It’s been just about two months since we released the first LongMill beta machine out into the wild.

We’ve gone through many changes, iterations, and struggles to improve the machine. Thank you to all ten of our testers for bearing with all the hurdles.

One of the testers provided us with feedback that made me pretty happy, especially since he kind of bashed on the X Carve (one ouf our competitors).

Here it goes:

Other testers have been busy making stuff as well, such as guitars, woodworking joints, and signs.

Chris was also able to chew through a slab of aluminum to make a relief of a T-rex as well, proving that the LongMill is a very sturdy machine. Video to come out soon.

There are still a couple loose ends to tie up before calling the beta testing program a success, but I will be working with the testers as best I can to make sure all the machines are working the way they should, and everyone is happy!

We’ve had a couple of concerned customers about the state of Canada Post shipments, especially since the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has been on a rotating strike since Oct 22.

This means that Canada Post has been experiencing a backlog of shipments all across Canada, causing delays and other issues for Canada Post customers.

Although you can read more about the strike on the news and on the CUPW website, here are some things to know about how the strike affects us.

1. Most shipments that we make via Canada Post tend to be for parcels and lettermail that are within Ontario and sometimes to Quebec. These shipments typically take 1-2 business days. If you live outside of those areas, chances are that we will be using one of the other carriers, like UPS, to ship out your orders.
2. We have been tracking Canada Post shipments and it appears that all shipments made via Canada Post in the last two weeks have been delivered, albeit, some (but not all) have been delayed by 2-3 days in some cases.
3. The postal office next to our office is still running normally.

We will be watching the strike closely, and doing our best to make sure packages are getting to our customers.

Just wanted to share that we’ve made a minor tweak to the Mill One Y axis gantry plate, so that we can improve the adjustability of the tension on the Y axis rail.

We found that:

1. The rails between our last batch and current batch are slightly different in width, with the current batch being slightly wider.
2. Since the steel plates are significantly stiffer than the HDPE from the V2, we no longer have to compensate for the internal flex in the HDPE, so that spacing of the holes can be slightly wider on the steel.

If you’ve been planning on building your own machine, I would recommend using the newest hole spacing for your plates on the Y axis since the new plates are compatible with both batches of aluminum rails.

Happy American Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to announce that we just recently started selling both the 200mm and 400mm aluminum rails on our store!

We’ve decided to make the choice of adding this item to our store for two reasons.

The first is that we believe that it should make it easier for people who are building their own machines from scratch to do so since the rails themselves are one of the more challenging and expensive items to source and mill. We’ve gotten a lot of requests for us to sell this item on our store, so we’ve decided to do so.

Second, and probably most important for us as a business is that we’ve been able to work closely to our manufacturers and suppliers to be able to produce these components in smaller batches at an affordable price. One of the biggest challenges for us as a fairly small and new company is to be able to produce parts at a large enough scale that makes it cost-effective while keeping batches small enough that money isn’t tied up in materials for too long. Since we’ve figured out a way to make smaller batches without making the costs go crazy, we can make sure that we can keep the item in stock sustainably.

So, if you’ve been thinking about or planning to build your own machine, consider checking out our store for parts!

If there’s any other parts or products you’d like us to stock, feel free to reach out and we’ll see what we can do.

It’s been nearly a year since the Mill One V2 was featured on Make Magazine, which was a pretty big deal for us.

This year, Make Magazine reviewed another three desktop CNC routers, adding to their list of tested CNC machines.

Well, we’re happy to say that the Mill One V2 stands as the most affordable machine tested!* (below is the CNC comparison from Nov 2018)

* We’re basing that statement off of the tested price. Although the MiniMill might have a basically have the same base price as the Mill One V2, the tested price is much higher. That’s because the base model doesn’t come with any electronics (no motors, power supply, and control board), whereas since the Mill One includes that in the base price, the only extra item needed from the base machine is a router.

The V3 is a little more expensive than the V2 was. That’s because of all the extra parts and components we’ve changed and added to make the V3 an even better and stronger machine. Even still, nothing can touch the Mill One as a perfect place to start CNC milling as a hobby, and we’re proud of that.

We’re going to be at a couple different events this month! Feel free to join us and hang out.

Nov 9: Function Keys Maker Science Fair and Showcase: Come join us from 7-11PM for the Function Keys Maker Science Fair and Showcase at the Spice Factory in Hamilton. We’ll have CNC machines to check out and more!

Nov 13: Beginner CNC Milling Workshop: We’re hosting our first CNC milling workshop to teach beginners how to understand and learn how a CNC machine works! We’ll be holding it at 44 Gaukel, right in the middle of downtown Kitchener. There are still three spots left.

Nov 15: Onshape Hands-on Test Drive in Waterloo: Alex from Onshape is hosting a hands on evening to test out Onshape on Nov 15 at Communitech. If you want to try out Onshape, ask questions, and learn more about cloud based CAD, this is a great opportunity. We’ll be there to briefly talk about how we use Onshape to encourage collaboration with our open source designs.

Have an event you think we should be at? Send us an email at hi@sienci.com!

If you’ve been following us for some time, you might know that we’ve received a lot of support from the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business. Well, we’ve been asked to join them for the grand opening of their new space in E7!

If you’re in the area and want to join us, we’ll be bringing by our machines to show off and doing demos.

Location: University of Waterloo E7 building

Time: Oct 29, 2018

• 1 pm | Open House – Venture showcase
• 3pm  | Engineering Grand Opening Ceremony
• 4pm  | “How did we get from there to here? The Conrad Story” by Howard Armitage and Mark Weber
• 5pm | Informal networking and connections. Refreshments served.

Tickets here:

https://ticketfi.com/event/2591/conrad-school-grand-opening

Hey everyone. Just wanted to announce that we’ll be holding our first CNC milling workshop at our new space at 44 Gaukel in Downtown Kitchener in a few weeks!

Workshop attendees will get a chance to learn and design using CAD, create G-code using CAM, and cut out a design with a CNC machine.

To sign up and more info, please go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/beginner-cnc-milling-workshop-tickets-51654328487

I’ve been working with some of our first batch of beta testers who have reported issues with reliability, especially on the Y axis. If you missed that, you can read more about it here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/2018/10/04/longmill-beta-y-axis-drifting/

There has been a couple of changes made to combat that. First was with adding a second power supply and an extra driver to the control box. This means upping the current, as well as putting less load on the Y axis driver, which had two motors wired in parallel.

This should improve reliability by

1. Giving more headroom for the power supplies
2. The two Y axis drivers can be set to a lower current rating, so that the drivers don’t run as hot
3. Reduce the chance of issues from back EMF and resonance from driving two motors on one driver

In production, we’ll probably switch to one large power supply and perhaps increase the voltage as well to make the electronics more simple and allow the machine to run faster, but as of right now, we have a lot of smaller power supplies tossing around that we can connect in parallel to do the job.

The other change has been to switch from NEMA 17 motors on the Y axis to using NEMA 23s (on the larger version of the LongMill). This should also improve reliability since

1. NEMA 23 motors are rated for higher currents and torques, so that the machine can push through material faster.
2. The larger body should help dissipate more heat

As for the smaller LongMills, the pair of NEMA 17s should be more than sufficient, but we’ll have to do some more testing to confirm.

As so far as testing goes, I’ve been running the machine through a bunch of different projects, stress tests, and scenarios. I’m happy to say that there are significant improvements in speed and reliability. That being said, pushing the machine to the absolute limit artificially, such as moving the axis at max speed over the period of more than 15 hours, does still sometimes start to cause drifting and overheating on the motors. For normal milling, the projects are coming out perfect, so I will keep moving forward in updating machines and sending out new ones for now, and keep working to improve reliability.

If you’re reading this and you are one of the beta testers, here’s what you should know about your machines.

If you got your beta machine already:

I have already gotten in touch with you with info about the changes or I will have sent you this post as an update. I will update your hardware for you. Since there is a lot of extra hardware, it might take a little while for me to get all of the parts in to do the upgrades, so please be patient.

If you haven’t gotten your beta machines yet:

I will send out the machines with all of the updated hardware. Since there is a lot of extra hardware, it might take a little longer than the expected 3-4 weeks to get the machines out, but I am working as hard as I can to have the machines ready.

If you signed up as a beta tester and you haven’t gotten accepted into the program yet:

I am currently completing the second batch of orders that have come in from people interested in being beta testers. Initially, the plan was to start accepting people in for the third and last batch around this time of the month, but we are going to hold off on that until we are a bit more solid on the electronics and the first two batches have their machines up and running properly.