Category: Production Updates

Hey everyone, here is our April 2022 production update.

Just as a reminder, if you’d like to get these updates as a weekly email newsletter, please subscribe here: https://sienci.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=720f140325aaa668a8aa09916&id=e18d59a085

I’m happy to announce that the LongMill MK2s are now shipping! We received our container last week and have started shipping since. Here’s some customer feedback from one of the first people to pick it up:

MK2 Production

At this current time, we now have enough materials on hand to ship around 500 machines. Our team continues to pack and assemble kits as quickly as we can. At the time of writing, we’ve gotten 48 machines shipped out since last Thursday.

For general updates on where your order is on the list, please see our Order Status page. An estimated time for shipping can also be found on the page. We are aiming to average around 50 machines shipped per week. Please note that this number can vary a lot depending on staff availability and production schedules. Please also note that this is an average we are shooting for, but the number may vary day-to-day, as some days we may be able to ship more than others. Because of this, we cannot provide exact dates on when machines will ship for each order, but an email will be sent the week before your order is ready to ship to let you prepare and let you know that things are heading your way.

I’ve updated the estimated time to completion on our Order Status page to reflect our expected delivery times. Please make sure to check it out for our latest estimate on when your machine will ship.

We are expecting the first week to be a little bit slower and for things to pick up as we keep packing since some of our new packing material which was designed to improve our packing speed has not arrived yet and we are using general off-the-shelf material in the meantime. The new packing material is expected to arrive this week, but it has previously been pushed back a few times and it hasn’t been clear the exact delivery date due to cardboard shortages.

Materials

We now currently have the material needed to build the next 500ish machines, which means that we have everything we need to cover all of the machines in queue currently. We are still waiting on some additional packing material to arrive, but for the time being, we’ve substituted final production packaging with some off-the-shelf materials we were able to use in the meantime.

After the first 500 units, we’ll be waiting on another batch of gantries and rails to arrive, which is expected to arrive between the end of April and the start of June. The arrival of these materials is likely to affect our lead times down the line.

Purchasing for materials for Batch 7 has also started, which should put us around August-September when we’ll start Batch 7.

LaserBeam

Power supplies and heatsinks for the LaserBeam have arrived, and we are currently packing and assembling kits. Here’s one of our staff putting together the laser and heatsinks.

We’re expecting to start shipping the kits out at the end of the week this week or the start of next week. Ikenna is waiting on Bittele to wrap up the PCB assembly to finish up the drivers on Thursday. There were some delays due to chip and parts shortages for the assembly, but the boards have started fabrication last week. We’ll have around 400 new drivers arriving to wrap up the production for the rest of the LaserBeams.

Other general updates

Chris has made a lot of progress in the assembly instructions for the MK2 machines. Make sure to check it out in the resources. Thank you Aleks for being part of this project as well!

I also wanted to share some pics of the new power supply:

You can see that when you cut it open (I used an angle grinder), it is completely encapsulated. Although this is pretty overkill, this construction will basically make the power supply impervious to dust and moisture.

Did you see our April Fools video?

Ikenna initially suggested the idea of making a lasergun using the LaserBeam. I thought that it was a great idea so I put one together.

The Not-a-LaserGun was partially inspired also by the Not-a-Flamethrower, which was a flamethrower created by Elon Musk.

Basically, the Not-a-LaserGun takes the LaserBeam diode assembly and driver assembly and replaces the power supply with a 12V 8A battery to allow the user to use the laser on battery power. Everything was then put into a case that was 3D printed in multiple parts. An Arduino was used to generate an on-signal when the trigger is fired.

The result of this was basically a super-powerful laser pointer that can burn stuff.

Extension Kits and MK2 48x30s

We now have three people with the extension kits. Dale, Garrett, and Dana. These guys also all have MK2 machines as well, so they will be able to compare the MK1 and MK2 as well. So far, the response has been very positive, with very few issues with the overall setup. There are a few kinks to work out however which include

• Proper defaults and integration on gSender
• Testing and finalizing designs for wire management
• Instructions and other resources for assembly and use

We’ve asked our users and testers to start extending their MK1 machines since…well this is what I said:

We also just got in the aluminum part to adapt the new T12 nuts for the T8 spacing (used on the MK1 machines).

Please keep an eye out for further development updates and other feedback!

Hey everyone, this is an update for this month’s production update, covering the status of some of the parts that we are waiting on to have come in as well as other details.

If you’re learning about the LongMill MK2 for the first time, please check out this post for more info.

Just as a reminder, if you’d like to get these updates as a weekly email newsletter, please subscribe here: https://sienci.us13.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=720f140325aaa668a8aa09916&id=e18d59a085

The TL;DR

We now have a definitive answer on when the power supplies we need to start shipping LaserBeams and LongMills again will be arriving to us. The container of parts and materials has been loaded onto the train this past weekend (March 19) and are expected to arrive in Brampton at the end of the week (March 25). Unloading to the warehouse can take between a few days up to two weeks. So we are conservatively estimating that the first units will start shipping at the start of April.

When will the LongMill MK2s start shipping? The saga of delayed container MAGU5348230

The last time we had a “saga” was back when we were scrambling to figure out the v-wheel situation. 2021 and 2022 shipping delays, especially for that last batch of parts have been another epic saga in itself.

Around June last year, we started Batch 5. Knowing the current world situation with COVID and everything, we started production on Batch 6 in the first quarter part of the production of Batch 5. This was the earliest we ever started sourcing parts for a batch, as we typically wait for the middle of the batch to start ordering parts. Batch 6 is also the largest batch we’ve ever created, as we wanted to hedge having part shortages by keeping more inventory on hand. With the majority of parts produced for Batch 6 being produced between August and December of last year, we expected to have a lot of buffer between each batch.

Well, then things went gangbusters from August to the start of this year, throwing our projection that we were going to run out of machines at the start of 2022 straight out the window. Instead, we ran out of LongMills sometime in December.

Given that we saw this upward trend happening, we had ordered as much stuff as we could early in advance. But there were a couple of minor issues. One of the biggest that is having repercussions now would be the chip shortage.

Due to the chip shortage, our regular suppliers for power supplies were 1) significantly increasing their prices 2) had an extremely long lead time that couldn’t deliver on schedule for our production. It was also uncertain if the power supplies could even be made, as the estimates we were getting relied on whether the chips would actually come back in stock again. With this going on, we started vetting and testing power supplies from other suppliers. For many producers, it was a similar story of very high prices and being unable to ship quickly due to the lack of chips.

Luckily we were able to work out the production for the power supplies with another manufacturer that was able to provide a high-quality product with the proper certifications and also have everything completed and ready to ship by December 1, 2021. Materials were picked up from the factory and prepped for transport on a cargo ship.

Although it was cutting it tight, we let customers know that we were expecting to start shipping LongMills in February to end of March, which would have given us just about 4 months to wait for the arrival of the power supplies. Back before the pandemic, ocean shipping speeds were fairly consistent and reliable, typically taking around 6 weeks for materials to arrive from China. Most delays, if any would generally be with loading and unloading, as sometimes things would get held up with customs or waiting for the next ship to arrive. During the pandemic, we saw shipping times shoot up to 8 weeks, and near the end of 2021, get to 12 weeks.

The estimated time that the power supplies and other parts would be arriving was January 30th initially, and we first set up our timelines based on this initial estimate. However, that has shifted due to delays in shipping. There were a couple things we believe caused these delays.

First was the aggregation of three other shipments that were getting sent here from China. We had two other shipments that were leaving from the same shipping company. We suspect that the shipper aggregated them together to save costs, rather than creating three separate shipments. Although when done properly, this does not affect the shipping time and usually is a win-win for both parties if the savings are passed onto us as well, combining shipments generally creates longer shipping times as each batch of cargo needs to wait on each other and can cause customs complications. Because of this, we never ask our shippers to combine cargo, and this was done without our consent.

Unfortunately, if we were to cancel the shipment, the time it would have taken to rebook shipments would offset any potential time savings for the shipment, so we had to go ahead with the current shipment.

Next was the trajectory of APL Vancouver, the cargo ship our stuff was on. Cargo ships can either make a straight trip from one port to another, and some will pick up and drop off cargo from multiple ports. In this case, it was the latter. Due to port congestion happening in many ports, this also added total transit time for our shipment. We weren’t aware of this until it was halfway across the ocean as well.

And lastly, general port congestion in Prince Rupert and on the rail system further delayed the shipment. According to Vanterm, the location that the container finally arrived at in Canada, there have been railcar shortages delaying containers from moving out of the rail terminal. Although our shipment arrived on Feb 13, 2022, it had been sitting waiting for rail cars to arrive for over 4 weeks.

So where does that leave us now? We now have confirmation that the shipment is now on rail and is expected to arrive on March 25th. Once the cargo arrives in Brampton, which is where the next railyard is, it will be unloaded and placed in a warehouse for pickup. Then we can arrange a truck to pick our shipment up and we’ll have everything ready to go for shipping.

Based on estimates from the shipping company, it takes roughly two days for unloading the train and two days for it to arrive at the warehouse. We are working on arrangements for a truck to go pick up the parts now so that it will be here the same day it is released.

So in regards to everything else, once we have those power supplies, we can start shipping. We have all of the other parts here to start shipping (minus some final packing materials), so we’ve been packing and prepping everything to go as soon as possible. As Kye (inventory manager) would say…

I’m glad that the saga is coming to an end. In hindsight, there could have been a couple of things we could have done and a few things we learned. One of them would have been to express ship a small batch from the original batch of parts to have them on hand as an emergency. Second would have been to get more visability on the status of the shipment. One of the problems was that on the system, it was showing that our stuff would be arriving on time, but that was because our operator was not updating the system. We needed to find info out about the shipments by calling or emailing directly. If we were aware of the delays earlier, we may have been able to react faster and make other arrangements.

Status of materials

In our last update, we talked about parts that were expected to arrive on the week of March 7th. I’m happy to announce that these parts have now arrived and are being packed and assembled:

• X, Y, Z gantries
• Dust shoe brackets
• Drag chain brackets
• Dust shields
• V-wheels
• Cables
• Assorted packaging
• 3D printer filament
• Inductive sensors

Here are the parts that we are still waiting on:

• Power supplies (1-3 weeks)
• Dust shoe boxes (this week)
• Rail boxes (this week)

Production and assembly

We’ve been making good headway into production and assembly, and materials needed to ship the first batch of machines that we have on hand have now been pre-packed.

Future lead times

Once container MAGU5348230 arrives, we will have 1500 or more units worth of components for the LongMill MK2 12×30 and 30×30 with some exceptions. The two major parts that will be our next bottlenecks are likely to be the aluminum extrusion and the steel parts (gantries, drag chain mounts, feet). Both the rails and steel parts were made at 500 units worth, so we can make tweaks to these parts after the first batch.

Even with delays, sales have continued to be strong. We currently have around 400 units accounted for, and are expecting 500 units sold in the next couple of weeks.

Currently, another batch of rails is expected to ship in early June for another 500 units. We may be looking at extending lead times once we sell the first 500 LongMills as we may be waiting for the next batch of rails to arrive. Almag has been good at getting things shipped out on time or early so there is a chance we might get these parts earlier.

Steel parts are now starting production. We’ve given the go-ahead for some parts that don’t need changes, but we are expecting to finish the tweaks this week. Nithside, our manufacturer for the steel parts has told us that they are shooting to finish the batch this time within 3 weeks, as they were able to streamline some of their processes during the last batch. Total turnaround time with cutting, forming, and coating is expected to be around 6 weeks.

Once we are a bit further into the production, we’ll update our pages with new lead times.

LaserBeam

I talked with Ikenna about the status of the pending LaserBeam orders. We were able to ship some once we had more power cables arrive, but we are now waiting on copper heatsinks and power adapters to arrive to complete the production. The parts that we need for shipping are in container MAGU5348230, so we are facing the same delays as the power supplies for the LongMills.

We are currently producing and stockpiling parts and assemblies for the driver enclosure and shields, and we also have received another batch of laser goggles, fans, and lenses to cover for the next batch.

LongMill MK2 48×30 and Extension Kits

We’ve now received the:

• T12 lead screws
• 6001 Flange Bearings
• T12 Delrin nuts
• T12 ACME nuts
• Longer drag chains

To get prepped for shipping, we still need to get:

• Extension cables and wiring
• Y gantry plates
• MK1 to MK2 Delrin nut adapter

We just received our sample batch of extension cables. These will let our customers extend the length of the motor cables and inductive sensors. One they have been checked and tested, we’ll order a batch. We’ll also sell these on the store as extras so that customers can extend their cables if they need.

I’ve been using our 48×30 machine here and it’s been great! Currently, it’s just been used for general projects both large and small. Here’s a subwoofer box that I was working on for my car.

One thing I realized that was actually super handy about the 48in width was the fact that I didn’t need to cut any material down to fit the machine. All I did was put some half sheets of MDF that we had on hand, and just moved the mounting for the material down the middle, so I could just reposition the material to the area I wanted to cut.

I also put together a prototype machine for the MK1 to MK2 extension kits. At first I had a lot of issues with it, as it was getting stuck in travel, but it turned out that I had used a bad batch of prototype plates that had offset the bearing spacing by 3mm, causing the machine to bind. Replacing them has fixed the issue.

We are now starting to work with our beta testers to get the larger machines in their hands. The first two beta testers will receive their machines this week. Watch out for more news!

Hey everyone, here’s the latest production update. For previous updates, please read our blog.

Materials are arriving

We’ve received a large number of materials over the last couple of weeks including some of the steel parts, power and USB cables, packaging, dust shoe parts, end mills, and more. We’ve made good progress doing the packing and processing, with most of the materials we’ve gotten in prepared for shipping once we receive everything.

We’re also expecting 3D printing filament, gantries, control boards, and other steel parts, and v-wheels to arrive any day now, as transport has been booked and are awaiting delivery this week.

Waiting on materials to arrive

We continue to wait on the shipment of power supplies for the LongMill and LaserBeam and other parts that arrived on Feb 13 at Prince Rupert. Due to rail congestions, we are still waiting on these parts to arrive. According to our updated tracking info, it is expected to arrive in the next two weeks. However, due to the uncertainty with when these parts will be moved onto rail, as well as potential transit time for truck freight from the Mississauga warehouse, we would advise customers that this shipment may not reach our shop until the end of the month.

We are frustrated with the delays in these shipments, as this shipment was expected to arrive at the end of January. We are hoping that these items will arrive soon, and in the meantime, we are doing our best to pre-pack as much as we can so that we can ship machines out as quickly as we can when they do.

By the end of this week, we are expecting to have all of the materials ready to ship the MK2s with the exception of the power supplies, which will be our biggest bottleneck.

Given these delays, for new orders placed today and onwards, customers should expect to receive their machines in April/May.

Packing progress

We’ve been processing materials as they come in. Most of the day-to-day packing isn’t super interesting but we did make a small modification to the printers in our print farm that some folks might find interesting. With the new MK2 dust shoes, the height of the hose comes out to be around 196mm. Unfortunately, the printing height of the Prusa Minis we have in the farm, which make up the majority of the printers we have, only print up to 185mm. Initially, we printed the hoses on some of the other printers we have in the farm, we weren’t able to keep up with the number of hoses we needed to print. So, we had the brilliant idea to just make the Prusa Minis a little bit taller. After making a small simple spacer, we’re now able to print the dust shoe hoses on the Prusa Minis!

Now with 6 of our printers converted, we can now print up to 18 dust shoe hoses per day, meaning that we should be caught up with the printing in the next two to three weeks.

We’re also excited to get our 3KG filament spools to replace the 1KG spools, which means that we’ll be able to reduce the number of filament changeovers by 2/3rds, improving our printing efficiency and the amount of manpower it takes to run the farm.

Dimensioned drawings are now updated for all LongMill MK2s.

We’ve now updated the dimensioned drawings for all of the LongMill MK2s to include the 48×30 as well as overall width and heights of the machine so that customers can prep their work areas, enclosures, and tables.

Wrapping up the instruction manual

Chris and Aleks have been hard at work making the new instruction manual and working with our staff and beta testers to perfect the assembly manual. We’re excited to share a final draft of the MK2 assembly instructions. Please note that there are still some minor updates that we need to make to finalize the manual, including making a compressed version (right now the PDF is 107MB large) and updating links for the add-ons, but we just wanted to share this with everyone to get thoughts and feedback, as well as people can get an idea on what the assembly process for the MK2s are going to look like.

LaserBeam production

New batches of drivers and other components are currently in production. We are experiencing delays with driver manufacturing as we need to adapt to component and chip shortages. Based on these supply chain issues, customers are advised to expect delays when ordering the LaserBeam. We are also waiting on power supplies and copper heatsink housing parts to arrive with the large shipment delayed in Prince Rupert to arrive to complete currently pending orders.

While we wait on parts to arrive, we’ve completed the wiring and have been assembling other parts, such as the air assist and driver housing components to prepare for the arrival of the parts.

We have pushed orders that were scheduled to ship end of Feburary to end of March, and we are advising a 8 week lead time for new orders.

Hey everyone, here’s our February production update.

For previous production updates and other company news, feel free to check out our blog.

COVID 19 – another wave passes

COVID 19 hit us hard in January, with several of our staff, including myself, contracting the virus. This meant that many of us were off work or working from home. With the nature of our work being fairly hands-on, it took a bit of time to adapt, but luckily this wave has passed and everyone is back to work. Thankfully, symptoms for everyone were fairly mild and I am happy that everyone is ok.

General production updates

This past month has been especially hectic as we work to scale our business and production. The first area of growth is in our team, with us onboarding six new employees and two co-op engineering students over the last month and a half. By increasing the size of our team, we hope to be able to pack and ship products faster, keep a closer eye on quality control, and improve the speed and quality of our customer and technical support.

Our second area of growth is in our space and capacity. Although we are in the same space, we added two shipping containers for outside storage and also had a forklift delivered to the shop today. We are limited by space inside, but we’ll be able to move some of the materials outside in the parking lot, such as 3D printer filament, aluminum rails, and motors, that are not affected by the cold and take up a lot of space.

In the long term, I feel that we’ll have to expand to a new space. Given the growing number of products, staff, and items we have to house, we’ve reached the capacity our current space can offer. This will be something we’ll be looking at doing over the next year.

As has been the common theme for the two years, we continue to struggle through supply chain issues and shipping delays. Many of the parts that we were expecting at the end of January have now been postponed into February. This to some degree will affect the shipping time for some of our items. More info about parts delays will be included below.

LongMill MK1 Production

We’ve been making good progress in shipping the last of the LongMills in Batch 5 and have around 50 machines remaining. We are planning to have another 20 machines shipped this week, but we may be affected by snow, as we’ve received a weather warning that there will be 15-20cm of snowfall. We’re providing staff work that can be done from home, but the number of machines we ship this week may be affected by the weather.

At the time of writing, we have a new supply bottleneck, the power supplies. Another batch of power supplies was expected to be delivered at the end of January. However, we’ve been notified that the shipment has been delayed until the end of February to the start of March. Currently, we have enough power supplies to ship the rest of the machine for this week, but the last 10-15 orders will have to wait until we get more. I will be working with our suppliers to possibly expedite another batch of parts to finish with the rest of the orders.

LongMill MK2 Production

We continue to wait for parts to arrive for the LongMill MK2. We now have a portion of the materials needed for MK2 production, but some parts, including power supplies, gantries, inside packaging, cables, and a few other things are still in transport and are expected to arrive this month.

Given the current status of the shipments, we expect that MK2 will ship closer to the middle to end of March at this point. Based on the estimated arrival dates, it appears that the power supplies are likely to be the last set of parts to arrive. We’ll be contacting our suppliers to see if it is possible to expedite a second batch as well so that we can possibly ship machines earlier.

We are now packing and assembling sub-components of the kit, including spacers, couplers, v-wheels, printed feet, lead screws, drag chains, and more in preparation for shipping of the MK2.

LaserBeam Production

We are now packing, assembling, and packing LaserBeams for orders placed in November, and have currently shipped around 300 units. Ikenna and the rest of our team continue to develop new resources for the LaserBeam system in the resources.

We are now waiting for new drivers and power supplies to arrive to ship orders placed between November and January and are scheduled to ship at the end of February. New orders placed today and onwards are expected to ship by the end of March.

LongMill MK2 48×30 and Extension kits

Our first half of parts for the 48in X-axis for the LongMill MK2 are on the way and are expected to arrive in the next two weeks. We will be testing and checking the parts to make sure that they are to spec and work correctly. Once the testing is complete and all the parts work successfully, we will start to open up for the 48×30 version of the machine as well as the extension kits. This is expected to happen at the end of February.

There are still a couple more kinks to work out with the larger X-axis, such as:

• Longer wiring or wiring extensions for the motor, router, and inductive sensors
• Adapters for using the original X-axis with the new rail and nut design

Development for these parts still needs to happen. Based on my estimates, I expect we will be able to ship the first extension kits out sometime in May.

We’ll be putting out more details as we continue with the development.

Hi everyone. We are now back from the holidays and full force into getting orders shipped out. Here are some news and updates for this month.

LongMill MK2 is now open for pre-order

LongMill MK2s are now open for preorder. For complete info about the updated version of the LongMill, please see the update.

Pending LongMill orders

If you placed an order for the original version of the LongMill and you’re in the queue here, we are working on packing and shipping your order. We have been delayed in shipping the remaining LongMill orders as the couplers which were estimated to arrive on December 30, 2021 have been delayed. Due to the delay, we have ordered a rush batch of couplers which are expected to arrive around Jan 12th, and shipping for LongMills will be temporarily halted until the couplers arrive.

We’ve sent customers who are expected to be affected by this delay emails over the holidays to let them know ahead of time. We are currently assessing estimated delivery times for the remaining orders and will provide customers with updates soon. We’ll be updating order statuses on our Forum and our new Order Status page.

Response times for customer service (emails, tickets, and phone calls)

We have been overwhelmed with emails, tickets, and phone calls from customers, especially as we get caught up with messages that have come in over the past week while our offices were closed. We are working hard to respond to all of our customers, however, it may take longer than usual to get back to everyone. Thank you for everyone’s patience.

COVID situation

COVID 19 cases in the Waterloo region have seen a large increase in recent weeks. We recently had one of our employees coming back from vacation test positive for COVID 19. Fortunately, they were not exposed to everyone else at the shop as they tested positive before they came back to work, but it feels that a potential outbreak in our workplace becomes more and more likely as the pandemic becomes more severe.

To help keep our employees safe, we are pushing more of our staff to work from home. We are continuing to work to help set more of our staff to work from home and reduce the number of people at our office.

We continue to ask folks that are picking up orders from our office to stay inside their vehicles for pick-ups instead of attempting to enter our building without permission.

Lead times for LongMills and LaserBeams

We continue to wait for parts to arrive for the LongMill, LongMill MK2, and LaserBeam kits and ship products out as materials come in and get processed. We’ve created a new system for people to see the status of their order and see where they are in line for shipping.

Doing customer service when lead times are long for your products is particularly challenging for a number of reasons, including:

• Folks are antsy about when they are going to get their machine, especially since they spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on something from a random company on the internet (us)
• It’s hard to keep track of when the order was placed and when it’s supposed to show up, as well as remember the estimated delivery time that was promised
• There’s a lot of anticipation and excitement built up, which quickly turns into frustration when there are delays
• Folks want to get their things to line up with their personal lives, such as with holidays and vacation time

We made some mistakes in terms of communication and setting expectations with our customers on when their machines would get delivered. For example, we said that we could ship a certain number of machines per day, so customers were expecting us to be shipping that number every day. However, because the number we can ship is limited to other factors, such as parts availability and the number of machines that the couriers can take that day, we were not clear on the fact that the number that we said we could ship was not always the number that we actually shipped. Some of our customers were calculating the number of days they would be waiting to get their machine based on the best-case scenario.

More realistically, customers should be planning their delivery based on the number of weeks that we advertised on our order page at the time the order was placed. Typically, the lead time will be stated as a range of weeks, such as 4-6 weeks.

The second mistake was how I sent the email out about the delay on the couplers. As some folks may know, the shipment of couplers that were slated to arrive on Dec 30, 2021, but was delayed until the middle of January. I emailed customers that this may affect the delivery time of their order. This email was only sent out to a small handful of customers who would potentially see that their orders would ship outside of the initial lead time that was promised, however, customers who the delay would not be affected also were upset that delays were happening, even though it would not affect the delivery time of their order as it is scheduled to ship later.

Our team is working to find new ways to improve transparency and communication with customers, but in the meantime, we’ve created a simple auto-updating list for new orders.

Our goal with this system is:

• Customers can see what the status of their order is at any time, reducing the need to contact us directly about the order
• They can see what the lead time was and how much time had elapsed, providing clarity on what delivery time was promised and if we are meeting them

Creating this system was actually a bit eye-opening as well. Given how much pressure we were putting on ourselves to ship quickly and manage customers with high expectations, we were feeling that we were always missing shipping deadlines. Now that we can visually see how much time had passed, it appears that we’ve been shipping almost all of our LongMills within our estimated times.

Hey everyone, here is our December 2021 production update.

If you’re waiting on a machine to ship, you can find the list by order here: https://forum.sienci.com/t/list-of-shipped-machines-f-w-2021/4133

New LongMill orders

*Very important: If you are a customer looking to order a LongMill this month, please read this part carefully.

Due to low stock and high demand, our lead times for the LongMill are now extended to 4-6 weeks. New orders will not ship before Christmas. We are now limiting stock and customers may not be able to order once we go out of stock on our machines. A pre-order page for the LongMill MK2, the new version of the LongMill is scheduled to be available at the end of December, and orders for the LongMill MK2 will ship at the start of February. The new LongMill will have adjusted pricing that will be released at a later date, but are estimated to be around $1800CAD for the 30×30 version.

If you are interested in learning more about the differences between the MK2 and the original version of the LongMill, please read our development posts from our blog here: https://sienci.com/?s=longmill+MK2. More information will come soon.

Because of our shortage of parts, new orders (starting Dec 10, 2021) will start to use some of the parts that may have cosmetic defects on gantry plates and rails which do not affect the overall performance and use of the machine. We expect most customers to not even notice the cosmetic defects. All machines will come with the same high quality customer service and technical support, as well as the standard 90 day warranty.

Also, not all parts will have a cosmetic defect, as you may, for example, have a cosmetically perfect set of rails and one gantry that has a scratch. All parts are carefully inspected before being packed and shipped.

Some examples of scratches, dents, and other cosmetic dings

Every rail we ship out gets checked for:

• Dimensional accuracy
• Dings and dents that may impede with the travel of the v-wheels along the edge
• Cosmetic damage

While the first two criteria are critical to making sure that the LongMill works, cosmetic damage along the sides and inside of the rail does not impact the performance and functionality of the machine. Rails that were rejected due to cosmetic damage but not from the first two criteria would be used in this version of the machine.

Every gantry plate gets checked for:

• Paint defects, such as chipping and orange peel
• Gouges and scratches
• Uneven paint

Plates, such as the one shown above show orange peeling and would be rejected in production. This may be caused by contamination on the plate surface before coating, but overall does not affect the use and performance of the machine.

Why did we make this decision?

Our goal is to use the remaining stock of rails and gantries to bridge the gap between when we’ll be able to restock on parts again in January and February. Between each batch of production, we’ve kept our functional but cosmetically imperfect parts in storage. Using up these parts will help us use excess materials and clear out space for new inventory, as well as keep our lead times lower.

This is actually not the first time we’ve done this. On some rare occasions where we run out of a part and are waiting to restock, we’ve asked customers if we can provide them with imperfect parts, and all of our customers preferred to get their machine a week or two earlier, rather than wait till the new parts arrived.

Although we have considered remaking or repainting the rest of the parts, this would extend the lead time significantly, as new parts can take upwards of 8 weeks to produce. Instead, we figured we would let the customer know that some of their LongMill parts may be cosmetically imperfect, and let them make the decision at purchase.

LongMill MK2 Production

We’ve slowly started to gather parts for the production of the LongMill MK2. In our last update, we talked about the extended lead times for the MK2’s aluminum rails. It just happens that Almag was able to rush order the rails and have them dropped off a lot earlier than expected. Yay!

On top of this, we have also received full or partial shipments of:

• Linear guides
• Lead screws
• Fasteners
• Delrin nuts
• Z motor mounts
• Drag chains

There are still a lot of parts that are in transit and production, such as:

• Control boards
• Power supplies
• Motors
• Couplers
• Packaging materials

We are crossing our fingers that these parts will arrive by the end of December or early January.

Holiday schedule and office closures

Please note that our offices will be closed from Dec 24th to Jan 3rd. We will be back in action and shipping again on Jan 4th.

If you have any orders that need to be shipped out before the holidays, please place your orders before Dec 23rd so that they can be shipped out before we close.

Hey everyone. Here is an update on production in the second half of November. You can read the previous update here: https://sienci.com/2021/10/29/november-2021-production-update/

If you’re waiting on a machine to ship, you can find the list by order here: https://forum.sienci.com/t/list-of-shipped-machines-f-w-2021/4133

These past couple of weeks has been a bit stressful, as we continue to deal with delays in supply chain. I’m happy to announce that the new control boards that we’d been waiting on in the last update have finally arrived and we have started shipping machines again. We expect to get through the backlog over the next couple of weeks.

We also now have touch plates back in stock as well.

The end of Batch 5 is coming

We are quickly reaching the end of Batch 5, and expect to be out of stock on Batch 5 machines in around 3 to 4 weeks. Customers should expect lead times for machines to get much longer as we work on parts for Batch 6 to finish.

If you aren’t familiar, we build machines in batches. In this case, Batch 5 is 1000 machines.

In the meantime, there are a few things we can continue to do, such as extending Batch 5 by balancing the inventory and using all of the leftover parts and hardware to keep making kits beyond 1000 machines. This could also mean pulling inventory coming in for Batch 6 to use for Batch 5, as we wait for all of the Batch 6 parts to arrive.

Once we get closer to the end of Batch 5, customers should expect lead times to go up, possibly to 4-6 weeks.

Current supply chain and production issues

One of the major hurdles we’re currently dealing with is the long lead times with aluminum extrusions. With our current manufacturer, we’ve jumped from a 2 week lead time to 13 week lead time between September and November, meaning that our order for rails placed this month is expected to complete sometime between January and February. I’ve “rush ordered” these parts so that we try to have them in stock by the start of January, but this all comes down to scheduling at the press. I’ve also reached out to other presses in the area, but most have even longer lead times.

To account for the unstable lead times, we’ve been working on installing our own cutting and tapping set up to cut and tap our own rails. This should allow us to have more control over the lead times, as we don’t have to worry about the extra machining time that the manufacturers need to have added on top of the total production time.

In other news, we are likely going to see gaps in shipping based on shipping delays. For example, although we have allocated the v-wheels for the machines in Batch 5 for pending orders, the batch that we are waiting for to be able to complete the batch have been delayed in transit for about 2 weeks. Although I expect to see the wheels before we finish shipping the pending orders, any additional delays may cause a gap in shipping again as well for new customers.

Lastly, lead times for cardboard packaging have gone from a few weeks to around 10 weeks now, which means that we’ve started working early on manufacturing the packaging for Batch 6 machines.

All in all, although we are doing our best to keep production going, customers should expect longer lead times on LongMills.

Hi everyone. Here is our November 2021 Production Update. For the previous update, please check: https://sienci.com/2021/09/23/september-october-production-updates/

Production continues to move along. In the previous update, we talked about a couple of parts that we were waiting to restock, such as the control boards, rails, bearings, etc. At the current time, we are just waiting on PCB boards to arrive to continue shipping. PCB boards are expected to arrive on Nov 5, 2021. At the current time, we are waiting on PCB boards to arrive, and will be ready to ship when they are here. The new boards have arrived Nov 16, 2021, and we have started shipping orders out again. For more info about the status of your order, please check our forum: https://forum.sienci.com/t/list-of-shipped-machines-f-w-2021/4133.

We’ve continued to ship machines and other parts out with current stock on hand, but at the current moment, we are advising customers that LongMill orders will have a 2-3 week lead time to account for the arrival of control boards next week.

Expected lead times

Our current bottleneck is with our PCB boards. Although production is complete, we are waiting on the boards themselves to arrive. Based on tracking data, we expect them to arrive on Nov 5. If you are planning to order a LongMill, please check the estimated shipping date on the LongMill order page for the most accurate information.

Once the boards arrive, we expect to be back on our typical lead times of around 1 week until we run out of stock of Batch 5. At the current rate of sales, we expect that Batch 5 will be complete at the end of December. Lead times in Batch 6 are expected to depend on the timely arrival of new parts and components.

Batch 6 production and lead times

With the current issues with supply chain and logistics impacting the global market, we’ve continued to work hard to acquire the parts and materials to continue building machines. Although most of the parts that will be going into Batch 6 have been ordered, there still are a couple of parts that we need to order for the new batch of machines. This includes:

• Drivers
• Control boards
• Power supplies
• Arduinos
• Rails

If you haven’t noticed, the first four products rely heavily on ICs, which have been impacted by the chip shortage. This has meant we have had to work with our suppliers to tackle long lead times and large increases in chip costs. This has either meant working around the long lead times, such as by shipping part of the batch by air and others by ocean freight (for our overseas suppliers), or finding new suppliers that are able to meet our manufacturing timing and requirements.

We’ve also seen big jumps in expected shipping times for both ocean shipments and express shipments. We often rely on ocean freight for shipping materials between China and Canada. With shipping times and prices increasing, we’ve had to order parts earlier than usual so that they would arrive on time. While before COVID, shipping times generally averaged between 4-6 weeks, we are now planning for shipping to take up to 12 weeks. Shipping prices have also doubled in many cases.

When we order parts from new suppliers, we also obtain samples for internal testing and QA checks. We’ve also experienced a large jump in shipping times for air express shipments, which has slowed down the ordering process. While express shipments would generally arrive in a week or so, we’ve seen packages stuck in customs or waiting for the next airplane for 3 or more weeks. This has made vetting suppliers difficult as well, as it could take over a month for us to check the quality of each new part. The most example of this would be our inductive sensors, which were heavily delayed in shipping, causing us to ship a few weeks later than we wanted.

Given the supply chain constraints, we, unfortunately, have not been able to make the changes and updates to our electronics as we’d like. Earlier last year, we had begun the development of a new control board and driver system. However, with the chip shortage, we do not expect we’ll be able to obtain the chips to make the new system until next year.

So what does this mean for Batch 6? Well, it means that customers should expect lead times to vary somewhat at the start of the batch. Without all the parts ordered and confirmed for Batch 6, we run the risk that we won’t have everything ready for shipping in January. That being said, with the measures we’re taking to order and ship things as quickly as possible, we don’t expect there to be major changes or delays in production as long as we continue to be diligent in our work.

Hi everyone. Here’s a production update for September/October 2021.

We’ve seen a small uptick in LongMill sales over the last couple of months. Overall, shipping and production have been moving along smoothly, and most of the LongMill orders have been shipping out within a few days. We’ve reached the middle of Batch 5 a little sooner than we expected, and we may start to see us run out of a few parts as we wait on parts to complete the second half of Batch 5.

Just as a side note, we build machines in batches, and Batch 5 consists of 1000 LongMills. With smaller or inexpensive parts, parts with long lead times, and parts that we need to make large quantities of to take advantage of the economies of scale, we order 1000 sets of parts. On the other hand, larger or more expensive parts, parts that have short lead times, and parts that are made locally, we produce in smaller batches. In this case, we produced 500 sets of gantries, control box parts, and rails.

It’s important for us as a business to try to time the production and purchasing for each of our components. Over-producing means having to pay for inventory that needs to sit on shelves, while under-producing means having longer wait times for completed products. We of course try to balance these things and make production as seamless as possible.

Due to the uptick in sales, we’re running out of parts sooner than we expected, which may lead to shortages of parts. Currently, we are expecting to run out of gantries in the next few days. The laser cutting for the gantries is expected to be completed on Monday, with painting and finishing of the gantries to take about 2 weeks to complete. We will be working with our manufacturers to coat the parts that we are lowest first so that we can keep production going, but regardless, you should expect the lead time to increase until the rest of the gantries are completed.

Other parts that are still in production, but are expected to arrive before we run out include:

• Rails
• Control boards
• Control box parts
• Drivers
• Flange bearings

Expected lead times

With the gantries expected to be our bottleneck, we expect machines, once they are out of stock, to start shipping LongMills again around the third week of October.

If you are planning to order a LongMill, please check the estimated shipping date on the LongMill order page for the most accurate information.

Surging ocean freight prices and continued instability in the shipping industry

Increased consumer spending and pandemic woes have continued to cause instability in the shipping industry. Recent surges in ocean freight prices now mean that shipping products between China and North America have roughly quadrupled in price compared to the start of this year. The chart below represents a pricing index to compare shipping rates.

This of course impacts us. A reasonable percentage of parts that we use for the LongMill comes from China, so we are also at the mercy of ever-changing shipping prices.

Luckily, the LongMill is a non-commodity product with a reasonably large profit margin, allowing us to adjust to changes in fluctuation prices more easily than commodity items that have low margins, such as general household items. We have kept the price of the LongMill the same for the past two years, but inflation and current events may eventually warrant increasing our prices as well.

In the longer term, I hope that shipping prices do stabilize. Realistically though, I expect that shipping prices will stay high in the near future, and other unexpected factors may come up, so we will have to keep our eyes peeled for that.

Batch 6 is now currently in production as well, with this batch being 1500 LongMills. By increasing our batch sizes, I hope to smooth out the supply chain and give ourselves more time and flexibility between batches.