A number of customers have expressed concerns over the potential trade tariffs announced by Trump, so I’d like to address this in an article. The proposed 25% tariff on Canadian imports by President-elect Donald Trump marks a significant escalation in trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada. Framed as a measure to address drug trafficking and migration concerns, the tariff threatens to disrupt one of the world’s closest economic partnerships.
We understand that this may be a concern to our American customers, in case they should be expecting additional costs to bring their machines and other products from our company in Canada to the US.
Likelihood of a tariff being put into place
With such a significant amount of business being done between US and Canada, this tariff would potentially create a huge impact on both economies, with potential price increases for imported good in the US, and slower sales for Canadian companies. Additionally, this creates a burden on the customs systems put into place, which could mean longer times for products to clear across the border.
It should be noted that, at least according to Trump, these measures are put into place to address drug trafficking and illegal immigration by creating a potential economic punishment for governments that don’t crack down on these things. If both governments are able to find a way to solve some of these issues, it may mitigate the need for a trade war. Additionally imposing tariffs between US and Canada may potentially violate the USMCA trade agreements, which allow for easier trade between United States, Mexico, and Canada, which can cause other economic implications and political repercussions. The USMCA took over a year of negotiations and nearly 3 years to fully implement, and unravelling that could have serious consequences.
All this means that the situation is very nuanced and complicated. I don’t expect there to be dramatic changes right away, but we are keeping an eye on the situation as it progresses. There may be a chance that there won’t be any tariffs levied, the tariff amount is smaller than originally proposed, or it may be only to certain products and materials that pertain to us.
What happens if a tariff gets put into place
We intend to honour our pricing and responsibilities to cover duties and taxes for products shipping to the United States as we have continued to do so in the past few years.
However, an import tariff will impact our costs and the bottom line of the business, and we may need to address that when we know what will move forward with tariffs if there ever is one. We will reconsider pricing for our products once we learn of changes in the tariffs if or when it occurs.
From my personal experience and opinion, while there may be some tariffs imposed, the direct impact to us and our customers in general may be more nuanced, such as interventions from the Canadian government to support Canadian companies. There have been many changes in the political and economic landscape that our company has faced, and I believe that regardless of what happens, we’ll figure out a way through like we always have.
We are discontinuing the UltraBeam project. The UltraBeam was a standalone CO2 laser designed for higher-power cutting. This article outlines the circumstances and series of events leading up to this announcement.
The UltraBeam project was started and led by one of our employees, Ikenna. From the beginning of the project, Ikenna had expressed interest in spinning the product into part of a new company, separate from Sienci Labs. However, I decided that at that time, the best chance of success for the product was to keep it within the Sienci Labs umbrella and build it under our roof. Since that point, Ikenna has worked on the CO2 laser full-time.
Our company has gone through a lot of changes internally, and with that, changes to our company structure, distribution of resources, decision-making processes, and more. Alongside this, we’ve had a number of employees leave or get fired, which has affected the balance and relationships within the company. In the midst of everything, it felt to me that spinning the CO2 off into a separate company may alleviate some of the pressures to manage all of the changes and allow Ikenna to build a new company structure around a new product that was suitable for his vision.
We started working on a rough plan for this spinoff. The general plan was for Sienci Labs to transfer the prototypes, materials, and IP around the CO2 laser to the new company in exchange for a minority stake in the new venture. This meant that Ikenna would leave Sienci Labs and then work for his own venture. This structure would allow Ikenna to access all of the work he had already started without restrictions,
After his departure, it became clear, after some back and forth, that Ikenna no longer had the intention to work with me or involve the company in the new venture.
This puts things in a complicated situation, since as far as I understand, Ikenna plans to continue the development and eventual release of a CO2 laser. However, Sienci Labs still retains the intellectual property and customer information created during Ikenna’s employment.
Given these circumstances, I am putting a hold on the UltraBeam project. This means that there will be no new development or product release at this time. Additionally, I would note that external use of customer information and IP created and owned by Sienci Labs is a violation of our working contracts and any products.
Hey everyone! Thanks for posting your hosting/entertaining projects made on the LongMill/AltMill.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Dave Olson, Dan Philie, Tammy Erickson, Gord Waterman, James Prestage, and Thomas Loomis are the hosting/entertaining projects contest winners. A prize is on its way!
This Week’s Theme: Vortex Projects
Show off your best Vortex projects for a chance to win cool prizes! We’ll select our favourites and send awesome rewards to the makers.
Happy Friday! Thanks for sharing your latest projects made on the LongMill/AltMill.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Lou LaRock, Lonnie Clark, James O’Rear, Donovan Corbin, Max Crompton, and Lyle Biehn are the latest projects contest winners. Watch out for a prize!
This Week’s Theme: Hosting/Entertaining Projects
This week’s theme: hosting and entertaining projects! Share your beer stands, coasters, speakers, TV setups, serving trays, games, or any entertaining items made on your LongMill/AltMill. We’ll pick our favorites to send free stuff!
We are excited to offer two of our LaserBeam accessories for purchase in our shop.
First, we have the Steel LaserBeam Mount. Originally designed specifically for the LaserBeam and included with each LaserBeam System, this mount has proven to be a versatile accessory that many customers use in their projects, setups, and designs. It’s built to be durable and reliable, ensuring long-lasting performance.
Next is the Replacement Focus Finder Set. Every LaserBeam order comes with a full set, but we know how easy it can be to misplace these small parts. We’ve created this replacement set to help you keep everything in place.
In addition to making these accessories available for purchase, we’ve also added a Resources Page to our website, where you can download the design files for each accessory. Feel free to experiment and create your own versions at home!
The LaserBeam Magnetic Mount is now available for purchase! Streamline your setup by eliminating the tedious bolting process. Once installed, simply snap your laser on and off for quick and easy adjustments. Crafted with durable, high-strength magnets, this mount ensures exceptional stability and rigidity, delivering precise and clean results within recommended speed ranges. Upgrade your experience today!
Feel free to explore all of our other resources for updated information on LaserBeam compatibility with the ever-expanding line of Sienci Labs products.
Hey everyone, here are the Nov 2024 Production Updates!
AltMill
We shipped more AltMills out last month. We’ve ramped up production and you should find if you already ordered a machine that lead times may have gone down. We’ve worked on streamlining production, bringing on some more staff, training current staff with new skills in management and operations, and setting new production goals to move things along. We are aiming to finish both Batch 1 and 2, a total of 400 AltMills to be shipped and delivered by the end of Dec 2024. At this time, we currently have around 50 more machines left in Batch 2, so if you want to be part of this group, make sure to order soon!
We’ve now ramped up production for AltMills, and this past month we’ve shipped out around 70-80 units. We’re now waiting on some additional parts expected to arrive Nov 4th, and we will be aiming to keep increasing production more to clear the rest of the queue.
Some parts for Batch 2 have arrived, which means we are starting to build our next 200 AltMills. We expect the rest of the parts to arrive in November. We are currently ordering and building stock for Batch 3, which will be another 250 AltMills. Many of the parts have already been ordered for Batch 3, and we expect most of those items to arrive in Jan 2025.
We did run into a hiccup with our VFDs because this chip was changed, causing communication issues. Since then we’ve received a new batch of VFDs plus are expecting to receive new boards to replace these VFDs. This means we will have around 400 full VFDs in stock once our fix is complete.
This did slow our production a bit at the beginning, but we have been shipping machines without the VFDs first so that customers can get their machines ready prior to the spindles arriving.
Additionally, we’ve received a few messages from users about the spindles being wired incorrectly. We’ve implemented an additional QA step to check the full functionality and wiring of the spindle and VFD. Additionally, we’ve received some notes from users who have changed their VFD settings inadvertently, and so we are implementing a VFD setting lock to prevent users from changing settings without the proper precautions.
Testing setup, one of 3 stations
The good news is that the cables and spindle motors were here first, which means that they can be tested and packed first, so that we have some things we can work on in the meantime.
New batch of expressed shipped VFDs to make up for the bad ones
Additional to this, we’re making updates to the firmware to improve the communication and reliability between the board and the VFD. Although we expect the old chip to be more stable, updates to the firmware is expected to decrease compatibility issues for third party spindles.
As we mentioned in a prior update, we’ve been working on figuring out some improvements to make to make sure rails are straight and at the correct tolerance before assembly. Unfortunately, our current extruder continues to have some issues with having a good yield on these parts. As a way to mitigate issues and try something new, we’ve moved production to a new manufacturer for extrusions. This means we have around 200 sets arriving this month, and another 200ish sets being produced at this moment. The best case scenario is that the 200 rails we get in the next few weeks are flawless, but if there are a lot of issues, the new batch of rails should arrive a month or so later.
We’re currently working with two additional extrusion companies to build future batches of rails. These will be for Batch 3. We are also starting to work on production details for the 2×4 AltMills as well during this period.
Additionally, we’re working on vetting a few new CNC machine shops, as the shop we currently work with has been struggling with keeping up with the volume of parts we need, causing delays in their production shop. We are working on splitting up production of parts between different shops so that we can mitigate these types of issues.
In other, other news, our engineering team have started dabbling with the ATC spindle that we have in the shop. We don’t have any expected days we will have something available, but we are testing some different systems to make sure that third party support can be more streamlined, or we can understand and identify needs of the user for an ATC system.
ATC spindle
LongMill
LongMills ship out on schedule, within a few days.
LongMill Spindle Kits, which use same components as the AltMill Spindle Kits, have also been delayed in shipping due to the same issue. We have started shipping some of the LongMill Spindle Kits, and we are expecting to have the rest of the queue completed at the end of the month.
gControl Panel Computer
The gControl Panel Computer has now launched! You can learn more about it here.
The first 40-50 units, we are aiming to ship out before the end of the month. We have now sold over 100 computers, and we are working on ordering an additional batch to cover new sales. These computers are expected to ship in December/January.
The brackets have for mounting the stand to the LongMill and AltMill, we have received the license codes for Windows 11 IOT, and we are expecting computers to arrive on Nov 1st. We have been working on filming and making the resources in anticipation of the new panel computers.
I also had a chance to test the computer with Centroid using the Ethernet cable. This opens up a wider set of options for people to use their panel computer on other CNC machines. From our testing, it worked flawlessly. Thank you John for letting us give it a whirl.
Testing Centroid
Vortex
The Vortex Rotary Axis continues to ship as usual. We’re excited to announce that our close-loop versions of the kit have started shipping.
You can now find additional resources on installation on our Resources Page.
LaserBeam
We’re excited to share the Magnetic LaserBeam Mount, compatible with standard LongMill and AltMill mounting! This has been designed to make it faster and easier to mount and unmount the laser, rather than using the screws.
Magnetic mount for LaserBeamInside look
Shipping and production are proceeding as normal, we currently have 27 LaserBeams packed and prepared for shipment within 1-3 days. New Driver Boards have been ordered, as well as more LaserBeam Mounts. Both will arrive well before we run out of our current stock.
We will be adding two of our LaserBeam accessories for purchase in our shop.
First is the steel LaserBeam Mount. We’ve found some of our customers enjoy using this mount for their own projects, setups and designs. Although it was designed specifically for our LaserBeam, it’s a versatile and robust piece of material.
Second is the Replacement Focus Finder Set. Every LaserBeam order is shipped with a full set but we understand that the parts are small and easy to misplace, so we created a solution.
As well as making these accessories available for purchase, we have added a new resources page to our website where you can find the design files for each accessory. Feel free to experiment and try making your own at home.
Sine we can’t call our thing the “Sprouter” anymore, I’ll just use PWM Controllable Router for now (or just “router” here for brevity). Here’s a short demo of the speed control being used to play music while cutting at the same time! (turn on your audio).
We brought down the newest version of the prototype router down to Austin TX for the Vectric UGM, where we did some basic demos switching between different speeds. We’re excited to share that we’re able to successfully control the router using a PWM signal!
Since we want to be able to make sure the router works with other popular hobby CNC machines, we’re looking for some volunteers who have machines other than an AltMill or LongMill, who’d be ok with us plugging it into their controllers. If you’d like to offer your help, please reach out!
Thank you everyone who’s been suggesting names for the router. We’re likely going to have a more official contest to help with the naming of the product, so keep an eye out for that!
Hi everyone! Thanks for posting your wooden projects made on the LongMill/AltMill.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Brian Derman, Barb Taylor, Jonathan Clayton, Richard Lynch, Jen Taylor, and Mike Blanchette are the wooden projects contest winners. A prize is on its way!
This Week’s Theme: Latest Projects
Share your latest LongMill/AltMill CNC project for a chance to win free prizes in this week’s contest!
Happy Friday! Thanks for sharing your Halloween projects made on the LongMill/AltMill.
Last Week’s Winners
We are happy to announce that Jedediah Burger, Matt Loll, Greg Porter, Scott Gardner, Robert Mohr, and Sara Lynn are the Halloween projects part 2 contest winners. Watch out for a prize!
This Week’s Theme: Wood Projects
This week’s theme is “wooden projects”! Share your LongMill/AltMill wooden creations for a chance to win free prizes!
