Category: Production Updates

Hey everyone, here are the production updates for this month.

For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

Update on customs hold-ups for US customers

Many US customers with LongMill orders may be experiencing a hold-up at the border for LongMills. For more information about the situation and what it means to you, if you are waiting on a shipment, please read our post here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/2023/02/21/us-customs-hold-ups-in-detroit/

We have not seen a decrease in these hold-ups, and we are still working on some solutions for this. At this time, we’re working on:

• Looking at a new shipping software that can improve the quality of documentation to reduce hold-ups
• Talking with the Canadian Trade Commissioners and US Border for additional help and information
• Working on consolidating shipments and working on the classifications for our products
• Looking at alternative distribution methods and production methods

We have also been establishing a US entity, which means that very soon we will have a US corporate presence (and a lot more paperwork to fill out).

Because some of the bits and parts are being made in China and are on invoices, certain items are now being charged an additional 25% duty due to the Trade War (China Section 301-Tariff Actions and Exclusion Process) which was established several years ago but lax on enforcement. However starting this year, we are now being charged extra for duties and taxes.

At this time, we continue to cover the costs of duties and taxes for US customers. We hope to find a way to mitigate some of these duties and taxes soon.

It should be noted that order under $800USD regardless of the origin of the items being shipped, that enter the US, are not charged duties and taxes. You can learn more about de-minimis here: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/de-minimis-value-increases-800

LongMill MK2 and Extension Kit Production

Sales for machines have been extremely high at the start of this year, with an 84% growth in revenue from last year this time. The LongMill MK2 has now been in production and shipping for 1 year! We are expecting that before the end of this year, the LongMill MK2 will surpass our population of LongMill MK1s which was released in March 2019 and was in production for about 3 years.

Our sales at the end of 2022 and going into 2023 have been far higher than expected, and because of this, we are continuing to struggle with keeping up with the pace of orders. Although we are expected to ship our pending orders within 5 weeks, we will keep our lead times of 5-6 weeks as we are still waiting to restock some items used in our 48×30 machines. Some items we’re likely looking to run out of first include:

• NEMA 23 motor cables and inductive sensor cables
• T12 delrin nuts and T12 ACME locking nuts

These items are currently on order, and are expected to finish production in the next 3 weeks.

Last month we brought on three new packing and assembly staff, and are currently hiring more management team members. This has helped catch up on packing, but we still have around 150 LongMills still in the queue. We are additionally working on bringing in more tooling and equipment for tapping, as we are hitting a new bottleneck in the plate and rail tapping process.

We’ve also been looking at some new places to move into, as our currently 8200 sqft + back shop + outdoor storage is bursting at the seams. At this time, we’re making machines in 1500-unit batches, but for us to keep our sanity, we’ll need to increase our batch sizes. With lead times for specialized items being so long (usually a couple of months to half a year), we need more space to hold more stuff so that we don’t keep running out. Our lease ends in our current building in September, with the option to renew, so we will be making a decision fairly soon.

LaserBeam Production

Our latest batch of aluminum and copper heatsink components have now arrived and are being used in production. We currently have a 4-6 week lead time for lasers, but many may ship out earlier than expected. We are currently assembling and packing lasers at a regular pace.

At this time, we have the parts needed to continue production, but we are expecting our bottleneck to be with our stock of cables and fans. They are currently in transit and are expected to arrive in mid to late March.

If you didn’t hear, we’ve made some tweaks to our heatsink design to improve the assembly. With this new design, it takes us about half the time to put it together while slightly improving the heat dissipation performance!

Hey everyone, here are the production updates for this month.

For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

Customs Hold-ups for some US customers

We’ve recently experienced some of our customers having their machine orders held up at US customs. For some orders above the value of $2500USD, UPS is requesting customer tax information for clearance. We are working on eliminating this process, but either UPS or Sienci Labs may reach out to you for the extra info. Some changes to our customs documentation implemented in the last few days should mostly eliminate this issue, and we are working on automating a system to let customers that fall under this specific set of rules (US customers with high-value shipments) about the situation proactively. Currently, this has affected about 10-12 customers in the past few weeks, which is a small percentage of the overall number of issues, but we just want to let everyone know just in case this happens to you.

Please note that this DOES NOT mean you will need to pay duties and taxes, but it does mean that we may be charged warehousing fees if the item sits in storage for too long.

LongMill and Extension Kit Orders

We have raised lead times for LongMill orders as we currently have a large queue. We are consistently shipping out machines on a daily basis, but due to a big increase in sales this month, we are currently at full capacity. By next week, we will have another three new hires to assist with packing and assembly, which should bring down our lead times. Additionally, we are currently working on acquiring additional production space to relocate our rail processing and create additional inventory storage space.

We are also actively working on Batch 8 supply chain. Based on current sales numbers, we expect to start Batch 8 in around May or June. This is quite a lot sooner that expected. Although many of the key components for the LongMill have been ordered, due to the long lead times we face for some of the parts, we expect that there will be longer lead times closer to the transition point in Batch 8.

LaserBeam

Due to a shortage of some components, we have raised lead times for the LaserBeam. However, most customers may have gotten theirs a lot earlier. As our typical fashion, we want to provide conservative lead times. We have partially restocked all of the parts, which means that we are currently working through the assembly for the remaining orders in the queue, and expect to wrap up pending orders by end of next week. For new orders placed now, we’re telling customers that they may need to wait up to 6 weeks potentially, but it’s likely most will ship sooner.

We’ve made some design changes on the heatsink and wiring that we’ve started implementing, which will reduce assembly times so that we can produce these items faster.

Additional parts for the LaserBeam are expected to arrive around the start of March, at which point, we can pre-assemble and keep inventory on hand for Lasers.

Rotary Axis

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the rotary axis. For more info about it, please see this post here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/2022/12/08/everything-you-need-to-know-about-4th-rotary-axis-on-the-longmill/

The engineering team has continued to work on the rotary axis kit. Here are a couple of updates.

We received a sample rotary axis a couple of weeks ago which we have been using for testing. Due to some imperfections, we have been reconsidering our strategy for the production of the rotary axis. Initially, we were planning on using off-the-shelf components for the whole kit, doing QA testing, and shipping to customers, but as we have continued to do testing and research, we have started to reconsider and look at custom designing and making some or all of the rotary axis from scratch.

There are a few areas that must be improved to reach large-scale production, especially in the quality and tolerances of the components that off-the-shelf rotary kits have shown to be inconsistent. First is the edges of the bottom of the rotary axis, which need to be accurate to allow it to mount and align with the track accurately. Second is the motor mounting plate, which needs to line up with the rotary pulley. And lastly, the overall fit and finish need to be consistent and of good quality. We found that from the sample, these were notable areas that needed improvement.

When we started manufacturing LongMills, we used many off-the-shelf components as they were the most affordable at a small scale. However, as time has gone on, basically all LongMill components are toleranced and custom-made to our specific requirements, even if they are otherwise exactly the same as an off-the-shelf alternative. At scale, quality issues compound, and making custom, higher-quality parts helps mitigate issues and ensure fewer issues with assembly and use.

I share the same sentiment with the development and production of the rotary axis. For it to be a viable product, we need to produce hundreds (and eventually thousands) of kits. To accomplish this, we need to take control of the whole production process.

At this stage, we are currently deciding how we want to progress with the production of the rotary axis. We are doing a cost-benefit analysis and working on design ideas. As far as where we are with things now, for us to bring up quality, we also need to bring up the price. Based on our survey results, it seems like interested customers are able to accommodate some increase in price, given that we can provide more value for their rotary axis. It seems like increasing the price and budget of the project will overall provide more value, as we can dedicate more to the software, hardware, and resources for the rotary axis.

The software team is also currently working on the implementation of 4th-axis support in gSender. Some things in consideration include:

• Visualization of rotary axis code
• Switching between both modes
• Homing and zeroing of the rotary axis
• Firmware and control board changes

The engineering team has currently made tons of progress overall with regard to documentation and processes that will eventually be used with whichever rotary axis we will provide.

At this stage, we do not have exact dates on when the rotary axis will be launched, but we expect the earliest time for it to ship to be in late summer. If you’re interested in the project, I encourage you to stay in the loop on our blog and social media.

Hey everyone and happy new year! As of Jan 3rd, we are back in action at the Sienci HQ.

We have quite a large backlog of orders to ship that have come in during the holidays, which we are working on shipping at full steam.

For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

LongMill and Extension Kit Orders

LongMill and Extension Kits are shipping on schedule. There is currently a large queue of orders, so we expect new orders to ship in around 3 weeks. We were expecting to have shorter lead times at the end of December, but due to a high number of orders, we’ve kept our lead times to 3-4 weeks.

We are currently in the process of bringing on 1-2 additional packing and assembly staff as some members are moving into customer support roles. We expect having a few new members on the team will help keep pace with the new sales as well as for future products.

We are expecting our queue to take about 2 weeks to clear and lead times to come down to around 2-3 weeks around the end of January.

LaserBeam Orders

We are currently waiting on a new batch of fans, bodies, and heatsinks for the LaserBeam. These parts are expected to arrive in the next few weeks. Some orders will ship earlier than scheduled with currently available stock, but customers are advised that some orders may take 4-6 weeks to fill based on part availability.

Hey everyone, here are the production updates for Dec 2022.

For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

LongMill users on a map!

Using a new feature in our e-commerce sales tracking software, we can now look at all of our customers on a heatmap!

Here are some cool facts:

• We have customers in 59 countries, including Aruba, the Faroe Islands, and Oman!
• The United States represents our largest demographic, followed by Canada. We have customers in all 50 States!
• We estimate that we have about 5000-6000 LongMill users in total!

LongMill and Extension Kit Orders

Last month we slowed down shipping due to a shortage of lead screws and linear guides. I’m happy to say that our new batch was expedited (at no small cost) and we are currently working to get through the current backlog. Although we expect to get through most of the backlog next week, we are currently keeping our 3-4 week lead time for the time being. Once the backlog is cleared orders should ship within 1-2 weeks. We will have an updated lead time once we have gone through initial quality checks today and early next week for the new batch of parts.

Batch 6, which consists of 1500 machines, is officially complete! New orders are now part of Batch 7. For changes and improvements we’ve made through Batch 6, check out the write-up from the last production update. Batch 7 consists of another 1500 LongMills.

Recently we had a few issues with bent lead screws. We’re currently working on testing all of them before shipping to make sure they are straight and don’t cause binding issues. Here we’re using an optical comparator to check how much deviation each screw has.

LaserBeam Orders

Orders for LaserBeams continue to ship as usual with fairly short lead times. Although we have stock, we are currently working on adding another 500 units to inventory. Due to a sudden increase in sales, we are currently low in stock and while some order will ship quickly, customers should expect to wait 4-6 weeks for their orders to ship based on part availability.

End-of-Year Holidays

As we typically do, we are on closing for holidays from Dec 23rd to Jan 2nd. If you have any questions or need anything shipped out, please reach out to us before the 23rd. There may be some of us providing limited holiday support and getting ready for the new year, but the large majority of us will be on holiday.

Hey everyone, here is our Nov 2022 Production Updates.

I’m actually writing this update at the end of October since I’ll be on vacation for the next two weeks, but this should lay out everything we’re working through this month. I’ll be in touch with the team on and off during this time, but figured I’d get this update ready to go.

For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

Louis is back

After a 10-month hiatus, Louis, our CEO has returned from vacation.

LongMill MK2 and Extension Kit Orders

Production continues to move smoothly for all LongMill and Extension Kit orders. We paused production for about a week while we restocked on lead screws, but we have received the new batch and will continue to have machines go out the door at our regular pace. We’ve also restocked on a new batch of front and back steel feet, gantries, and rails. Lead times for this month should be around 1-2 weeks for most machines.

Batch 6 is nearly over with just over 100 machines left for this batch. Batch 7 will have essentially no differences since most improvements have been made gradually throughout Batch 6. Some of the improvements include:

• Higher grade washers to prevent bending of the washers used with eccentric nuts
• Custom machined v-wheels to higher tolerances
• Additional QA processes including checking variance and tolerances throughout all of our aluminum extrusions

Additionally, we’ve implemented some process changes in the office such as:

• Kanban for 3D printed parts and some assembled parts
• Torque settable electric screwdrivers for XZ gantry assemblies to ensure all screws are tight before shipping
• Specialized measuring tools for checking fit and tolerances
• Additional foam padding in packaging to reduce denting and scratching
• SOPs on tablets and QA databases
• Version tracking for all variations of parts
• New MRP systems to help keep track of inventory

Our operations team and our staff have generally noted that Batch 6 has been the smoothest batch we’ve had so far with minor issues (except maybe the big one at the start of 2022). We expect Batch 7 to be even better.

Currently, we are looking at seeing ourselves run low in the next few weeks on linear guides and a few small sets of hardware, but are expected to restock in mid-to-late November.

LaserBeam Orders

We are currently stocked on LaserBeams and most orders are going out within a few days. We are also expecting to complete the first batch of roughly 1000 units as well near the end of the year.

Black Friday Sales

As of this time, we do not have any sales planned for Black Friday. We simply believe that providing the same reasonable prices for our products at any time of the year is the best way to run our business. If you’re looking to get into CNCing, we recommend customers order their machines whenever they are ready. We suspect that most customers will find our pricing quite reasonable even when other companies are selling theirs at a discount.

We have never had a discount (with the exception of the Kickstarter campaign) on the LongMill since its release.

At the end of the day, we want people to have confidence that they are getting the best deal on their purchase no matter when they place their order, and we also want to focus more of our time on important stuff like designing machines and growing our community over focusing on selling more stuff.

Just a reminder for everyone to be nice

Something that I am continually grateful for is our active, healthy, and supportive community. We now have nearly 10,000 users across our platforms today from over 30 countries. For all of our amazing community members, thank you for being part of what we are today.

Based on feedback from our support staff and other members of our team, as hobby CNCing becomes more popular and prevalent in our society, expectations and demographics continue to change as well, introducing a wider audience beyond our early group of adopters. Over time, our groups have become more diverse demographically and what people are using their CNC machines for, which is amazing.

It should be noted that although we don’t personally post publically that often, many of us at the company personally stay active on the groups and read most of the posts that you make. I make it a habit to check the forums and Facebook group at least once or twice a day to see how things look in the community and see what’s new, even though it’s rare for me to post or comment in general.

But of course, with every large group, there can be some negativity. We welcome complaints and criticism, whether posted online or directed to us privately, we use these messages to make improvements to what we do on a continual basis. I also hope that customers give us a chance to help them and let us work out the kinks that may arise, as well as open to learning to work with us as we navigate to getting started in a new hobby.

That being said, with recent growth in the community, I have also seen the rate of negative commentary and harassment pointed at us and to the company directly increase as well. I do not accept harassment aimed toward our staff and I have continually been working to help our staff navigate these situations.

In response to this, we’ve worked to create some internal processes and policies to help take care of these matters, as well as post a Customer Support Terms of Service note at the end of our Contact Us page. For our online communities, thank you to our members who’ve stepped up to comment back when people have made negative and untrue comments.

We are people. We have feelings. We love and care about our community and we do our best to make this a fun and accessible ecosystem. Please remember to be nice to us and each other.

End-of-Year Holidays

As we typically do, we are on closing for holidays from Dec 23rd to Jan 2nd. If you have any questions or need anything shipped out, please reach out to us before the 23rd. There may be some of us providing limited holiday support and getting ready for the new year, but the large majority of us will be on holiday.

Hey everyone, here are our Oct 2022 Production Updates.

For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

Canadian Thanksgiving is coming up this month. Our offices will be closed Oct 7-10th.

LongMill MK2 and Extension Kit Orders

Production continues to move smoothly for all LongMill and Extension Kit orders. Most machines are shipping out within 1-2 weeks, and oftentimes sooner.

We are expecting to run out of the 1030mm lead screws that are used in various quantities between all sizes of the LongMill around the middle of October.

We have another partial batch expected to arrive at the end of the month, which means that shipping may be paused around this time. We will update our Order Status page with updated information if there is a shipping delay.

We expect lead times for machine orders to be around 1-2 weeks for the next few weeks before we update our lead times when we run out of lead screws.

A small piece of news to share, we have now switched completely to custom manufacturing v-wheels. This means more consistency, quality, and accuracy for the wheels in general, which have been historically a tricky point for us. The quality for the first 30,000 looks to be excellent so far.

LaserBeam Orders

We still have ready-to-go stock on LaserBeams. Most are getting shipped out within a few days.

Ikenna has been doing livestreams for working with the LaserBeam. If you haven’t checked it out yet, make sure visit our Youtube channel!

USD to CAD Exchange Rate

At the time of writing, the exchange rate for USD to CAD is 1 USD = 1.36 CAD. Because our base currency is in Canadian, this means that the exchange rate is heavily in favor of the Americans. That means that while the price for our products is basically the same for Canadians, our neighbors down South can purchase from us at a pretty significant discount.

Based on the reports that I’ve been receiving from RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), their projections are expected to see the USD to CAD conversion continue to be in favor of the USD for some time.

Because our base prices are all in CAD, this means that the margins for each machine decrease as the exchange rate changes in favor of the USD. Thankfully, because most of the material and production costs come in the local area, we are not as impacted as our competitors that have a higher percentage of materials coming from the US and overseas or US competitors selling into Canada. Additionally, much of the purchasing for Batch 7 was done when the exchange rate was around 1 USD = 1.26 CAD, a more favorable rate.

As the continuing economic turmoil continues, it will be interesting to see how us as a business will move forward.

The silver lining to this is that the small discount that our southern neighbors will be getting may stimulate more economic business in Canada.

Hey there, here’s our September 2022 production update.

For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

Please note that we will be closed on Monday Sept 5, 2022 for Labour Day. We’ll be back in the office on Tuesday Sept 6, 2022.

LongMill MK2 and Extension Kit Orders

Production continues to move fairly smoothly for all LongMill and Extension Kit orders. We have now cleared the pending queue for 48×30 and Extension kits and now lead times for all machine sizes will be more or less the same. We are expecting lead times to be around 1-2 weeks for most orders for this month.

This past month we did pause production shortly due to us running out of rail extrusions to make 48in X-axis rails, however, we have received another batch of rails that should cover for another 400-500 machines. Because we were working with our extrusion manufacturer to work out some kinks in the consistency of the rails, which placed the order on hold rather than going to press. Thankfully they were able to move the extrusions to the weekend schedule and have them made with only a few days of added delay.

X and Z gantries we also ran out as well have also been restocked. The next thing we’re expecting to run out of are the front and back steel feet for LongMill MK2 machines which we currently have 70 units worth left, however, those should be restocked back around the end of next week.

LaserBeam Orders

We are now stocked on enough LaserBeam units to last till the end of the year. Most are shipping out within a few days.

Batch 7 Production

We are now at the final third of Batch 6 Production. This means that we’re at our last 500ish machines, and we’ll be getting to the end of the batch sometime likely in December. Depending on the status of our shipments, our lead times may change around this time.

Batch 7 production has been underway for the last few months and we’ve been getting parts in to prepare. There won’t be any major changes but we’ve made some small tweaks to production overall including:

• Small tweaks to the design of the 5mm to 8mm coupler to help customers identify which side goes on which side
• Fully custom-produced v-wheels to improve quality control and consistency of the wheels

Some additional changes to our production reflected in Batch 6 and 7 include:

• New tools to check the consistency of all of our rails
• Additional checks to ensure the flatness of all gantry plates and other steel parts
• Individual motor tuning on all control boards

When we started Batch 6 in 2021 and early 2022, we were at the height of the pandemic and supply chain constraints. Recently, we’ve seen lower lead times, shortages, and transport times than before, so we are hopeful that this new batch of machines will have a smoother production process than before.

Price increases from UPS

UPS has recently informed us that they will be charging an “Additional Handling Fee” on shipments weighing over 50lbs. Previously this limit was set to 70lbs. This means that some shipments on new orders may see roughly a $10 increase on LongMill shipping prices on new orders placed Sept 6. We are working with UPS to negotiate and reduce the impact of this charge.

Hey everyone, here is the update for this month. For all news and updates, please see our Blog.

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

Not too much new to report, so this will be a shorter post than usual.

LongMill 48×30 and Extension Kit Orders

We did have a stop in production last month for a short period of time as we got shorted some Y gantry plates for the 48×30 and EX plates but that has now been resolved. We’ve shipped out another batch of around 50-60 machines since.

Because of a higher than expected number of orders for the 48x30s, we are currently out of stock on X rails and are waiting for another delivery of material on August 12th. While we expected 48×30 machines to make up around 30-50% of our machine sales, we’ve now found that the larger variant has recently become nearly 60% of our sales in the last month. The new batch of rails that are on the way has been adjusted to reflect the new ratio.

Once the rails arrive, we will ship machines out again and should take about 2 weeks to complete the remaining queue.

LongMill 12×30 and 30×30 Orders

Orders for LongMill 12×30 and 30×30 have been mostly shipping out within one business day. We currently have parts in stock and ready to go.

LaserBeam Orders

We have received new drivers and are currently packing and shipping the rest of the queue. Most customers should have gotten theirs shipped already, and most new orders are going out within a week. If you have a machine on order waiting to be shipped, the Order Status page may not show as completed since both items haven’t shipped yet.

Hey everyone. Here’s our update for July 2022. Production continues to move along as scheduled and we are getting machines out the door as usual.

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

LongMill 12×30 and 30×30 Kits

Any 12×30 and 30×30 orders have been shipping out as they come in and lead times on orders is 1-3 business days. Kits are in stock and ready to go.

LongMill 48×30 and Extension Kits

Starting last week, we have started shipping out LongMill 48×30 and the Extension Kits. At the current time of writing, we should have around 20-30 people who have received their orders or have gotten their machines shipped. If you have a pending order, you should have gotten an email from me that looks like this:

New orders for 48×30 and Extension Kits will ship out in order, so we are expecting new orders to ship in about 4 weeks.

LaserBeam orders

We are waiting on another batch of LaserBeam drivers to arrive to us and should be here in about three weeks. LaserBeam orders will continue to ship when we receive the new batch.

In the meantime, please check out Scott’s latest videos on setting up the laser!

US Duties and Taxes

As a short follow-up to our last update on US Duties and Taxes. I put out a post on the Facebook group and it looks like with the exception of one customer who reached out, we’ve been able to get the LongMills cleared for everyone. We had about 15 orders get charged taxes which we’ve paid on the behalf of the customer before we sent all of the proper USMCA clearance paperwork, but we have confirmation that they have received the paperwork now so any new orders crossing into the US should get cleared properly now.

We’ve also set up an exemption on the 48×30 Extension Kits, so these orders should clear duty-free as well.

First Nations Tax Exemptions

If you are a Canadian First Nations, you may be eligible for a tax refund on completed orders. We have updated our system to process these exemptions. For more info, please visit this page.

Just another production update. For the last production update please check it out here: https://sienci-upgrade3.cospark.io/2022/06/01/june-2022-production-updates/

May was a tough month but it feels like things are finally turning around. Lasers are shipping again, LongMills are shipping with basically no wait time, and I’ve just gotten confirmation that the last part for the LongMill MK2 48x30s and Extension Kits will be done soon.

Just to start with something fun, here’s a little video of me riding on the CNC machine. Apparently its easier to convince people that the LongMill is super strong if we sit on it, so I’ve done this to make everyone happy.

I am running the machine at 2500mm/min on stock hardware and firmware settings.

If you want to make your own here’s some files:

Instructions:

1. Cut out using 3/4″ material using an 1/8″ or smaller bit. If you use a larger bit, it might not fit together right because of the radius in the corners. I used MDF. The DXFs might need to be joined.
2. Pictures of putting it together are in the ZIP file. Use a mallet to slot everything together. There is no clearance, so a lot of physical persuasion might be necessary.
3. Bolt to the top of the X rail with M5-25 bolts and M5 T nuts
4. Whee…

LongMill MK2 12×30 and 30×30 lead times

Lead times for new machine orders 1-3 business days. All of our parts are in stock and we are currently packing and shipping orders as they come.

It feels like a really really long time since we’ve been caught up on orders. I am happy that we were able to navigate through everything to finally get everything together. We’re also expecting another 500 Y gantries to arrive in the next few weeks, which will cover us for the next 400-500 machines. This means that overall, I think we’ll be able to keep lead times short for another 2 months.

Our next bottleneck is likely to be aluminum rails, as we still need to order another batch of them. However, because we’re limited in space right now and we still have quite a few left, we’ll likely hold off on the order until July.

It’s a relief, but at the same time, our work isn’t done yet. We’re about halfway through sourcing and production for the next batch, Batch 7 and getting it ready for the end of the year.

LaserBeams are shipping

Finally, the drivers are working and being shipped. We have about 100 shipped out from the queue and should have most of the rest of them done tomorrow.

We’ll have to wait a little bit for Ikenna to give us a full update, but since we only received 200 laser drivers, once we use them up, it’ll likely be a couple more weeks for us to get another batch once we are sold out. We’ll more concrete dates soon, but we will keep a 6 week lead time for new orders. In the meantime, we’re working on a ton of new resources for the laser. We also now have LightBurn for sale on our website!

LongMill MK2 48×30 and Extension Kit production

New cables for the 48×30 and Extension Kits have arrived and earlier than expected. We’ll be packing them up for the new kits as well as for our store. We’ve gotten a lot of customers asking for extension cables, and this should let folks have more flexibilty in relocating their controllers and such.

Now that these are in, all that we’re waiting on are the extension cables for the routers, which should be here in the next week, as well as the Y gantries, which will go to the coaters next week and be back here at the end of the week or sometime the following week. Thankfully all of these parts are sourced and made locally and turnaround times are a lot shorter than doing them overseas.

Our saw was broken down for about two weeks recently, but we’ve just been able to get it going again and have cut about 25 rails. We should have another 100-200 rails cut tomorrow and early next week.

This means that we’re really close to having all of our parts to start shipping the new kits. As I mentioned in the last update, it’s likely our biggest bottleneck will be how quickly we can have the instructions ready, but our engineers are making good progress so far.

We don’t have exact shipping dates so far and we’ll have a better estimate in the next two weeks. At least in the meantime, if you’re looking to order a 48×30, it will ship sometime in July.