Interested in buying, but have some questions

Community Discussion 📄 General
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Hey guys, I’m looking to upgrade from my small 3018 cnc. Learned a few things using this little/cheap one and would like an upgrade.

Just a couple of questions about the longmill that I’d like to know before making a decision and going to the money handler (wife) and getting approval, lol.

  1. Has anyone mounted it vertically and used the longmill? I’ve seen Chris’s video on YouTube about it, seems to work good. But one cut vs permanently mounting is different in my mind. I have a small garage and don’t want to save as much floor space as possible.

  2. Does anyone have an offline controller setup with their machine? I’ve got one for my 3018 and love it. Don’t want to bring my laptop out to the garage all the time and get it dusty or anything.

  3. I see most people using UGS, I’ve gotten used to Candle. Will it work fine with the Longmill? Or is there a reason why people use UGS over Candle?

Thanks everyone!

PS, I really like the fact it’s a Canadian product :maple_leaf:

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Adam: You can read this thread as a starting point in your research on vertical mounting:

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I happen to find that thread right after posting this, but nobody mentions about actually building or doing it. When Greg mentions about putting the pullies with the counterweight, I thought that was a real good idea

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Hi @DrRobotnik! To answer some of your questions:

  1. I can think of one guy, Ivan Klok, on our FB group who I know has been running his LongMill vertically. Maybe he has some more insight he’d ba able to share with you as he did on a previous question post on our FB group.
  2. I don’t have any specific links but I do believe that a handful of our users have set up Ras Pi or a tablet for permanent machine control. The LongMill runs on a GRBL-based firmware and so an external controller setup would be very similar to a variety of other hobby-type or kit-type CNC routers out there :slight_smile:
  3. UGS was a software choice that Andy and I made as a recommended software for use on the LongMill simply because we liked its feature-set and usability, but the LongMill can still be controlled via any interface software which has GRBL communication built-in. This includes a variety of options like Candle and several others, some more have been outlined here: https://sienci.com/dmx-longmill/machine-interface/

And yes, very proud to be a Canadian-made and manufactured product! :grin:

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Awesome, much appreciated for the feedback/response!

Ps, make more youtube videos. It’s really awesome content! Lol

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Hmm the link to Ivan on Facebook gives an error…

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Ah, try to search for his name on the Facebook group instead

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Trying to. I’m one of those ‘weird’ people that is not a Facebook user and doesn’t want to be, so I can access your group but as soon as I try and search or get a list etc I get blocked. I’ll try and find it.

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Let me see if I can find the post where he spoke about his setup

EDIT: This looks to be it → LongMill and Mill One User Group : Hoping to take delivery of a 30x30 machine in the next month or so and am trying to get an idea of table size I will need

@jwoody18 I know, I have a love/hate relationship with FB. Would be nice then if Ivan was on the forum, but I suppose if you get your setup working the you could be the Ivan-equivalent for forum-goers :wink:

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Thanks for the link. Will definitely share photos etc once I get it all working and do my first cut.

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The photo of Ivan’s setup and the additional detail about the UGS command to change the stepper driver to ensure it doesn’t drift from gravity are awesome, thank you!

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