Category: General News

On Thursday, we drove over to Toronto to the Mars Discovery District to attend a talk called The Future of Making Things: AI in Design and Manufacturing by Mike Haley, Senior Director, Machine Intelligence at Autodesk. It was exciting to hear about the new developments Autodesk in implementing artificial intelligence in design and manufacture and how these new developments will empower makers and engineer to create faster and better than ever before.

So what’s the first thing to get excited about? Well it’s something I call “conversational design”. With this new concept, a computer can take millions of different designs, interpret them, and figure out what how the object is designed to function as that part. Then the user can simply state the item they want to create, for example a vase, and the computer will generate a myriad vases. By talking with the computer, the user can describe the vase that they want or show it sketches or pictures, and the computer will continually generate designs that fit the description. The user can also choose between different variations of the design and select the one which fits what they have in mind.

While this is still under development at Autodesk, it’s extremely exciting to imagine a world where anyone can dream up a design, talk to a computer, and have the 3D digital design for that part without the user needing to know any knowledge about using traditional CAD.

Next thing to get excited about is intelligent CAM. Designing something is typically the first step in building a new product, but turning that idea into something you can hold in your had is another difficult step. CNC machining is a commonly used manufacturing technique, but can also be extremely difficult. With CAM software which can use artificial intelligence to create toolpaths optimized for speed and precision will radically change the field of CNC machining, rendering the need to create complex machining operations a job of the past while simultaneously bringing radical increases to productivity on the manufacturing floor.

Artificial intelligence will certainly change the way we make. It’s exciting to see the develops that are being made and how it will make design and manufacturing easier, and these new developments will bring us closer to a future where individuals can turn an idea and turn it into a physical object faster than ever before.

I just went to the bank to pay for parts to start manufacturing a new batch of Sienci Mill Ones! We want to have the inventory available to ship machines out in a few days rather than the three or four weeks so our customers don’t have to wait to get their machines. Over the course of the next month, we’ll be working on ordering and receiving all the parts to put together 120 kits while having the 20 or 30 extra machines we have after all our Kickstarter machines have shipped ready for order right now.

We’ve been in the talks with a couple of Youtubers and news channels as well who will be helping us reach new makers. With the grant money we have received, personal investments, and remaining cash from our Kickstarter campaign, our plan is to expand our company and put low cost, easy to use rapid prototyping systems in the hands of makers around the world.

The feedback from our Kickstarter backers who have already received their machines have helped us design improvements to our current parts, some of which have been slowly implemented as we ship machines, and some which will be implemented when we manufacture parts for our next batch. Stay tuned for new updates!

The 3D printers are back running again at full tilt! Our printers have been working on and off over the last few weeks since we ran out of 3D printer filament, but now with a shipment of 30kg of filament, we’re churning out parts as quickly as we can.

While we ordered 50 kg of 3D printer filament from our supplier, they were only able to provide us with 30kg. Not only that, they have told us that they will need to raise their 3D printer filament prices in the future. 30kg of filament is enough to print another 60 machine (just enough to finish producing for our Kickstarter orders), but we will have to find new source for 3D printer filament. At the moment, we’re talking with one of our suppliers who also stock 3D printer filament to see if they would be able to ship us filament at a good price.

In other news, we have been using the Cetus printer Chris recently received in the mail. It’s been doing a great job churning out these frame brackets. We’re expecting another 3D printer to arrive tomorrow, as well as a replacement to the Monoprice Maker Select to come in soon to help us create 3D printed parts faster.

Here’s a couple sets of parts in a box. We have made some changes to the design of some of the components to improve fit and strength as well.

I will get to uploading or updating the parts on our Thingiverse soon so if you have a Sienci Mill One, you can print some updated parts if you want.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working with a fellow we met through our mentor, Don Thompson, from the Accelerator Centre, connected us to in designing new custom packaging and co-packing solutions to help us manage our logistics. Rolando De Leon  has been working in the packaging and logistics business for over 12 years.

Not only will these boxes protect their contents better, but will also be slightly smaller, thus potentially lowering the cost of shipping. All of the items will also be organized in a new layout which will be designed to help with assembly as well.

We currently have a working design for the packaging and are making small adjustments to make the packaging even more secure. Our next step is to complete the ISTA certification, which will test our packaging and prove that our packaging will survive shipment around the world.

The testing will cover drop tests on every axis and corner, vibration tests, and more.

While it will be a few weeks until we roll out the new boxes, we hope it will absolve us from the tedious task of ensuring enough protection and padding is in the box.

Here’s some quick photos of the packaging:

Josh from MyShop Makerspace hosts the community maker meetup in Kitchener Waterloo every few weeks, and he invited us to bring over our machine last night! It was fantastic to meet a whole bunch of makers from the makers and see their projects, as well as talking with a variety of people who either backed us on Kickstarter or are interested in CNC milling.

Josh and Jon Kubassek run an awesome makerspace out of the Accelerator Centre in Kitchener, right beside Charles Street Terminal. A $40/month membership gives you access to a whole number of machines, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, bandsaws, sanders, and more! Learn more at http://myshopmakerspace.com.

In the area and want to come out to the next Maker Meetup? Find out when the next meetup is at https://www.meetup.com/Maker-Meetup-KW/.

Kickstarter backers who have requested a 240V router, our supplier has told us that the estimated date which they will be sent to us will be March 6th. This means that 13 of our backers may be receiving their pledge rewards slightly later than we anticipated. We will be shipping these kits immediately after we receive the routers.

I will be checking up to see the status of the routers to see if it is possible to get them sooner, and I will be working on other alternatives that may help us ship more quickly.

Thanks for everyone’s patience as we work to ship as quickly as we can!

While over the last couple of weeks we were hand milling the aluminum XZ gantries, we have finally found a source for laser cut steel at a reasonable price. I just went to pick up the parts yesterday afternoon and they are awesome! It’s pretty amazing what super high powered lasers can do.

I’ve painted the steel gantries black, and they are looking great!

In other news, one of our 3D printers have more or less stopped working. I had noticed a day or two ago that the printer was shutting on and off randomly, and a strange smell was coming from the control box. With that, I’ve thrown everything into a box to be shipped back for a replacement unit (covered under warranty).

I am hoping we will be receiving a new unit in a few weeks after sending this one off, but we decided to purchase another 3D printer which will hopefully arrive next week. We also have a 50 rolls of 3D printer filament on the way for pick up either at the end of this week or next week that we are waiting for, since we have nearly run out of 3D printer filament as well.

This week has been pretty hectic with a lot of issues, and I didn’t get as many packages out the door, but I plan to make up for the lost time by packing and painting as many subcomponents as I can so that when the 3D printer filament is here, we’ll be able to ship more quickly.

Over the last two or three weeks, our users have been receiving their Sienci Mill Ones and Chris has been working really hard to create high quality assembly instructions and other resources to make it easy to use the machine.

Thank you to Chris’s dad, Andrew Thorogood, for being our voice actor:

And Alex Gontarz from the Gontarz Design Studios for making our assembly manual:

Let us know what you think of these new resources! We’re working on creating more videos for our users, with topics like creating your first cuts, using CAM software, and more!

The Sienci Mill One is an open and simple mechanical platform which allows for easy upgrades that can improve the performance of the machine, making it faster and easier to use. Over the course of the last few months, small changes and redesigned parts for the Sienci Mill One, including longer eccentric nuts and aluminum XZ gantries have been included in machines which are being shipped right now. Our tests show that these upgrades have made it possible to mill 2-3 times faster than with our initial designs.

I believe that there is a lot of potential upgrades for the Mill One that our users can easily add. While some of these upgrades add additional costs to the Mill One, some users may benefit from the performance increase these upgrades. A stock model will perform quite well, but I believe there are some people who are willing to take their machines to the next level.

I had ordered a small set of parts to test on the Sienci Mill One to see if any would make a suitable upgrade, and I finally had a bit of time yesterday to try them out.

The first is replacing the delrin v wheels with steel v wheels. These wheels eliminate flexing found between the delrin and the aluminum angle, which allows for increased precision. Additional testing will be required to see if the aluminum will be worn away by the steel, but the results from this upgrade seem quite promising. With prices for these wheels anywhere from $4 each, to   around $13 from Openbuilds, this is a fairly expensive upgrade since the machine uses 12 v wheels in total.

The next upgrade we tested was a beefed up version of our angle mounts. These are 3D printed parts which hold the aluminum rails, motors, and the frame together. This is a fairly simple and inexpensive upgrade (if you have access to a 3D printer) and makes the machine more rigid. This upgrade should only cost about $5 in material and about 10 hours of printing time.

There are a few more upgrades that I will be testing and working on to make the Sienci Mill One better, and as our user community grows, we will see more in the future! A few things on my list include a HDPE frame, spring loaded ACME nuts, and more!

The first batch of Sienci Mill Ones are shipping. Just today, we’ve had eight kits go out the door, and we have another 70-80 more to ship out.

Packing and shipping all those machines is a pretty daunting task, especially when you have customers all over the world and several variations on kits. We had a fellow come by who our mentor at the Accelerator Centre have connected us with who will be helping us transition into a stage where it won’t be us packing items by hand.

We want to ship as quickly as possible not only so everyone gets their Sienci Mill Ones soon, but so that we can fill new orders and start developing new products for desktop CNC milling.

If you’re a backer from our Kickstarter, please check our latest update (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sienci/sienci-mill-one-simple-and-affordable-desktop-cnc/posts/1790950) for more information about your package and shipping.