Hey everyone. Here are some informative videos that you might have missed last month. Check them out below and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our CNC-related videos.
LongMill MK2 User Spotlight: Interview with Benjamin Pope of Koala Karvings
It’s been more than a year and a half since we launched the LongMill MK2. To capture valuable insights, we recently conducted updated interviews with our customers. In this interview, we spoke with Benjamin Pope from Koala Karvings. Join us as he shares his journey with CNC milling, highlights his experience with the LongMill MK2, and the opportunities it has unlocked for him.
Sienci Labs Presents: The LongMill MK2 CNC Beginners Kit
Introducing the Sienci Labs LongMill MK2 Beginners Kit—a complete package for an effortless CNC journey. The kit includes your preferred LongMill variant (30×30 or 48×30), a reliable Makita Router, a Dust Shoe for workspace cleanliness, an Autozero Touch Plate for precise zeroing, and a Starter End Mill Set for beginners. Plus, enjoy gSender software and lifelong technical support for guaranteed success.
Basics For CNC Beginners Series
New to CNC? Explore our Basics for Beginners series and master Vcarve from start to finish: document setup, toolpaths, previewing, saving, gSender interface, importing vectors, tracing images, and more. Become a CNC champion with essential skills and tips for a successful start!
Definitive Guide to Mounting Your Vortex Rotary Axis and First Moves
With assembly out of the way, it is time we mount the Vortex to the LongMill and take it out for a spin! In this video, we will cover how to set up your machine for maximum compatibility, create the mounting holes needed to secure the Vortex, and switch over to rotary mode for the first time! Sit tight as your Vortex will start spinning by the end of this video!
Cottage Country Sienci: Crafting a Paddle using the Tiling Technique on the LongMill MK2 CNC
Introducing Episode 2 of our captivating Cottage Country Sienci series! Dive deeper with us as we explore tiling techniques and the art of two-sided carving. By the end, you’ll be equipped to skillfully craft and customize your very own paddle for unforgettable paddling adventures.
Complete Guide to Unboxing and Assembling the Vortex Rotary Axis
Welcome to our comprehensive Vortex Rotary Axis assembly guide. In the following video, we’ll guide you through the gratifying journey of unboxing and precisely assembling your very own Vortex Rotary Axis. Let’s enthusiastically delve in, ensuring your Vortex Rotary Axis is primed and poised for optimal performance!
Everything You Need to Get for Starting CNCing With Your LongMill
Are you interested in starting your CNC journey but unsure where to begin? We have prepared a comprehensive video guide to help you kickstart your CNCing adventure. Discover the essential tools and equipment you need to get started with CNCing in our easy-to-follow tutorial.
Cottage Country Sienci: Elevate Your Custom Cornhole Board With the LongMill MK2 CNC
Welcome to the first episode of our Sienci Cottage Country series! In this captivating video, Scott will expertly guide you through crafting a lit cornhole board using the LongMill. This delightful game is tailor-made for quality moments with your youngsters at the cottage.
Building a Guitar on a CNC Part 6: Assembly
Time to SHRED X6! Welcome to the exciting conclusion of our epic guitar journey! We are thrilled to showcase the delightful process of assembling an actual, fully-functional custom guitar, crafted with precision using our LongMill MK2 CNC.
Happy Friday everyone! Thank you to the makers who participated in the contest for this week, where we asked you all to share your sign projects made on the LongMill.
We are happy to announce that Alex No, Andrew Neeb, Bill Howard, Dan Marier, Eric Sirrine, and Bill Nebel are the winners of the “A Project That is a Sign” contest! Look out for a prize!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is Topographical
The theme for this week is “topographical projects”. Show us your best topographical carvings, whether it be of a map, lake, mountain, city, state, etc. that were made on your LongMill. We will choose what we think are the best ones to send creators cool stuff to!
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.
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
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.
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…
So many beautiful tribute projects! Thanks to everyone who entered this week’s contest, where we asked you all to post your lovely tribute projects made on the LongMill.
We are happy to announce that Dallas Forbes, Don Rideout, Créations Namily, Dave Parkerson, Peter Labonte, and Rick Gauthier are the winners of the “A Project That is a Tribute” contest! A prize is on its way!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a Sign
This week’s theme is “projects that are signs”. Post your most creative sign projects that were made using your LongMill and share them with us for a chance to be one of the winners of this week’s contest and win free prizes!
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.
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:
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.
Happy Friday everyone! Thank you to the makers who participated in this week’s contest, where we asked you all to post your toy masterpieces made on the LongMill.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Michael Anthony Mascaro, George Morris, Matt Osterhaus, Ken Maddle, Pierre Gauthier, and Roger Jo are the winners of the “A Project That is a Toy” contest! Watch out for a prize coming your way!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a Tribute
The theme for this week is “projects that are tributes”. Share with us the beautiful tribute projects that you made on your LongMill. We will choose our favourite ones and send creators some awesome prizes.
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/
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.
Weekly themed contest time! Thanks to everyone who entered the contest for this week, where we asked you all to share your most difficult projects made on the LongMill.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Daniel Kerr, Bill Iverson, Emmanuel Mercado, Ian Doucette, Scott Cressman, and Ian Fraser are the winners of the “Your Most Difficult Project” contest! A prize is on the way!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a Toy
This week’s theme is “projects that are toys”! Post your dollhouses, trains, cars, figurines, wooden toys, or any toys you made on your LongMill, and we’ll choose our favorite ones to send cool stuff for free.
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.
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.
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.
Cutting Tools
We supply a wide variety of high-quality cutting tools and end mills for CNC machines including v-bits, upcut and downcut bits, and ballnose end mills.
All our bits are designed and tested specifically for CNC routers. Find tool libraries, settings, and feeds and speeds at https://sienci.com/tool-libraries/
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.
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.
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.
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!
Hey everyone. Here are some informative videos that you might have missed last month. Check them out below and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our CNC-related videos.
Building a Guitar on a CNC Part 6: Assembly
Time to SHRED X6! Welcome to the exciting conclusion of our epic guitar journey! We are thrilled to showcase the delightful process of assembling an actual, fully-functional custom guitar, crafted with precision using our LongMill MK2 CNC.
Making a Unique Tabletop Inlay on the LongMill MK2 CNC
Are you looking for a project that does not require a lot of programming? In this video, Dennis Harlock shows us how to easily take an oddly shaped piece of wood and turn it into a unique tabletop inlay using the LongMill.
The Cottage Country Sienci Series
We’re on the road, CNC in hand, headed to the lake to set up shop. We’re going to show you that you don’t need a big footprint or all kinds of fancy tools to create amazing projects on your CNC. Follow along as the Cottage Country Sienci series comes to life!
Building a Guitar on a CNC Part 5: Pickguard
Time to SHRED X5! In part 5 of our CNC guitar series, Scott walks us through making a custom pickguard on the LongMil to protect your guitar. Follow along as we provide you with all the files and more!
