LongMill and Extension Kits are shipping on schedule. There is currently a large queue of orders, so we expect new orders to ship in around 3 weeks. We were expecting to have shorter lead times at the end of December, but due to a high number of orders, we’ve kept our lead times to 3-4 weeks.
We are currently in the process of bringing on 1-2 additional packing and assembly staff as some members are moving into customer support roles. We expect having a few new members on the team will help keep pace with the new sales as well as for future products.
We are expecting our queue to take about 2 weeks to clear and lead times to come down to around 2-3 weeks around the end of January.
LaserBeam Orders
We are currently waiting on a new batch of fans, bodies, and heatsinks for the LaserBeam. These parts are expected to arrive in the next few weeks. Some orders will ship earlier than scheduled with currently available stock, but customers are advised that some orders may take 4-6 weeks to fill based on part availability.
Happy New Year! Thank you to all who participated in the “Freestyle: Any Project” contest, where we asked makers to share any of their favourite projects.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Emmanuel Mercado, Albert Tejera, Joelle Bowen, Pierre Gauthier, Brian Fancy, and Colby Browning are the winners of the “Freestyle: Any Project” contest! A prize is coming your way!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is a Charcuterie Board
This week’s theme is “projects that are charcuterie boards”. Post your best charcuterie 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!
It’s finally Friday! Thank you to all who entered the Winter/Christmas Themed” Contest, where we asked our community to share their best festive projects.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Papa’s CNC Shop, Michael Fickle Brite, Mike Marsing, Clint Christy, Jim Wright, and Thea Williams are the winners of the “A Project That is Winter/Christmas-Themed” contest! Watch out for a prize!
P.S. We will be closed for the holidays from December 24 – January 2, 2023 and back in the office on Tuesday, January 3rd.
The Theme for the Next Two Weeks: Freestyle: Any Project
The theme for the next two weeks will be “freestyle: any project”. Feel free to post any projects you want to share with us that were made on your LongMill. We will select the best ones and send the creators amazingly cool stuff.
Hey there! I hope its been a wonderful year for everyone. Please note that our offices will be closed for the holidays from Dec 24, 2022 to Jan 2, 2023. We will reopen for regular business on Jan 3rd.
Some of our staff may be around to a limited degree to tie up some loose ends and receive incoming shipments, but most of the team will be on vacation during this time.
Shipping and support may be limited during this time.
Support
Support through our contact form and phones will be limited during this time. If you are looking for help with something, please see our FAQ (sienci.com/faq/) or resources page (resources.sienci.com). If you can’t find an answer on our website please submit a ticket on our Contact Us page. We will reply back to your messages when we return from holidays.
Shipping
Shipping of orders may be limited during this time. If your order has not shipped yet or you place an order during the holidays, it will ship after we return.
Happy Friday, folks! We appreciate everyone who took part in this week’s contest with a winter or Christmas theme. We found it tough to pick our favourites because every piece with a winter or festive theme was beautifully created and made with great attention to detail. Observing all your cheery creations has gotten us in the holiday mood! We always look forward to seeing all the creative creations shared within our community of creators.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Bill Culbert, John Allen, Mikki James, Joe Cook, Anecia Green Thomas, and Katie Ohning are the winners of the “A Project That is Winter/Christmas-Themed” contest! A prize is on its way to you!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is Winter/Christmas Themed
Happy festive season everyone! Celebrate the rest of the season with us by posting your best Winter/Christmas-themed projects made on your LongMill to get us in the jolly spirit. We will pick our favourite festive season projects and send cool stuff to the makers. Happy holidays to all of you!
The business directory at https://business.sienci.com/ has now been sunset. Users will soon no longer be able to access this page (if it hasn’t already been shut down).
The goal of this directory was to help connect LongMill users and members of the public looking for custom CNC services. However, due to the lack of engagement, I have decided to shut the page down.
Looking to connect with other CNC users still? Please check out our forum post “Where is everyone from?”.
Hello, everyone. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who took part in the contest this week. We’re really pleased to see that you all utilized the information you learned from these projects you completed on your LongMill for other projects. We are aware that this journey may be challenging but the outcomes are incredible. We love seeing all the projects shared within the community.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Kevin Veliz, Jason Binkley, Andre Arseneault, Gavin Hutchens, Mark Lesinski, and Ed Barsalou are the winners of the “A Project That You Learned Something From Making It” contest! Look out for a prize coming your way!
This Week’s Theme: A Project That is Winter/Christmas Themed
Happy festive season everyone! Celebrate the season with us by posting your best Winter/Christmas-themed projects made on your LongMill to get us in the jolly spirit. We will pick our favourite festive season projects and send cool stuff to the makers. Happy holidays to all of you!
I’m excited to share that new macros for the AutoZero Touch Plate can now be found in our resources! This means that users who wish to use the Autozero Touch Plate with gcode senders that are not gSender can now do so with senders such as UGS, CNCjs, and Buildbotics/Linux CNC controllers.
We hope that users outside of the LongMill ecosystem will be able to use our unique touch plate for their CNCing.
For folks not familiar, the AutoZero Touch Plate is a revolutionary CNC touch plate design that allows for homing of both straight and irregularly shaped bits (v-bits, ball nose, and tapered) in the X, Y, and Z directions automatically using a unique chamfered-edge design.
Unlike most conventional touch plates, AutoZero also automatically measures and calculates the size and position of the bit that you’re using, allowing users to skip the process of measuring and inputting their tooling sizes into the software. Plus, with our gSender control software, users can use pre-built settings to have a seamless experience homing bits on their CNC machines.
One of the common asks that users have been requesting has been adding a 4th axis or rotary axis to the LongMill. We’re now happy to share some of the work we’ve been doing to add this support to the machine. We are currently in the early stages of development for this addition but have been able to get some good results from our testing.
A survey can be found at the end of the article, where you can help us understand your needs and get feedback and comments if you wish to participate!
Although things are not finalized yet, here’s a breakdown of a rotary axis kit we’re looking to develop for the LongMill. Our goal is to have a kit that allows for a plug-and-play addition of a 4th axis to any LongMill.
Motorized chuck and headstock, along with a mounting solution to the machine
Cables and switches for connecting to the LongBoard controller
Resources and customer support to help set up and use the kit
What is a 4th axis?
Most CNC routers like the LongMill use a 3-axis system, which consists of a X, Y, and Z linear motion system that is used to position bits and end mills. One of the limitations of a 3-axis system is the fact that 3-axis machines cannot make “undercuts” without flipping or material manually. Since the machine only can orient the bit vertically, there are limitations to the types of geometry it can carve.
To address these limitations, CNC machines can come with additional degrees of motion, typically including a 4th or even 5th axis. In the case for the LongMill, a rotary axis positioned along the X direction allows the machine to turn a part as the X and Z axis can move in sync as the material turns and rotates.
On a mechanical level, the 4th axis for the LongMill will come with a chuck to hold material as well as a series of bearings and pulleys connected to a stepper motor to rotate the material as the machine carves.
What can it be used for?
The best way to think about 4th axis is to look at it as a computer-controlled lathe. Projects that are best suited for using a 4th-axis include making table legs, chess pieces, threads, and other mostly cylindrical objects.
Who is it for?
At this current time, we are exploring the suitability of a rotary axis as examples of practical use are limited on the market. We’ve put a link to a survey at the end of the article to help us understand the use cases of a rotary axis by asking what the community is interested in creating!
Based on our research and experience, we feel that this is best suited for early adopters and people who are wanting to tinker with the technology and can accept that at this current time, it is quite primitive. There are quite a few steps to using this add-on and the learning curve involved that may not be intuitive to folks that are mostly familiar with the typical cartesian coordinate system. Additionally, there are a lot of new software features that need to be tested and created, and we expect software bugs in the initial development of the rotary axis that may be frustrating if it’s not expected in the early stages of this product.
Limitations
Software
By far the most important aspect of the viability of this project comes down to the software since a rotary axis is useless without being able to program it. At the current time, the number of software that supports 4th axis machining is limited and the ones that we feel are best suited for this application are paid. Some options include:
Vectric VCarve Desktop, VCarve Pro, and Aspire ($349USD, $699USD, $1995USD)
Fusion 360 ($1600/year)
DeskProto Multi-Axis Edition (€249.00 for the hobbyist edition, €995.00 for commercial)
From our testing, Vectric’s software, in terms of functionality, ease of use, and price, is our recommended choice.
We won’t get into any specific details comparing the software today, but it’s likely that when we start to create documentation for 4th-axis programming, that it’ll be done using Vectric software.
Electronics
It’s also important to specify that with the current setup, this is not a true 4th axis. Rather, this setup uses the motor control from the Y-axis, disabling the linear motion from the two motors and redirecting the power to a single motor that controls the rotary axis. At this current stage, the plan is to provide hardware that allows for switching between rotary and linear motion by connecting directly to the control board.
While this seems like a big downside because the programming of true 4th axis is quite complicated and not supported by most hobby-level software.
Users who wish to explore true 4th-axis machining will need to use a more advanced control system and sending program to control the extra axis. We are working on creating electronics and software that will support this in the future, but we are not quite ready to share these details yet.
Hardware
Due to the size of the LongMill and the size of the rotary axis, users should expect to be able to cut materials up to 4.5 inches in diameter and roughly 10 inches less than the length of their X-axis. So 12×30 and 30×30 users would be able to do up to 20 inches in length and 48×30 users would be able to cut up to 38 inches in length.
The longer the material, the less stable the cutting is, since the material is only supported from each end of the machine with a chuck and headstock. Further testing will show practical speeds and feeds at different sizes.
Pricepoint
During the development of the project, we explored using either an off-the-shelf rotary axis option or designing one from scratch. It turned out that at this stage, it would be difficult to beat the cost of an off-the-shelf option purchased in bulk since if we were to design and manufacture it ourselves, the investment into design and the high volume of custom parts we’d need to produce would make it economically unviable.
Additionally, the off-the-shelf option appears to be quite well-made and good value, and ubiquitous enough that customers on a budget and willing to tinker may be able to source the same or similar option and use it for their machine, rather than buying it straight from us.
We’re estimating a landed unit cost for a pre-made unit in bulk will cost around $200. Additionally, the cables and electronic hardware required would add roughly another $15-20 to the unit cost. We also may need a precision fixturing plate that may cost around $100. Once applying a margin to account for things like development cost, customer support, shipping, resources, packaging, quality control, and everything else that we need to run a business, we’d estimate a price of around $500-700CAD per unit.
Additionally, users should budget to purchase software, as at this time we do not have a recommended free software option.
Next steps
Our next step is to determine the demand and viability of providing a rotary axis option to our user base. If we see enough demand, we can start to invest more time and resources in additional work and development such as:
Sourcing parts to create a rotary axis kit
Developing new features into gSender to add 4th-axis compatibility
Design of hardware for mounting to the machine
Resource development
Stress and long-term testing
Our first step is to share this survey so that interested LongMill users can share their thoughts, wants, and opinions on what they want to see in a kit.
In terms of timeline, we expect to make decisions on the direction of this project by the end of January. Depending on demand, we’ll start taking pre-orders for the kit and start sourcing components. We expect the sourcing and manufacturing process to take around 2-3 months, which brings us to around April-May 2023 when users may start getting their rotary axis kits.
Survey
To participate in the survey, please click the link below. Your participation is greatly appreciated!
Using a new feature in our e-commerce sales tracking software, we can now look at all of our customers on a heatmap!
Here are some cool facts:
We have customers in 59 countries, including Aruba, the Faroe Islands, and Oman!
The United States represents our largest demographic, followed by Canada. We have customers in all 50 States!
We estimate that we have about 5000-6000 LongMill users in total!
LongMill and Extension Kit Orders
Last month we slowed down shipping due to a shortage of lead screws and linear guides. I’m happy to say that our new batch was expedited (at no small cost) and we are currently working to get through the current backlog. Although we expect to get through most of the backlog next week, we are currently keeping our 3-4 week lead time for the time being. Once the backlog is cleared orders should ship within 1-2 weeks. We will have an updated lead time once we have gone through initial quality checks today and early next week for the new batch of parts.
Batch 6, which consists of 1500 machines, is officially complete! New orders are now part of Batch 7. For changes and improvements we’ve made through Batch 6, check out the write-up from the last production update. Batch 7 consists of another 1500 LongMills.
Recently we had a few issues with bent lead screws. We’re currently working on testing all of them before shipping to make sure they are straight and don’t cause binding issues. Here we’re using an optical comparator to check how much deviation each screw has.
LaserBeam Orders
Orders for LaserBeams continue to ship as usual with fairly short lead times. Although we have stock, we are currently working on adding another 500 units to inventory. Due to a sudden increase in sales, we are currently low in stock and while some order will ship quickly, customers should expect to wait 4-6 weeks for their orders to ship based on part availability.
End-of-Year Holidays
As we typically do, we are on closing for holidays from Dec 23rd to Jan 2nd. If you have any questions or need anything shipped out, please reach out to us before the 23rd. There may be some of us providing limited holiday support and getting ready for the new year, but the large majority of us will be on holiday.
