Hey everyone. This is an update on how things are looking for the customs situation for certain LongMill orders coming into the US. Over the last few weeks, some LongMill shipments going to the US have been held at the border requiring customer SSN or TIN numbers to clear.
If you are in the US with a LongMill on the way, please read this post carefully.
This post is to inform everyone about the situation, what to expect, what to do, and what we’re working on to fix the process.
What is going on?
Due to changes in the shipping and customs processes implemented by the US Customs and Border Protection Services earlier this year, some shipments for the LongMill are getting held up at the border.
Why are shipments getting held up?
There are currently two main reasons why shipments are getting held up.
First is the high-value nature of some of the shipments containing LongMills. This article (https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-314?language=en_US) contains information about the clearance of shipments. While we continue to cover the cost of duties and taxes directly, customers still need to provide this information.
Second is the implementation of Section 301 Articles of China. While most of our products are made in Canada, some items are made in China. There is currently a trade war between China and the US, which means that the US will identify and apply duties to Chinese-origin items separately. This means that these parts are more likely to get flagged as well. We automatically provide the correct data for customs services, but sometimes this can require additional processing to complete.
Alternatively, you can send us an email or contact us with your details directly and we will forward them to the right place.
If you see that your item is in the warehouse, please contact us ASAP.
If we don’t receive a response within 10 days, we may need to re-ship your items.
What else are we doing to address this?
There are currently several things we are doing to reduce the friction in sending orders to the US. Some of these we are implementing right away, while some things are longer-term plans that may take several weeks or months. These include:
Updating our customs form to provide more information and mitigate the chances that the order will be held up at the border.
Proactively contacting customers and placing notices for people to follow to get additional information
Creating a US entity/corporation to help assist with the transfer of goods between the US and Canada
Establishing a system for communication between us and customs clearance to provide the information more quickly.
With over 60 shipments currently affected, we are working on this as quickly as possible. However, in the meantime, it is likely we will need the co-operation of our customers to help work with customs to get everyone’s orders to them!
Wow, what lovely projects! Thank you to all who participated in our “A Project That is Valentine’s Themed” contest where we asked creators to post their loveliest projects.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Homestead Acres, Corey Daup, Carlos J. Soto, Ron Rowland, Josh Epps, and Vance McGrath are the winners of the “A Project That is Valentine’s Themed” contest! Watch out for a prize!
P.S. We will be closed Monday, February 20th for Family Day and back in the office on Tuesday, February 21st.
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a Clock
This week’s theme is “projects that are clocks”. Post your most creative clock 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!
So many awesome tray projects! Thank you to those who entered our “A Project That is a Tray” contest where we asked people to share their best tray projects.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Laurie Woodward Iarossi, Glenn Boniface, Kirk Stiffler, Kristopher Teske, Randy Worley, and Steve Barnett are the winners of the “A Project That is a Tray” contest! A prize is on its way!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is Valentine’s Themed
Happy Valentine’s week, everyone! Celebrate Valentine’s with us by sharing all of your Valentine’s themed projects made on your LongMill, and we’ll choose the best ones to send makers prizes to!
It’s weekly-themed contest time! Thanks to everyone who participated in our “A Project That is a Cribbage Board” contest where we asked people to share their cribbage board projects.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Troy Ferguson, Brad Skjersven, Jason Harbor, Kevin Kasner, James Styler, and Jason Norris are the winners of the “A Project That is a Cribbage Board” contest! Watch out for a prize!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a Tray
The theme of the week is “projects that are trays”. Post your awesome tray 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!
We’ve recently experienced some of our customers having their machine orders held up at US customs. For some orders above the value of $2500USD, UPS is requesting customer tax information for clearance. We are working on eliminating this process, but either UPS or Sienci Labs may reach out to you for the extra info. Some changes to our customs documentation implemented in the last few days should mostly eliminate this issue, and we are working on automating a system to let customers that fall under this specific set of rules (US customers with high-value shipments) about the situation proactively. Currently, this has affected about 10-12 customers in the past few weeks, which is a small percentage of the overall number of issues, but we just want to let everyone know just in case this happens to you.
Please note that this DOES NOT mean you will need to pay duties and taxes, but it does mean that we may be charged warehousing fees if the item sits in storage for too long.
LongMill and Extension Kit Orders
We have raised lead times for LongMill orders as we currently have a large queue. We are consistently shipping out machines on a daily basis, but due to a big increase in sales this month, we are currently at full capacity. By next week, we will have another three new hires to assist with packing and assembly, which should bring down our lead times. Additionally, we are currently working on acquiring additional production space to relocate our rail processing and create additional inventory storage space.
We are also actively working on Batch 8 supply chain. Based on current sales numbers, we expect to start Batch 8 in around May or June. This is quite a lot sooner that expected. Although many of the key components for the LongMill have been ordered, due to the long lead times we face for some of the parts, we expect that there will be longer lead times closer to the transition point in Batch 8.
LaserBeam
Due to a shortage of some components, we have raised lead times for the LaserBeam. However, most customers may have gotten theirs a lot earlier. As our typical fashion, we want to provide conservative lead times. We have partially restocked all of the parts, which means that we are currently working through the assembly for the remaining orders in the queue, and expect to wrap up pending orders by end of next week. For new orders placed now, we’re telling customers that they may need to wait up to 6 weeks potentially, but it’s likely most will ship sooner.
We’ve made some design changes on the heatsink and wiring that we’ve started implementing, which will reduce assembly times so that we can produce these items faster.
Additional parts for the LaserBeam are expected to arrive around the start of March, at which point, we can pre-assemble and keep inventory on hand for Lasers.
The engineering team has continued to work on the rotary axis kit. Here are a couple of updates.
We received a sample rotary axis a couple of weeks ago which we have been using for testing. Due to some imperfections, we have been reconsidering our strategy for the production of the rotary axis. Initially, we were planning on using off-the-shelf components for the whole kit, doing QA testing, and shipping to customers, but as we have continued to do testing and research, we have started to reconsider and look at custom designing and making some or all of the rotary axis from scratch.
There are a few areas that must be improved to reach large-scale production, especially in the quality and tolerances of the components that off-the-shelf rotary kits have shown to be inconsistent. First is the edges of the bottom of the rotary axis, which need to be accurate to allow it to mount and align with the track accurately. Second is the motor mounting plate, which needs to line up with the rotary pulley. And lastly, the overall fit and finish need to be consistent and of good quality. We found that from the sample, these were notable areas that needed improvement.
When we started manufacturing LongMills, we used many off-the-shelf components as they were the most affordable at a small scale. However, as time has gone on, basically all LongMill components are toleranced and custom-made to our specific requirements, even if they are otherwise exactly the same as an off-the-shelf alternative. At scale, quality issues compound, and making custom, higher-quality parts helps mitigate issues and ensure fewer issues with assembly and use.
I share the same sentiment with the development and production of the rotary axis. For it to be a viable product, we need to produce hundreds (and eventually thousands) of kits. To accomplish this, we need to take control of the whole production process.
At this stage, we are currently deciding how we want to progress with the production of the rotary axis. We are doing a cost-benefit analysis and working on design ideas. As far as where we are with things now, for us to bring up quality, we also need to bring up the price. Based on our survey results, it seems like interested customers are able to accommodate some increase in price, given that we can provide more value for their rotary axis. It seems like increasing the price and budget of the project will overall provide more value, as we can dedicate more to the software, hardware, and resources for the rotary axis.
The software team is also currently working on the implementation of 4th-axis support in gSender. Some things in consideration include:
Visualization of rotary axis code
Switching between both modes
Homing and zeroing of the rotary axis
Firmware and control board changes
The engineering team has currently made tons of progress overall with regard to documentation and processes that will eventually be used with whichever rotary axis we will provide.
At this stage, we do not have exact dates on when the rotary axis will be launched, but we expect the earliest time for it to ship to be in late summer. If you’re interested in the project, I encourage you to stay in the loop on our blog and social media.
Hey everyone, over the past few weeks our engineers have been busy putting together feeds and speeds for the more rigid LongMill MK2, and Johann (one of the engineers) has decided to run the ultimate stress test by cutting a Versace Medallion in 6061 aluminum. The project features some big roughing cuts as well as precise finishing moves using four different cutting tools and we’d like to share the stunning results with you.
We used Fusion360 to generate the toolpath for this carve and the machining time was approximately 30 hours.
Click the links below to check out our new feeds and speeds page and see more information on the tools used.
Turn on REST machining and use climb milling when generating any of the following toolpaths.
Perform roughing with the first 3 tools using our suggested feeds and speeds. Leaving ~0.3mm of stock on all sides of the model. Use slotting step-down values for all 3 tools and values in the engraving section for the ⅛” ball end mill.
Optionally, run an additional parallel toolpath using the ⅛” ball end mill after you have completed roughing with the tool, again leaving ~0.3mm of stock on all sides (this will save you heaps of time running the ⅛” tapered bit).
Switch to the ⅛” tapered bit and run a roughing pass LEAVING ZERO STOCK. Feeds and speeds for cutting aluminum with a tapered bit is experimental so it’s only listed here at this time. 17000RPM | 1000mm/min Feedrate | 320mm/min Plunge Feedrate | 0.1mm Stepover | 0.12mm Stepdown
Shift your machine zero downwards by 0.12mm and run the finishing pass. You will need to lower your stepover to 0.02mm and exclusively use climb milling to obtain a good surface finish.
Happy Friday! Thank you to those who entered our “A Project That is a 2.5D or 3D Carving” contest where we asked creators to share their favourite 2.5D or 3D projects.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Alfonso Nardiello, Greg Settle, Ron Carpenter, Jack Daniel, Rick Escalante, and John Kinsman are the winners of the “A Project That is a 2.5D or 3D Carving” contest! A prize is coming your way!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a Cribbage Board
The theme this week is “projects that are cribbage boards”. Post your playful cribbage board 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!
So many “big” projects! Thanks to those who participated in our “A Project That is an Oversized Item” contest, where we asked makers to share their best large projects.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Brian Slevin, Dave Bross, Jon Zander, Créations Namily, Adi Ringer, and Mike Rickard are the winners of the “A Project That is an Oversized Item” contest! Lookout for a prize!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a 2.5D or 3D Carving
This week’s theme is “your favourite 2.5D or 3D carving or relief”! Post your favorite nature relief, multi-sided carving, guitars, flags, or any project that incorporates a 2.5D or 3D technique using the LongMill for a chance to win some free stuff!
Happy Friday! Thanks to everyone who participated in the “A Project That is a Charcuterie Board” contest where we asked creators to share their charcuterie board projects with us.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Jamie Bohach, Michael Parker, Eric Brabender, Travis Whitman, Michael Sonnenberg, and Jim Smith are the winners of the “A Project That is a Charcuterie Board” contest! Watch out for a prize!
The Theme of the Week: A Project That is an Oversized Item
The theme for this week is a fun one! Share your oversized projects that were made on your LongMill with us and we will select our favourite ones to send our creators fantastic prizes to!
Happy New Year all. It’s been quite a year in 2022. Here are a couple of milestones we’ve hit in the past year.
This post was originally shared in our internal company newsletter.
Launch of the LongMill MK2
In early 2022, we launched the LongMill MK2, the successor to the LongMill MK1. This was a big milestone for us as the LongMill MK2 was a culmination of learning and experience in two years of shipping the LongMill MK1.
Also with the LongMill MK2, we introduced a new size, the 48×30. This new size allows for the use of full 4ft wide sheets. It is now the most popular variation of the LongMill.
Chris and I are happy to say that the launch of the MK2, albeit with some hurdles, went smoothly, with our resource development and customer service teams handling these areas amazingly well.
Launch of the AutoZero Touchplate
Our launch of the Autozero touchplate is a major milestone in the hobby CNC industry as the first to allow for zeroing straight and irregularly sized bits. This project took a lot of time to develop, especially in the manufacturing side. To date, we’ve sold close to 1000 units, and this continues to eclipse the original touch plate in sales.
gSender development
gSender, first launched in closed Alpha in early 2021, has now gone through 10 iterations through 2022. This is an insane pace of development, with a new version almost every month. Some new features implemented this past year include:
Improvements to the surfacing tool, such as adding zig-zag pattern and overall stability
Addition of machine profiles outside of the LongMill ecosystem
We now have further established our health and safety at Sienci Labs. Thanks to Kelsey, John, Mike, Steph, and the rest of the operations team, we now have stuff like training videos, first aid, WSIB certification, eye wash stations, and properly stocked first aid kits.
SR&ED
Thanks to Kelsey, we made our first filings for SR&ED in 2022. This means we are able to receive nearly $300,000 in tax credits to apply against the corporate taxes. While the engineers aren’t thrilled to do the paperwork needed to make the claims, it does cover a substantial amount of our R&D costs.
We expect to make a new filing for 2023 covering additional developments for items such as the laser, rotary axis, and control board development.
Team growth
2022 is also highlighted by a big jump in the size of our team. In 2022, 10 new employees joined our team, with most new members being in engineering, software development, and marketing. Given we were about 19 people strong at the start of 2022, this means we had a 52% growth in our team.
2021 was an extreme growth year, with our revenues growing by 75.5%. This made put a lot of stress on our team as we received way more traffic than we expected. 2022 was a year of establishing our team. By bringing on new talent, we were able to streamline and improve many aspects of the company, such as inventory management, customer service, marketing, and resource development.
Revenue growth
While smaller than the spectacular 75.5% revenue growth in 2021, we still saw a respectable 34.7% in revenue growth. We saw a big jump in revenue in software and add-ons sales, as we grew our offerings in those areas.
The start of 2022 was quite slow, partially due to economic factors and issues with our supply chain causing lead times to extend and cause delays. Despite these issues, once we had them resolved, we’ve reached record sales at the end of the year, October to December being the highest in sales we’ve seen in company history and exceeding my initial projections.
Operational Improvements
There have been many improvements to operations. Some notable ones include:
USMCA certification: By creating USMCA certification, we’ve eliminated a large of taxes being paid when LongMills and other Canadian-made products cross the border. Those working in customer service would have been familiar with issues arising when folks needed to pay for duties and taxes, which this new certification eliminates.
Improved QA processes: Thanks to Mike and Jon, as well as the other engineers, nearly all components now have QA processes and documentation. This has greatly eliminated having to ship out missing parts and overall improved the quality and performance of the LongMill. Employees can now use tablets, calipers, gauges, and other tools to collect more data and improve the quality of our parts.
Katana to Batching system: Kye and the rest of the operations team spent a lot of time in 2022 establishing a new inventory system. Initially, we were using ATUM, which worked for the most part but introduced instability in the website. Katana took inventory management a step further, but the work order system met resistance with the packing staff. We learned that with the high level of experience our packing staff had, work order systems aren’t as critical. We have now since doubled down on the batching system that was originally implemented in the inception of the company.
Improvements to the 3D printing farm: 2022 brought a number of improvements to the print farm. While the Ender 3s were good in the way that they were cheap and easy to come by, at scale, the overall improvement to the print consistency and features like auto bed leveling and filament run-out sensors of the Prusa printers turned out to be worth the extra cost. Also, with the implementation of the Kanban system turned out to streamline the inventory tracking process as well.
Ron has also been implementing improvements using his CAD skills, making brackets to hold power supplies and USB cables, further optimizing the farm.
Extrusion saw and tapping arm: Given that the cost to have extrusions cut and tapped out of house would have been around $30,000 per batch of around 500 units, it made a lot of sense to bring it in-house. I’m very proud of the purchase of our sub $2000 extrusion saw as well as the tapping arm system that Mike, Jon, Dylan, and Nini has put together to make this process cheaper, faster, and easier.
Workshop improvements: We’ve brought in a lot of new tools and equipment in 2022, especially with Adam’s organizational skills and Mike’s retail therapy. Our workshop started off as a mess but has now been better tamed, with easier access to working CNC machines and tools.
Forklift: We held out on getting a forklift by using liftgates and other lifting contraptions, but the propane forklift was ultimately a great investment. With the new sea cans, growing amount of inventory being transported, and the cost of using a liftgate, we now use the forklift all of the time. It’s also important to share that we now have several staff now certified to drive the forklift.
Marketing and content creation
One of the largest areas of growth in our team is with our marketing and content creation team. With over half of our customers coming from Youtube, one big focus was in content creation. And with all the hard work, you can see we’ve greatly increased the number of engagements in our Youtube channel. Other marketing and content creation achievements include:
Establishment of our weekly contests
Improvements and optimizations to our Google and Facebook Ads
Improvements to our file management systems and use of NAS
A Sienci Tik Tok
Regular LaserBeam podcasts
Way better lighting in our videos
and more…
Filming bootcamp
Looking forward in 2023
2023 will be a year of innovation. I say this as our engineering and software development team continues to push out new products and developments which will play a significant impact in the establishment of the hobby CNC industry. Some developments include:
A new, smarter CNC control board
Continued developments and features in gSender
Rotary Axis
Continued development in the LaserBeam
Improvements to the mechanical components, such as the couplers and locking nuts on the LongMill MK2
Additional potential developments on the horizon include:
A new router/spindle system
New, unique end mills and bits
Heavy duty Z axis and other mechanical improvements to the LongMill
AltMill and YesHappy development
Plasma CNC development
First iterations of our new control board
Additionally, we expect to continue putting out more educational content and tutorials for our products. These include project videos, livestreams, and resource videos. This is expected to increase sales, as more than half of our customers find out about us through Youtube, but also bring more value to our community as we create useful content for the public to help them learn how to use our products.
As our company continues to grow and scale, it’s important to acknowledge the changes to Chris and my role in the company as well. I am grateful to have talented and hard-working people surrounding us to continue to push our company forward and take on many of the responsibilities that we previously handled. This has given us more freedom and satisfaction in our personal lives because of the talents of our staff.
Thank you to everyone who was part of our 2022, and we look forward to continuing our journey in 2023.
What do you want to see in 2023? Did I miss anything for 2022? Let me know!
Filming bootcamp
First iterations of our new control board