at its greatest distance from its centerline
With our biggest mills being ¼” and having a helix angle of 30°, the largest span between peaks, P, would be = πD * atan(90-β) ≈ 16.13mm
The pitch on the ⅛” bits however is about = 8.17mm
Smaller ⅛” bits can have a cutting length of only 12-17mm so finding the right wall height to accommodate full contact on ¼” bits but not hitting the collet nut on ⅛” bits is a close game (collet nut furthest dia = 24.98mm)
Probing non-straight-style cutting tools
This can include v-bits, round groove bits, and tapered bits (no straight edge bits)
Although these geometries can be unpredictable to probe, all these bits have a cutting edge that leads down to a singular conductive tip which we could leverage to locate their XYZ positions
Using a very shallow geometry, we should be able to make contact only with the tool tip while still being able to infer the XY location. V-bits would require a 45° minimum for 90° v-bits and below, but tapered and round groove bits would require and even shallower tangent geometry
Possible probing sequence
Touch the bit to a top surface to find the initial Z height
Using the Z height and locating the bit near the shallow geometry, touch off the bit point in two X locations and two Y locations
Using these 5 probed coordinates, we can locate the zero point of the cutting piece
Ability to measure angling in the stock material
Touching off at two or more points could allow us to compensate gcode to accommodate stock material which hasn’t be mounted square to the machine
Coating the aluminum to avoid any future issues with corrosion or reduced conductivity
Openbuilds probe leverages 2µm nickel coating
Ideal design will maintain:
Thin profile to not reduce z-travel needed for probing
High side walls for straight bits
Low chamfered profile for tapers and Vs
Same starting point for all bits
Bit goes to zero point once probing is complete
Good weight and COM distance from material edge
Plate places to bit rather than bit placing to plate
Over 8 different design concepts were created before landing on the current design. Here are a couple examples.
Hole block Rough dimensions: 60x60x20mm Total weight: 147g COM from edge: X & Y= 19.89mm
Leaf plate Rough dimensions: 60x60x20mm Total weight: 127g COM from edge: X & Y= 20.12mm
Hole block Rough dimensions: 80x80x20mm Total weight: 206g COM from edge: X & Y= 28.04mm
Manufacturing and supply chain challenges
The new design also proved to have some design challenges as well. First of the design challenges was in creating the chamfered edge. The AutoZero uses a 170 degree chamfer at the bottom of the plate. Initial prototypes used a ball nose based 3D toolpath strategy to create the angle, but because of the scalloping, the surface was not smooth and consistent enough for use with. This was then changed to custom tooling to create the edge.
The other challenge was to get consistent nickel plating thickness. Since we were working with fairly high tolerances, the thickness of the coating and the variance in thickness would impact the overall dimensions of the block. So this meant that the manufacturer would need to control the coating thickness AND the tolerance of the milled block underneath.
And lastly, even though these parts were shipped at the end of November/early December, due to lots of shipping delays, the touch plates finally arrived just a few days ago, meaning that the transit time for these were just about 4 months.
As we talked about in our last blog post about the inductive limit switches, we had been waiting on the sensors. While the sensors were shipped out at the end of August/start of September, due to some shipping delays, the sensors took much longer than we expected. They have finally arrived, and we are able to start making and shipping out the kits.
Inductive sensors and gSender
Just a quick thank you to Garrett Fromme (https://www.youtube.com/c/IDCWoodcraft) and Dana Andrews (https://www.youtube.com/c/BuckysCustoms) who have been our beta testers for the past month and a half. We sent them our first prototypes of the inductive sensor.
During the testing of the sensor system, we found a couple of interesting bugs in GRBL and gSender. First involves the coordinate system. It turns out that GRBL counts the bottom left corner in the negative space. We’ve updated the latest version of the firmware for the LongMill to change this to make it in the positive space, making it more intuitive to use the sensors. You can now update to the latest version of the firmware using the latest version of gSender. Instructions can be found in our resources.
Second is the way that the gcode sender handles moving away from a hard limit. If you were to trigger a hard limit on the machine, the machine would not let you travel in that direction any further. However, since the limit will be triggered continuously and the machine cannot move away from the limit switch, gSender has been updated to allow users to move away from a triggered switch. It is important to note that other gcode senders may not have this functionality built-in, and the sender may need to be restarted or the machine moved manually to stop the trigger.
Ordering your sensors
You can now order the kits directly on our store. We are currently in the process of assembling and packing sensors so that we can ship them to folks as quickly as we can.
What coming next?
While the inductive sensor kit is a bandaid solution to add the functionality to older versions of the LongMill, we are planning on updating the LongMill around the end of this year to provide hard mounting points for inductive sensors. This means that brackets will not be needed to install the sensors.
We will also be adding more functionality and tools to utilize the sensors further through gSender updates.
Hey everyone. One highly requested add-on for the LongMill has been limit switches. For the uninitiated, limit switches are often used on CNC machines for 1) homing the machine 2) preventing the machine from reaching the limits of its travel. If you’re interested in reading more about what limit switches are and what they can do, I recommend reading the article in the Resources.
Please note that in this post, we are using the term “limit switches” and “homing switches” interchangeably. I do understand that there is a small distinction for both, but for this application, they are basically the same.
At the beginning of LongMill development, limit switches were not a priority as a feature when focusing on beginner hobby CNCers. This primarily came down to a few factors. First was the added complexity of having limit switches, which means additional setup and assembly for the user, as well as adding to the learning curve of learning how to use limit switches. Secondly, with the LongMill set up so that crashing the machine will not damage itself, limit switches are not necessary to protect itself. For customers still adamant about having limit switches, we still provided full hardware support to plugin or wire in switches directly into the controller, which would take care of a small population of more advanced users.
We still hold our opinion that beginner users do not need limit switches with their machine to get the full functionality of the machine, and we recommend starting out without them until a better understanding of the machine and its use is achieved. However, as our community has grown and along with that their experience, more and more users are now exploring new ways to bring advanced features to their machines. Not only that, the development of our very own gSender now allows us to integrate software and hardware more closely than ever before. With these things in mind, we’ve spent some time creating our own plug-and-play solution for the LongMill.
Creating a limit switch solution specific to the LongMill came with several challenges.
First was the lack of foresight on providing mounting points for limit switches. This simply came down to the fact that we did not integrate mounting points on the LongMill for adding limit switches. Later versions of the LongMill did come with holes and other features that could mount sensors, however, with so many different versions of the LongMill, it would be difficult to document and provide resources for installing limit switches for every single version of our machine.
Second was the voltage support of the sensors we need to use for the limit switches. We are using a variant of the LJ12A3-4-Z sensor as our limit switches, a very common and widely used sensor. However, almost all variants of this sensor are designed for a 6-36V input voltage. Although it is possible to pull 12V power from the LongBoard, the JST 4 pin connectors already integrated into the board which was designed to be used for a plug and play solution were designed for 5V only. In hindsight, it may have been a better idea to route the 12V power to the JST connectors, but this meant that we would need to purchase 5V compatible sensors, which do exist but are more difficult to source, to be compatible with the LongBoard. Our first supplier for the sensors created the proper wiring and plug set up for the LongBoard, but unfortunately, they were only able to provide 6-36V sensors which meant that we had to start looking for a new supplier.
The new design overcomes these two challenges. First of all, the mounting hardware for the limit switches will allow users to install their sensors to any version of the LongMill, as well as allowing the flexibility to choose which side of their axis they want to mount to. For example, some users may want to home from the bottom left corner of their machine and some may want to home from the upper left corner of their machine. Users only need to move their sensor from the front of the machine and remount it to the back and specify the change in the software to make the change. Second, we have re-sourced and tested a 5V variant of the LJ12A3-4-Z sensor, which will provide proper voltage compatibility with the LongBoard. This supplier will also be providing us with the proper wiring for a plug-and-play installation of the limit switches.
We expect the kit to be ready for sale and shipping around the end of August. Each kit will come with three sensors with a plug and play wiring harness which should have an installation time of around 15-20 minutes. The price for each kit will be around $60CAD or $48USD. Additional resources and software setup support will also be provided with the kit. We’ll also be publicly releasing the designs and specs for the kit for users that want to make their own setups. Please check our blog, email, and social media for further announcements.
Today’s testing of the sensors have shown repeatably of over 1 thou which should offer a very precise way to home the LongMill.
I’m excited to see the limit switch kit in the hands of LongMill users soon and look forward to seeing the rest of the development team and the community come up with ways to utilize homing on the LongMill!
If you’re interested in learning more about compression bits and how they work, check out our old post about compression bits.
When I started cutting this project, I realized that I had set the depth of cut too shallow as to not get past the upcut part of the end mill. I stopped the cut and started it again after changing the gcode. I guess this is a bit of a happy accident as we can show the difference between using an upcut bit versus a downcut bit, and how it affects the quality of the edge on this particular piece of plywood.
Because on the first part of the cut, only the upcut portion of the end mill is being used, we are pulling the chips up, splintering the top surface of the material. Changing the depth of cut to 5mm engages the downcut portion of the bit, pulling the chips down and leaving a smoother edge.
For this project, I used a feedrate of 1400mm/min and a depth of cut of around 5mm. The upcut portion of this end mill is 4mm long, and as long as your depth of cut for your first pass exceeds 4mm, you will be engaging the downcut portion of the end mill.
In any case, after setting up the job properly, testing shows clean, crispy edges on both the top and bottom surface of the material!
Hey everyone, I’m excited to announce the introduction of 1/8″ compression bits to our arsenal of affordable and high-quality end mills to our store! Compression bits work great for cutting products that are prone to splitting from both sides of the material, most namely with plywood and other softwoods.
This is a game-changer for folks that make signs and other plywood-based projects that require cuts that go all the way through the material. Our testing with this new compression bit results in clean edges on both sides of the material with little to no sanding needed.
So what is a compression bit? A compression bit combines both upcut and downcut flutes into the same bit.
With some materials, cutting with a regular upcut bit causes splintering and fuzziness on the top edge of your cut as shown in the project below.
Cutting coasters for StarterHacks
Using a downcut bit pushes the chips downwards leaving a clean edge, but cuts along the bottom edge of the part are pushed down, causing a rougher edge on the bottom of the cut.
A compression bit on the other hand offers the best of both worlds. The tip of the bit works as a upcut bit, while the top of the bit works as a downcut bit. Used properly, the upcut part of the bit cuts the bottom edge of your workpiece, while the top of the workpiece is cut with the downcut part of the end mill. This helps provide a clean edge on both the top and bottom of your part.
With any compression bit, you want your first pass to be deeper than the length of the upcut side of your flute. In the case of our 1/8″ compression bit, the upcut part of the bit is 3mm long so we want our depth of cut to be larger than 3mm.
In the case of the demo video shown above, the settings this cut was 3.8mm depth per pass at 1300mm/min. You can use any depth of cut as long as your first pass is larger than the length of the upcut portion of your bit.
Then the rest of the cut should finish with the bottom of the part being cut using the upcut portion of the end mill cutting the last layer of material.
P.S. We are expecting to get 1/4″ compression bits around the end of March/start of April so make sure to look out for that!
Hi everyone. I’m happy to announce that we now have 1/8″ Precision Collet Adapters for Makita RT0701 Routers available on our store. These collets are specially designed for Makita RT0701 routers which are commonly used on LongMills and other hobby CNC machines.
1/8″ Precision Collet
This collet serves as an alternative to the popular 1/4″ to 1/8″ Collet Adapter that is widely used with routers that come standard with a 1/4″ collet only.
Having the ability to use 1/8″ shank bits is great as
It can save money from buying smaller size bits with a 1/4″ shank as 1/8″ shank bits are significantly cheaper
It offers a wider variety of bits you can use
In most applications, users should not see any perceivable differences between using the Precision Collet over the Collet Adapter, especially for woodworking where overall tolerances needed for runout are fairly low. However, here are some benefits of using the Precision Collet
Some bunnies to test collets. With general woodworking both types work great.
Routers rely on a certain degree of concentricity when it comes to getting accurate cuts and lower vibration. This means that the center of the bit must align with the rotational axis of the router. We refer to the distance between the center of rotation of the router and the center of rotation of the bit as runout.
Runout plays an important role in how accurately your cuts can come out. Imagine that you have a 1/4″ (0.25″) end mill. If you were to drill a hole with this end mill, you should expect to have a hole that is exactly 1/4″ (0.25″) in diameter.
Now imagine that you have a run out of 0.005″. This means that your hole would cut 0.251″ in diameter instead of 0.25″. In the real world, we should expect a certain degree of runout from any rotating tool, and in some cases, may affect the accuracy of your cutting as well.
Checking the runout on a 1/4″ end mill
I have measured and tested collets to see how they look in terms of runout.
I would preface that the measuring tools that I have aren’t great and aren’t the most precise, but they are generally good enough to get an understanding of the relationships between the different parts. I also have done some real world testing by running some projects with the collets to make comparisons.
Here are some notes:
All the measurements were taken on Makita RT0701 routers one was almost new, while the other one has been used for several hundred hours. Runout on both was around 0.0015″ (measured from the shank above the nut)
Measuring runout with the 1/4″ stock collet using a 1/4″ bit produced around 0.0015″ of runout. This was actually surprisingly accurate, as this means that there is almost no runout in the collet.
Measuring runout with the 1/4″ to 1/8″ Collet Adapter using the stock 1/4″ Makita collet produced around 0.0045″ to 0.006″ of runout.
Measuring the runout with the 1/8″ Precision Collet produced between 0.0015″ to 0.003″ of total runout.
The runout of both the Collet Adapter and Precision Collet was lowest with the shank seated over the complete length of the collet.
This means that the overall runout between the Collet Adapter vs the Precision Collet can have up to a 0.003″ difference.
In most situations, this difference will have no perceivable impact as 0.003″ is about the thickness of a sheet of paper. However, in some applications, the extra precision may make a difference for example with:
Precision metal milling
Small engravings and inlays
PCB milling
Thickness of a sheet of paper
The other factor to consider is reliability. The Precision Collet eliminates the chance for a user to install the collet adapter incorrectly or in the wrong position. With the Precision Collet, there is no adapter that can fall, and as mentioned earlier, the better the “hold” on the bit, the less runout there is.
The Precision Collet should also reduce the chance of the bit falling out during cutting or being pushed into the router with every plunge cut with its more reliable bit holding.
Fully seating the bit in the collet decreases runout
Conclusion
The 1/4″ to 1/8″ Collet Adapter offers an inexpensive and relatively accurate way to use 1/8″ bits with your 1/4″ router. With most users, the difference will be minor at best. On the other hand, if you want to dive into cuts that require more precision, or want the comfort and convenience of a collet that can go directly into your router without an adapter, the 1/8″ Precision Collet is a great option.
Hey guys, we’re excited to announce that we have a couple of new bits added to our store!
These were designed and manufactured from some of your suggestions on what other bits we should add to our store. Ball nose and tapered bits are great for making curved surfaces (such as the bottom of dishes and marble mazes) and relief designs (2.5/3D carvings).
We’ll have these bits on sale until Tuesday Sept 29, 2020 for 25% off (until supplies last)!
We’ve had a lot of folks highly recommend Vectric software for their LongMills, so we’ve decided to become their official reseller to sell their software. We’ve started with selling VCarve Desktop as it provides 2D and 3D carving functionality, includes great tutorials and resources, and design for 2D and 3D projects. VCarve Desktop comes with the limitation in work area of 24″x24″, but can be upgraded to VCarve Pro which has no work area limitation by paying the difference in price. https://sienci.com/product/vectric-vcarve-desktop-v10/
We’ve decided to offer the LongBoard CNC Controller as an item on our store for folks who want to build their own CNC machines and routers.
Current options for higher power (above 2.5A per motor) CNC hobby CNC controllers are hard to find, especially for an all in one, plug and play system. Most hobbyists must resort to building their electronics from many separated pieces, which can be complicated, time-consuming, and difficult to troubleshoot.
We built and designed the LongBoard controller to eliminate the need to do all the wiring and assembly to build the electronics for CNC machines. The LongBoard Controller stands out as a robust, simple, and affordable CNC control option. https://sienci.com/product/longboard/
We now offer rails for sale available on our store if you are trying to upgrade from a smaller to a larger size LongMill, or just need to buy rails and lead screws for your own project.https://sienci.com/product/size-upgrades-for-the-longmill/
