Category: General News

I know that a lot of you guys have been waiting patiently to order the new Sienci Mill One. We wanted to make sure that going forward, we could produce machine kits at a reliable pace. We’ve held off on taking these new orders until we’ve established our supply chain and fully understand what lead times we can expect from our suppliers and manufacturers. Also, we’ve been fiddling around with a variety of e-commerce platforms to set up an efficient method for our customers to order their machines, and are establishing more resources for assembling and using the Sienci Mill One.

Now the time has come…

Within the next week or two, Sienci Labs will be taking new orders for the Sienci Mill One. We will be offering the complete Sienci Mill One Kit (without a router) to our customers in the US and Canada for $499USD (plus shipping).  Those who have signed up for our waiting list will have early access to these kits for one week and will receive a passcode which will allow them access to the ordering page.

At the current moment, we will not be offering routers to go with the Sienci Mill One because we are not able to offer prices that are competitive to what you can find from other retailers until we can purchase over 100 routers at a time.  Routers can be purchased online or at hardware stores (such as Home Depot or Amazon). The Makita RT0701C and Ridgid R24012 will be supported for the Sienci Mill One, but if you have another router or tool you would like to use, please contact us about a custom solution.

The estimated lead time for the second batch of kits will be 6-8 weeks and machine delivery will vary based on shipping location. Kits which were ordered through Kickstarter will be given priority, and newly ordered kits will be shipped in order of which they are placed. We will continue to update our customers about our progress and any delays on our blog and social media pages (Facebook and Twitter) and keep our inventory list updated (inventory).

If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at hi@sienci.com and we’d be happy to help you out!

We are back from the holidays and have gotten right back to work! First thing we did when we got back was set up our garage into an assembly line. We’re starting off by organizing components into sets (one bag for electronics, another for fasteners, for example) so that when the gantries arrive from Boko, we can throw them all into boxes and have them be shipped out!

We just finished packing 60 bags of M8 hardware, 80 power supplies, and 10 bags of wheels, fasteners, plus some other items, and we’ll be working on putting together a whole lot more things in the next few weeks.

Chris has been taking some photos for the assembly manual over the break. Here are some sample pics.

I hope everyone had an awesome holiday. I’ve returned back from BC with a new camera I picked up on Boxing Day.

It’s a new Sony a5000 mirrorless camera we got to take some nice photos and video of the machine, as well as help us make instructional videos for the Sienci Mill One. Tim is also planning to do some fashion design so I’m sure he will be borrowing it too.

Laplace transforms, tensors, bending moments, PLCs oh my!

Chris and I finished our final exams yesterday! Only time will tell if we have passed all of them.

I just landed in BC to spend time with my family and plan to head back to Ontario on the 28th. Chris is back with his family as well. We’re planning on working on things during the break, like updating our assembly instructions and sending lots of emails, so you should be able to get in touch with us if need be.

Happy holidays folks!

AC JumpStart is a matching program that provides eligible companies with

• $30,000 in seed capital*
• $10,000 in mentoring from the AC’s team of in-house experts
• Access to market research and connections to investors

The program is funded through an $8 million commitment from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) and delivered in partnership with Conestoga College, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo.

Sienci Labs has been accepted into the fifth cohort for the AC Jumpstart program! We received an email a few months ago that we took it as that we were not accepted, but it turns out that we had been applying to the AC Jumpstart program that is only available to University of Waterloo alumni. Thankfully we were considered for the general AC Jumpstart program, and recently we received this email…

I have heard great things about this program from folks in the startup community who have gone through AC Jumpstart, and I am looking forward to starting this January!

We have finally received our eccentric nuts and power supplies, completing our inventory of standardized parts!

You may have noticed that our eccentric nuts look a little longer than standard M5 eccentric nuts you may find sold online. This is because we have asked to manufacture the nuts with a slightly longer bore so that it seats further into the gantries, which helps prevent the v wheel from being pushed at an angle.  Standard eccentric nuts work fine, but we splurged a little bit for a slightly better machine.

Doing this wasn’t without some challenges. Production of these components took 10 days, with additional time for shipping, which is not too bad. However, these nuts were shipped to the wrong place by the shipping forwarder, and thus ended up somewhere in England. So the manufacturer produced another 1000 pieces and sent it over again. We expected to have these in about two weeks, but it turned out to be nearly a month.

The last few things to cover are the frame and the gantries, which are milled locally. We have a set of 20 frames completed, waiting to be dropped off soon. We have ordered some 40mm fans from Aliexpress for some extra cooling, but at this point, am not sure if they will actually arrive on time. They are not necessary for the Sienci Mill One, but a nice option to have. If they come, we will ship them out in each package.

Last few steps that we need to complete is packaging everything up and making sure there are clear instructions in assembling the machine. While there is a instructables page, we are working on creating some exploded views that will make it easier to understand the assembly process.

Final exams are here and we are juggling a lot of things right now, but I wanted to let everyone know that Chris and I will be working full time at Sienci Labs coming January. We have both been accepted into the Enterprise Co-op Program at the University of Waterloo. If you have been following our progress since May, you may know that I have done the program once already, and I will be doing it a second time.

A little background info about our undergraduate studies- both Chris and I are in mechanical engineering at the University of Waterloo, which has a mandatory co-op program which gives us the chance to work in a technical job for four months. Out of the six co-op terms we get throughout our degree, we must have five full work terms. The Enterprise Co-op Program allows us to do a work term at our own company with support from the Conrad Business and Entrepreneurship Centre.

With over 100 new requests to order the Sienci Mill One since our Kickstarter, the demand has been overwhelming. The next four months will not only be dedicated to meeting that demand, but to also make sure we can give our users the best experience with their machines possible.

We are currently in the ideation stages of a new product as well, something we can work on during the co-op term. If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to send us an email!

If you have been following our progress finding parts for the first batch of the Sienci Mill One, you might have noticed that we are almost done getting everything. With kinks being worked out on our supply chain right now, I thought I would give an update on the progress of the last few things we are waiting for.

As you might have read, the power supplies sent initially to us were not correct. The supplier has given us a full refund and has let us keep the power supplies. While we will not be using them, we immediately started looking for a new source for power supplies. After comparing prices and other information, we have ordered the right type. I just received a message that the production of our power supplies are complete and they will be shipping them out as soon as they can.

Another component we are waiting for are the eccentric nuts. We have asked for a slight modification to the standard design to resist twisting as it sits in the gantry by increasing the bore length of the nut. There were some issues with shipping that unfortunately is delaying the arrival of the parts. We are in contact with the supplier, and based on their estimates, the parts will be shipped over within the next few days.

Adam from Boko has offered us a good deal on milling the frames, and based on his sample, it looks to be good quality work. We will be milling the first twenty frames next week and work with him to mill the gantries as well. The current design uses PVC gantries, but since HDPE is stiffer, and Adam and I will be working together to start the production of those parts as well.

By the way, thank you to everyone who has sent us the information requested on our backer survey! We are now in the process of making the appropriate router mounts for your machine. However, we may be contacting you if we need further clarification.

With shipping date still three months away, we’re making great progress. We hope to be able to get your machines into your hands as soon as we can, and we’re excited to see what you create!

Yesterday was a very busy day for Chris and I, with two events to attend.

First on the list was Velocity Fund Finals. Velocity Fund Finals, if you are not familiar, is a pitch competition for new and upcoming University of Waterloo startups. This competition gives the chance for companies to win either a 5K or 25K non-equity grant. Before this event, Chris completed the qualifiers, beating over 40 speakers to be chosen as the top 10 that would pitch at the finals.

Chris did a phenomenal job pitching, especially for his first pitch competition, and so did all the other companies. Unfortunately we did not win,  but we have high hopes for next time.

A few hours after the Fund Finals, we attended the Engineer of the Future Trust Showcase. We were invited to showcase our work because we had received funding from the Trust,  and it would be a sign of gratitude to show some of the people who had help fund us early on what we had accomplished with their funding.

There were a lot of cool projects that we had the chance to check out, and of course, a lot of interested people we met to talk about the project. It was a fun day, but a very hectic one.

As Chris and I were pulling out of the driveway about to leave to go to Princeton ON, where the machining for our aluminum rails were done, Tim came over. In a moment of spontaneity, Chris, Tim, and I were all heading to JGW Machine to go pick up the aluminum rails that had been completed on Friday.

Checking over the rails briefly, it seems that all the parts are up to spec and looking great.

When I was last at the facility, I had the opportunity to tour the place and explore all the services they provide. Rick from JGW was kind enough to show Chris and Tim around, who hadn’t until today toured the facility.

We got a chance to look at some huge laser cutters…

And even welding robots!

We now have 300 aluminum rails, 200 x 400mm aluminum and 100 x 200mm aluminum which will be used to build 100 machines. They look great, and I’m looking forward to putting them together and seeing how they work!