It’s been a heck of a ride with building LongMills and ironing out issues in production to get the best quality machine to our customers. With any new product, there are lots of issues to fix and resolve. We’ve kept detailed records for every customer issue we have to review and improve on our machines and customer service, as well as to place new methods to prevent issues from happening again. In total, we shipped approximately 380 units between October 2019 and Jan 2020.

This post will discuss some of our common problems and issues and delve a little deeper into what we did on our side. We hope that this helps provide some transparency on how we help our customers as well as give everyone a little insight into some of the day to day things we sort through for our customers.

Missing parts

Number of reported incidents: 31

We found that with so many different components that make up the LongMill and the variations for all of the kits, we found that it can be easy to miss a part.

A good portion of missing components were bags of fasteners missing. We have updated the packaging for batch 2 to:

• Be labeled with the fastener type to make it easier to visually identify different types of fasteners.
• Weigh checked at each step. All components must be in the bag to pass the correct weight.
• Labeled in different colors so that they are harder to mix up or miss.

One of the areas we found that were error-prone was where there are variations package to package. We’ve isolated more of the components to reduce variations and pre-pack them so that there is less chance for a mix-up.

Broken 3D printed parts

Broken during assembly: 6

One of the common reasons for breaking a part during assembly was from dropping the rail with the 3D printed parts attached to it. We provided new parts free of charge, and we have been using a stronger plastic to reduce the chance of parts breaking during assembly.

Broken during shipping: 14

One of the most common issues we’ve had with parts breaking was with the Z-axis motor mount holder. The rear mount for the drag chain was prone to breaking. To mitigate this issue, this part has been redesigned to be made from steel, eliminating the chance for that to break during transport.

Control box issues

Defective control board: 9

Several boards, especially at the beginning of the production run, did not work properly. Most problems came from individual motor drivers not working properly or switches not working properly. Customers received replacements control boxes and old ones were shipped back for testing and repair.

We found that several of the drivers had missing or damaged components, which we suspect were from shipping.

After finding these issues, every subsequent board was more thoroughly checked for defects and tested before assembly.

Batch 2 boards were improved in design for reliability, uses better quality components to reduce the chance for issues. Every driver will be tested before being soldered on the main control board.

With the new steel enclosure design, the LongMill’s control board is also expected to be better protected during transport.

Control boards also have higher quality motor connectors which means that there is less chance of misdiagnosis for improperly seated cables.

Manufacturing defects

Manufacturing defects: 18

There were some manufacturing defects with some of the parts with the LongMill. This includes:

• Angle aluminum out of tolerance
• Defective power supplies
• Tapped holes are stripped on ACME locknuts
• Improperly manufactured Delrin ACME leadscrew nuts

Luckily we’ve had very few issues with most of the manufactured parts, with most of the issues coming from the power supplies. We’ve found a new supplier that is able to provide us with better quality, more robust power supplies.

Most components are now visually checked to reduce the chance of bad parts, but typically the error rate has been very low. We are usually able to get replacements parts within a few days to customers in North America.

With the exception of the power supplies, we usually only had one or two issues with each part, so the rate of defective parts is quite low (less than half a percent).

Conclusion

At Sienci Labs we are anal about making sure that the quality of our products are as high as possible. We want to make sure that the experience of receiving and assembling our machines are as smooth as possible, and that starts with how we pack and manufacture our products.

Tracking our issues and solving them in our process has been a lot of fun and we expect to continue to improve our machines. I hope that this post provides some insight into our process and how we made some of the decisions for our packaging methods.

What an insane weekend at this year’s Toronto Woodworking Show! Thank you to everyone who came out to chat and visit the booth!

It was exciting to come back to the show this year, as it has been exactly one year since we first publicly debuted the LongMill at the 2019 Toronto Woodworking Show. We came back, upping our production value and with more goodies to show and give away.

Here are some of the highlights and recap of the show.

We have the best customers in the world

I have to say, we have hands down the best, most supportive customers in the world.

A special thank you to Tom who came by to give us his wooden bottlecap that you can use to help you decide if you want to buy a LongMill! Full disclosure, it says “yes” on both sides.

Another special thank you to Jan who came by to hang out with us and stayed at our booth for three hours to talk to folks as well. We never paid him or asked him to do this for us, but I guess it speaks to how much he loves his LongMill.

Another special thank you to Deb from Rosewell Woodworking who dropped off one of their beautiful salt and pepper grinder sets. Deb told us that initially, they had been selling salt and pepper grinders individually, and they were able to boost their sales by combining them into sets. Make sure to check them out ( https://rosewellwoodworking.com/ ) and all the best success to their business!

And finally, a special thank you to Jeff from River Run Custom Wood Design gave us two of his pieces to show off at the show. He gave us his business cards to share with folks that want to buy pieces from him (I guess if you don’t want to get your own machine to make your own).

And of course, a special thank you to all of our other customers who came by the booth to share their experiences with us and fellow woodworkers!

Some cool stuff we made

Plus v-carvings, signs, coasters, and other projects that we forgot to take photos of.

Seminars

We did two seminars at the show. One was on V-carving and the other one was on choosing different end mills, hosted by Greg and me.

I believe Ikenna took some video and photos of the seminars, so we’ll make sure to post them soon!

For the presentation slides and files: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GBiDVPitx522WTx_LprFns_OL5zErc-c

Final thoughts

The 2020 Toronto Woodworking Show was such a blast. Not only was it a great show, but it marks a culmination of one year of hard work since the last show. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come, and it makes us incredibly happy to talk to so many of our satisfied LongMill users. I appreciate that our customers have gone above and beyond to show their support, and we hope to continue to provide the best machines, support, and opportunities for our users.

Until next time – Andy

Hey everyone! It’s been pretty busy at the shop as we continue to ship out LongMills. We are just about to complete our first batch of machines and we have started packing our second batch.

We’ve made small improvements between the first and second batch I’d like to share. Here’s some of them:

• The arm that sticks out to hold the drag chain is now made of steel. This will eliminate this part from breaking

• New electronics enclosure integrates bent sheet metal and comes with mounting points to allow users to screw it directly to their board

• Additional circuitry in the control board to prevent issues with EMI
• Longer motor cables to provide more flexibility with mounting
• Notched Z-axis gantry to increase travel

• Higher-strength filament on 3D printed parts
• Improved mounting for dust shoe

We are always working on new ways to improve our machines and user experience with our CNC machines. We look forward to continuing to add improvements to the LongMill!

This update was originally posted on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sienci/longmill-benchtop-cnc-router/posts/2712205

It’s been pretty crazy ride the last several months, but we’ve done it! We have now shipped all the LongMill Kickstarter machines to our 300+ backers in 23 countries. Thank you so so much to all of you for making this project possible. With the campaign coming to a conclusion, what better way to end it than with a walk through memory lane…

In 2018, the LongMill was born. We wanted to create a machine that was bigger and more powerful than the Mill One, but still kept the same philosophy of being simple and easy to use.

Here’s the first working prototype. (July/Aug 2018)

From there, we kept working on improving the LongMill (at that point it was called a LongBoi). This was when we were a scrappier startup: living in student residence, building machines in the garage, and running only a handful of 3D printers. 

As time went on and we started to share the development of the LongMill publicly, we started to gather more and more people interested in the machine and the project itself.

We also moved into an actual office at 44 Gaukel in Kitchener, an office space of around 500 sqft. (Aug 2018)

One of the folks interested in the project was Terry, who became one of the 10 beta testers for the LongMill.

We spent the next two months finishing building our beta machines and working with makers in Canada, US, and France to improve and further develop the LongMill. We built the LongMills by hand, making changes and updates along the way.

Here’s us hanging out with our beta testers.

 And also, here’s Greg.

With valuable testing and feedback from our beta testers over six months, we continued to improve the machine.

In February 2019, we went to our first woodworking trade show in Toronto. There were so many people interested in the LongMill that we felt pretty confident that it was a good time to launch our Kickstarter campaign.

From our Kickstarter launch on March 26, 2019, we quickly raised our $60,000 goal in 16 hours, and soared all the way to $436,197 during the 30 day campaign. 

And thus began our journey of manufacturing our first batch of 400 LongMills.

Here are some highlights:

– Growing our print farm from a small handful of machines to more than 40 3D printers

– Working with the BETS students from the University of Waterloo during the summer

– Growing our full time team from just me and Chris to 5 full time employees

– Having fun fooling around while packing hundreds of thousands of parts together

– Designing our own fun little touch plates

– Moving from our 500sqft office to our new 2400sqft office

– Designing our new LongBoard controllers with our friend Chris Hadjuk

– Being in the Record (our local newspaper)

– Loading enough steel into the cop car until the bottom of the vehicle would touch the ground

Here’s what our office looked like when we were showing it:

Here’s the office in August (top), and today (bottom). It’s gotten a little bit more crowded.

We hit a lot of snags, some small, some big. We learned a lot of stuff.

Over the course of 7 months, we worked hard designing, testing and building. We started shipping in October, 3 months past when we were expecting to ship our first machines, but during that time, we’ve improved the LongMill in many ways.

Some of those improvements include:

– X axis reinforcements on the 12×30 and 30×30 to significantly improve torsional rigidity

– Stronger 3D printed parts all around

– Solid aluminum router mount

– Steel Z axis motor mount plate

– Improved bearing system for constraining the lead screw

– Better, more efficient motors

– New control board with integrated drivers, pinouts, and button control 

We wanted to make sure that we shipped a machine that was not only great, but something we could be proud of. The results speak for themselves.

Here’s some cool projects that have already been done by Kickstarter backers!

Not to mention the awesome table setups that have already been shared to the community as well: 

And to bring this whole story back around to the end: from everyone here on the Sienci Labs team, thank you to all of you guys for supporting us on this campaign and project. We couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks to your trust in us we’ve now been able to bring the LongMill to life in a way which is so exciting to see.

With the Kickstarter concluding, all our future communication will be happening on our already vibrant communities on both Facebook and on our Website forum, so come and join the discussion over there if you haven’t joined them already.

Lastly, we’re going to be having a party! If you’re in the area, then come join us this Friday evening at our Waterloo office to celebrate the conclusion of this momentous campaign! For more info, visit https://www.facebook.com/events/939478149771378/

Again, thank you everyone. Have a Merry Christmas and thanks for the great year. 

Until next time,

Andy, Chris, and the rest of the Sienci Labs team.

We have gotten a lot of questions about the settings used for the LongMill. This post will cover details on what settings we use for printing our parts.

3D printed parts have a bit of a reputation for being weak and inferior to metal or injection molded parts. However, we believe that the flexibility that 3D printing affords us to be able to improve on our designs incrementally is much more important for us. We’ve spend countless hours to continue to improve our designs and our printing process to make the strongest and most durable 3D prints possible.

Material

We print all of our parts using black PLA+. We purchase a special formulation of PLA+ designed for high strength in bulk to use specifically in our farm which is not available to the general public.

Parts designed for 3D printing are usually made so that they are relatively forgiving in terms of material quality and printing settings.

Printers

We use a combination of Ender 3s, Anycubic Mega-S, and Prusa i3 printers. Parts are usually segregated by printer depending on its strengths and weaknesses (ability to print overhangs, bed surface, speed, ect). However, if you are printing at home and not in a production environment, any FDM printer will do.

Most of our printers have small modifications such as all aluminum extruders, higher quality levelling springs, and glass beds which help improve print quality and reduce maintenance.

Settings

Here are our settings.

• 0.6mm nozzle

We have found that a 0.6mm nozzle gives a good balance between print speed and quality. Larger nozzles may be good for larger parts like the angle mounts and feet.

• 235 degrees C

We have found that layer adhesion is strongest for our particular filament at 235 degrees. However, your filament may vary.

• 0.3-0.35mm layer height

Like above, this setting balances print speed and quality.

• 30-50% gyroid infill

We found that gyroid infill provides good strength in all directions. A higher infill can improve part strength, but we use a lower infill on parts that are more prone to warping, or do not require high strength. Instead of increasing infill, it is usually better to “beef up” the part for higher rigidity.

• 3 perimeters (1.8mm appx)

Higher number of perimeters improves print strength. I would recommend using more perimeters if you are using a smaller nozzle.

• 3-4mm top and bottom solid thickness

For some parts take loads along the plate of the solid walls of the printed part, increasing this number can help improve the rigidity of the part.

Tips and conclusion

If you are printing parts for yourself, you can choose settings that best fit with your printer. Increasing infill, number of perimeters, and top and bottom solid thickness can improve the strength of your parts.

One set of parts takes approximately 40 hours of printing.

Every printer is a little bit different and thus works best with different settings. We recommend using the settings that work for you. The settings above are what works for us, and gives us a high quality, high strength part.

This update was originally posted on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sienci/longmill-benchtop-cnc-router/posts/2656970

Hey everyone. Here’s another update.

We have started shipping!

Can you believe it?!? This is a pretty big milestone for us, as it means we’ve ironed out enough kinks to finally get a machine out the door.

Here’s some things you should know.

– We’ve gotten in touch with the first handful of local pickups to arrange for pickups for their machines.

– We’re starting with some of the pickups because 1) if there’s an issue with the first set of machines, they will catch them the fastest 2) we can help these users in the local area the fastest if there are any issues.

– You will get a message with your tracking info and other important info before your machine ships. We will get in touch with you if there is any other info we need on our side.

Boards and testing

As mentioned in the last update, the boards have arrived and are going through testing.

From our testing last week, we ran into a snag. We found that we are triggering an alarm that freezes the machine under these circumstances:

• The machine is experiencing a large cutting load (10mm dado bit at 6-8mm depth of cut)
• The machine is cutting left to right

We suspect that the electromagnetic interference going to the Arduino on A0 pin is causing the machine to stop and send an alarm. As a quick note, we are using A0 pin for the “Stop” button which stops the machine and cancels the cutting job.

To mitigate this, we’ve added a capacitor across the ground and A0, A1, and A2 pins to mitigate the noise which are causing these issues. Solving this issue has resulted in spending some extra time testing and troubleshooting.

We have run the boards continuously multiple times for 20+ hour stints, to make sure that the EMI issue is fixed.

Just as a note, most of the boards will have the capacitors hidden on the underside of the board, so you won’t see them.

Resources page

You can find the latest resources and assembly instructions here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/longmill-benchtop-cnc/

There are some other editing and details we are adding as we go along, but those will keep coming as we get feedback and more time to work on it. 

Original post: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sienci/longmill-benchtop-cnc-router/posts/2641342

It’s been a heck of a journey up to this point.

LongMill LongBoards are finally here

We’ve been holding our breaths for these boards to finally arrive. They are finally here! We’ll be doing the final assembly, QA, testing, and assembly for the boards before we pack them into kits. 

 Final board enclosures will be made from stainless steel and acrylic, and will be pre-assembled in house.

Here are some features:

– Detachable screw terminals for power, fan, coolant control, spindle control, probe, motors, and end stops.

– Pause, Play, and Stop buttons

New 3D printers

With the continual influx of orders, to boost our production rate for printing, as well as the additional dust shoe orders that have come in, we’ve added another 24 printers to the farm, for a total number of around 37-38 total printers!

Some small improvements we’ve made to printed parts:

– Stronger front Y axis mounts

-Stronger, easier to install Y axis drag chain holder

Woodstock Woodworking Show

Thank you to everyone who came out to the woodworking show in Woodstock! We had a blast there. It was awesome to meet a bunch of our backers, as well as other people in the community, and it was a fun way to get our heads out of production work for a little bit and actually get to talk to woodworkers.

Our next show will be in November at the Hamilton/Ancaster Woodworking Show November 8-10th! Learn more at: https://woodshows.com/Hamilton/

First batch of shipments

The first batch of shipments will start to trickle out soon. We will get in touch with backers who will be receiving their machines in the next few weeks via email/phone. If you have not answered your surveys, please do so. 

Surveys

Thank you to everyone who’s answered their surveys! Everyone at this point should have gotten their surveys. Please check your inbox!

I’ve usually been posting the Kickstarter updates to the blog, but I missed doing the last two. Here are the updates.

Progress update #7

Original update made on August 11, 2019

Hi everyone! Here’s our latest update!

Moving

You might have seen on our last update that we were in the process of looking for a place to move to, or at least move to a different part of the building at 44 Gaukel. As time went on it looked more and more challenging for us to do so, and we focused more of our efforts into moving out to a new building all together.

Given that we only had about 2 and a half weeks to find a place to move, we were in a bit of a rush to find a new place. Luckily, we found a place nearby that had everything we needed, and an awesome landlord that helped us move in early and get the space set up.

 We’re going to have a housewarming party this coming Friday! Join us! Here’s a link to the Facebook event:  https://www.facebook.com/events/445993309319534/ 

All of the filament and other parts have showed up (finally)

All of the filament, as well as other parts have finally arrived last Friday! Getting everything in ended up taking a lot longer than expected, especially because of the customs delays.

This means we will be busy packing up these items over the next few weeks, as well as getting the print farm up to speed on new parts. 

1/4″ end other add-ons!

Now that we’ve received and packed all of the end mills, the remaining bits are now on the store! 

If you want to order other stuff for your machine, we’ll have a coupon code for free shipping for add on items that we can ship with your machine. It will be included in your surveys when they come out. More details are here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/2019/07/26/ordering-extra-stuff-with-your-longmill/ 

Here’s a link to our touchplate:  https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/product/touch-plate/
Here’s a link to our dustshoe: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/product/dust-shoe/
Here’s a link to our t-shirt: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/product/sienci-labs-t-shirt/ 

If you are not sure of what items you ordered with your machine, you can calculate it out based on your pledge amount. Please check your account and pledge amount if you are unsure of what items you opted in for.

Electronics board design

We have finalized the design for the LongMill’s electronics board. A special thanks to Jeff from JKVC for giving us a once over for the design. Another special thank you to Chris Hajduk for working on this project with us!

We’ve made some changes to the parts and design of the board in the last few weeks to improve its safety and reliability, as well as easier to use features like the end stops and touch plate on the board, especially for people who will be adding their own functionality.

This is our last step in the LongMill’s manufacturing process. Once we have those, we will be able to ship out the machines. Current estimates for production is around 28 days. In the meantime we will be packing as much of all the other things as we can. Stay tuned for more updates on that.

Progress Update #8

Original update made on September 4, 2019

Hi everyone! This will be a relatively short update as we continue to move along with production. 

New touch plate video and documentation

Did you guys see our new video on using and setting up your touch plate? 

Detailed documentation can be found here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/docs/longmill-benchtop-cnc/hardware/touch-plates/

If you have an idea for a cheeky song lyric for the next batch of touch plates, let us know!

Touch Plate

 Surveys

Thank you for everyone who have filled out their surveys. We have sent out surveys for all *Early Bird* backers. If you backed the Kickstarter after the first three days, the surveys for those have not been sent out yet.

We did make one small mistake. In the section that lets us know what add-ons you selected, there is no option if you did not get an add on. If that is the case, please select one of the add-ons and note that you did not order any add-ons in the Kickstarter. 

LongMill documentation in progress

We are currently working on new documentation (software, hardware, etc) for the LongMill. You can read and take a gander on our documentation page here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/docs/longmill-benchtop-cnc/introduction/

If you have any topics you want included in the resources, feel free to leave a comment and we’ll add it to our list of things to write on.

Electronics boards

Our last batch of parts we are waiting on are the electronics boards. We are expecting them to arrive in approximately 2 to 3 weeks given that there are no delays. There was a delay with acquiring some of the PCB components in China, but the boards themselves have all been made. 

Once the boards come in, we will start doing some of the assembly here, which includes putting in the drivers and assembling the cases for them. 

Our goal is to pack all of the other components up first and ship as quickly as we make the electronics. As this is our last part, our shipping time is more or less up to when these boards show up, but it should happen within a week once they arrive. We will update backers on the progress. Thank you everyone for their patience!

You might have noticed that the Mill One V3 has been out of stock for a few days. The reason is because we are out of aluminum rails for them (although we think that we might have a few left lying around in the office somewhere). We’re at the end of the production batch for this set of Mill Ones, and we’ve cleared out most of the parts used for the Mill One.

With the recent success of our Kickstarter campaign for the LongMill, and its ongoing sales, we’ve had the opportunity to buy parts and materials in volumes much larger than we’ve ever been before. It has also allowed us to use parts and components that were otherwise harder to obtain in lower volumes. There are also new parts and materials that didn’t exist when we first designed the Mill One which are superior to old parts.

We want to take this opportunity to refresh and improve the Mill One with new parts and a new design. We believe that since we have the opportunity to make a better machine, we should take it.

What does this mean?

1. The newest version of the Mill One (or Mill Two?) will come with better, higher quality components that will make the machine better.
2. The new design will be better and more powerful, drawing from years of design and manufacturing experience we’ve gained through building the Mill One and the LongMill.
3. It will be a few months until we’ll have a new machine available.

If you have a Mill One and need support and parts, feel free to get in touch with us. We’ll still be able to help you out. If you wanted to get a machine but missed out, we still have designs available online if you want to make your own.

Make sure to stay tuned for updates on further development.