New pricing on the Mill One

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It’s been about six months since we first started shipping our first Mill One desktop CNC machines, and we’ve learned a lot since then. With this new knowledge, we have been able to lower our cost of manufacture while increasing the quality of our products and customer service. The Mill One offers phenomenal value for the power and precision it provides, but at Sienci Labs we are continuing to develop tools that make automated manufacturing accessible to makers.

With this in mind, we have decided to do something unprecedented and lower the price of the Mill One. Starting Monday June 26th, the Mill One kit will be offered at $399USD.

Thanks to our customer and community support, we’ve  been able to tackle many challenges and improve many aspects of our company and design. Here are just a few:

  • Establish reliable manufacturers that offer high quality work while keeping jobs in the local area
  • Larger manufacturing batches mean lower per part prices and transport/shipping costs
  • Establish reliable suppliers that offer high quality components and increase machine reliability
  • Bulk packaging material purchases mean lower packaging costs per machine
  • Redesigned packaging layout means items are better protected
  • More efficient packaging design means items are easier to package, thus lowering the labor cost in each kit
  • Higher shipping volume means lower shipping rates for our customers

We’re super excited to be entering this stage in our company and accomplishing our vision as an industry leader in the desktop manufacturing industry! Join us as we continue to move toward a future of providing more affordable and accessible rapid prototyping tools.

International shipping now available

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For our friends outside of the US and Canada, we have finally arranged a shipping agreement to offer reduced prices to ship internationally, allowing us to open up sales around the world.

We now offer flat rates for all Mill One desktop CNC kits for DHL Express International (3-5 day shipping):

  • Europe (UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, and more) = $80
  • Asia (China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and more) = $110
  • Australia and New Zealand = $130
  • Rest of the world = $210

We have also updated shipping algorithms for smaller packages with Canada Post to work with international shipments.

If you run across any issues, or find a bug in the shipping calculator, please send us an email at hi@sienci.com to sort it out!

 

What is backlash?

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With any screw driven mechanical positioning system, there is often some degree of slop or “backlash“, including the one used in the Mill One. To explain further, backlash occurs when there is a gap between the threads of the nut and the lead screw and the nut is allowed to move within the gap which is present. With most people, the level of precision that the Mill One provides is more than enough, but for those who want to push their machine further, or want to need their Mill One extremely high precision work, this is an important topic to discuss.

We tested the backlash on our ACME nuts by attaching a dial indicator to the Mill One’s gantry and running the gantry back and forth. We chose a point to call zero on the dial indicator, and moved the gantry past zero, moved it back, then moved back even more, and then moved it forward again. The gap between the zero and where the needle landed was our backlash. A better explanation can be found here: http://www.cncexpo.com/MeasuringBacklash.aspx

We tested this way for both a brand new stock ACME nut, as well as after running for many cycles. We ran the gantry back and forth for about 8 hours, with an additional load simulated by using bungee cords as to wear the nut as far as possible.

The results of this test, are as follows:

  • Brand new stock ACME nut: 0.001″ or less in backlash
  • Stock ACME nut after 2-3 hours: 0.002″to 0.003″ in backlash
  • Stock ACME nut after 6 hours: 0.003″ in backlash
  • Stock ACME nut past 8 hours: 0.003″ in backlash

Based on these results, we can see that the backlash of the ACME nut had gone from just under 0.001″ to around 0.003″. Just to put that into perspective, 0.003″ is approximately the thickness of a sheet of paper. For most projects, this is a great level of precision. But for something like PCB milling, where the width of each trace can be less than 0.006″, 0.003″ is a big number.

Over the last few months we have been testing anti-backlash nuts on the Mill One, which “preloads” two sides of the ACME nut to eliminate the gap which causes backlash. Using the same tests, the anti backlash nuts manage decrease backlash to less than 0.001″, greatly improving its accuracy. This resulted in parts coming out with much better dimensional accuracy, with tolerances of +/-0.002″ (0.05mm) or better being easily achievable.

Here’s an example of a test cut we milled from some brass:

Because of these good results and since the upgrade is simple to do and fairly inexpensive, we have created kits to allow users to install their own anti backlash nuts. You can order a kit here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/product/anti-backlash-nut-kit/. We’re really happy to make this upgrade available to let users take their projects to the next level. We will continue to do tests with the anti backlash nuts with a variety of projects, so make sure to check out the blog to find out more!

 

Back from Hamilton Maker Faire 2017

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I hope that everyone who came out to Hamilton Maker Faire this year had as much as a blast as we did. It was a toasty 30 degrees Celsius yesterday and Amy (who helped out for the day) and I got up around 8am to begin the 1 hour drive from Waterloo to Hamilton. Once we arrived, we set up our booth inside the Electric Pumphouse building, including our little shop of parts.

It’s really see how far we’ve come since the last time we were at Maker Faire Hamilton a year ago. At that time, we had built a few prototypes of what would become the Mill One, but were still quite a ways away from completing the testing and design of the V1 machines. Desktop CNC milling at that time was still quite an unknown technology. This year, however, we met a lot of folks who had been following our progress or had already purchased a Mill One from us.

We also had a chance to talk to many makers about their projects and their own personal roadblocks in manufacturing, whether it was time, money, skill, or something else, which gives us ideas on how we can help makers turn their ideas into reality. We also had many great discussions on what the future of making will look like and how our industry will change over the next few decades.

I’d like to thank Amy for coming out to help me, everyone who came out to Hamilton Maker Faire 2017, as well as all the amazing organizers and volunteers! Thank you so much! Until next year!

Milling a linoleum stamp

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Milling materials like rubber and linoleum can be an interesting experience. Due to the elastic properties of these materials, some of the material will compress rather than being cut away by the bit or endmill the CNC is using. Getting the right feeds and speeds took a little bit of time and patience to get good results. For this particular project, we used a v-bit and F-engrave‘s v carving feature to create the negative image of the stamp.

The first step is to create a design. We used Inkscape to draw a black and white image. When we bring the image into F-engrave, the program will use the v-bit to carve all the profiles which are black and leave the white areas alone. Choose the v-bit you have and adjust the feeds and speeds for your project. A tutorial on using the v carve feature can be found here: http://www.scorchworks.com/Fengrave/F-engrave_tutorial.htm.

Next, we secure the linoleum with a bit of hot glue and let the Mill One do the rest of the work. After milling, a little bit of post processing, namely getting excess material out of the cuts, was needed. A small screwdriver or other tool works well in scraping out the material.

Here are the feeds/speeds:

Linoleum

Feedrate: 300mm/min
V engraving at 2mm max DOC
1/8″ 20 degree v bit
28 minute engraving time

Cedar Wood

Feedrate: 700mm/min
DOC: 5mm
1/4″ 2 flute upcut router bit
8 minute milling time

We carved a quick block of wood to make a holder for the linoleum. Having a block which holds the linoleum is good because you want to be able to provide even pressure across the whole stamp, as well as keep your hands away from the ink. We pushed the depth of cut to 5mm, and the Mill One carved it out quite quickly.

The rest of the stamp came together pretty easily. The linoleum fit perfectly into the holder and no glue or adhesive was needed.

In conclusion, it was a pretty easy process to create a custom stamp. Next time however, we may try a harder rubber material, since it would be easier to mill.

 

 

Hamilton Maker Faire 2017 coming this Sunday

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Mark your calendars, because Hamilton Maker Faire is coming up this Sunday, June 11th in Hamilton Ontario. Hamilton Maker Faire will bring together hundreds of makers to share projects and ideas, and we’ll be there to show off the Mill One V2. Learn more at the event page on Facebook.

We were there last year with our early prototypes of the Mill One, and got awesome feedback and support. It’ll be a lot of fun to go back with our newest Mill One and show off how much progress we’ve made since then. We also look forward to meeting lots of new people and exploring different projects happening in the community.

A couple of highlights

  • Lots and lots of 3D printers
  • Amazing art projects and things for sale
  • A blacksmith showing off his forging skilss
  • A tour of the giant steam pumps

We look forward to seeing everyone there!

 

Milling aluminum at 0.1″ (2.54mm) depth of cut

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It’s been awesome to see what users on the Sienci Mill One Group on Facebook have been up to, especially with the mods that they have been making to improve the performance of the Mill One, as well as pushing the machine to its furthest extents. One example of this is Eddie’s latest endeavour to cut aluminum at 0.1″ or 2.54mm depth of cut at 5 in/min (127mm/min) to 8in/min (203mm/min) with a 3/8″ (9.525mm) end mill.

While the feedrates are fairly slow, it’s cool to see the Mill One taking substantial chunks of aluminum out per pass. Based on some quick calculations on http://www.productivity.com/resources/calculators/, Eddie was able to achieve a material removal rate nearly 10x higher that with a 1/8″ bit at 0.1mm depth of cut at 1000mm/min.

You can see in this video where Eddie is making some chips and get a sense of what’s going on in the machine. Also, make sure to note some of the unique mods he’s made.

https://www.facebook.com/edmundo.pasaoa/videos/10155168338150985/

With the improved rigidity made to the Mill One V2 coming soon, we look forward to seeing how much further folks will be able to take the Mill One and test the limits of the design.

https://www.facebook.com/edmundo.pasaoa/videos/10155176685070985/

 

A new warranty for the Mill One

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At this point we’ve shipped over a hundred Mill Ones, giving us a good look at how reliable our machines are and the quality of the parts that go into it. We’ve done our best to provide the best service to our customers as possible, and have made sure to help everyone get the most out of their CNC machines. This helped us learn a lot about designing parts for reliability and choose the highest quality parts to continually improve the Mill One.

Our goal is to provide the best quality parts, as well as the best service to make sure our users can focus their time on making, without having to worry about troubleshooting and other technical details. Our V2 batch will use parts from suppliers who have shown to provide the highest quality parts from our previous manufacturing run.

While we’ve unofficially provided exceptional support to all our customers, we now have established an official warranty and return plan for Mill One kits which outlines what services we can provide.

Mill One Warranty

 

A guide to picking end mills

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One of the most daunting parts about owning a CNC machine is choosing which end mills to use. There are literally thousands of tools for every single application, some which cost a dollar or two, and some that can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. But when you learn about how end mills are designed and what to look for, picking a end mill can be no problem at all.

We’ve added an additional resource page to help new users navigate through picking and choosing end mills, check it out here.

https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/choosing-end-mills/

 

New FAQ

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People ask us questions. A lot of questions. We’ve made a new FAQ to help you answer some of the questions you might have.

Have a burning question or want us to add something to the FAQ? Shoot us an email at hi@sienci.com!

https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/resources/faq/