On 3/17/2013 2:14 PM, Henk Gooijen wrote: I shipped two of these cross country in the last year. One by FedEx and the other by UPS. Each cost less than $75 to ship including supplies. I did all the packing myself and my own shipping account. The stores will rip you off on the paking supllies, packing service, and the shipping rates. The UPS stores are the worst. If something costs $20 to ship on the UPS website it will probably cost $38 at the store. They take the full non-discounted UPS rate then add more on top for the store. The UPS stores aren't owned by UPS. They are individual franchises and they can charge whatever basically.

On 3/17/2013 3:02 PM, Richard wrote: I had stuff packed at a UPS store arrive in many pieces too. Again UPS stores are individual franchises and the quality of any service you get is totally dependent on the store and the employee that packs it. UPS doesn't run or operate any of them. It's just like going into a McDonalds. The store owners are just paying for the right to use the UPS logo more than anything. It may be great at one and garbage at another. Besides I don't even understand your point. You would be the shipper and you can pack it as well as you like. Are you saying you wouldn't be able to pack it safely and so have to take it to a store ? I am not sure what this has to to do with getting something from a ebay sale. I've got stuff packed great from ebay sellers and then stuff just thrown in a box with no padding at all. I mean nothing. Funny enough some of the non-packed stuff has made it fine and some of the over packed stuff got destroyed. Sometimes the greatest packing in the world won't save it.

On 3/17/2013 4:40 PM, Richard wrote: If someone has bad feedback for shipping you don't buy from them. Same as not going to a UPS store that damages goods. It's actually pretty much the same but, still I don't under stand what you mean though. You aren't going to get a a ebay seller to drop it off at a UPS store. f you are using a UPS store to ship something that you sold all you are saying is you can't pack it well enough to safely ship or are just too lazy to try. Your making the buyer pay more for that.

On 3/17/2013 5:29 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: I had someone actually ship me a IBM 14" VGA monitor in an empty box by Parcel Post. He seriously just put it in the box and took it to the post office. Not even in there tight. There was 2 inches around it on all side and it just sat on it's plastic stand. It arrived in perfect shape. My mind was blown when I opened the box. I didn't know if I should be angry or jump for joy. When the shipping gods decide it gets there safe it gets there safe. When they decide it won't it wont no matter what. It is not for us mortal men to understand their whims.

I have neve had much luck with isocyano acryllic hydro-copolymerising adhesives for this sort of thing. If you can find a solvent for the plastic (dichlormethane works on some common plastics) [1] then you cna often make a much stronger repair. I oonce had an HP9826 shipped to me with totally inandequare packageing (put it i na box, poour expanded polystyrene bits around it, nothing to stop it moving to one side of the box). It arrived wit hthe case quite badly broken, the fan mounting cracked, etc. The amazing thing (and the rason I kept it) was that all the PCbs were intact as was the CRT. In fact it wokred perfectly. I took ti totlaly paert. Or the cace I drileld sitalbe holes and used self-tapping screws to fix the brokent bits (HP used plastic about 5/16" thick...). For the fan mountint, I bolted metal plates over the cracks. Doesn't look all that neat, but it's as strong as the original. It has lonk been my supsiecion that the poatal 'service' speak a differeent loanguage to the rest of us and that 'delicate scientific instuemnt' is postal-speak for 'please use this parcel for playing (American) football'... That said, I ahve had thigns that IMHO were totally inadequetly packed (thrown in a box with crumpled newspaper) arrived undamaged. And I have never hadn a properlay packed device get damaged. The best packing IMHO, whcih some surplus dealers use, is that expaning foeam that fills the box and supports the deivce in the middle of it. Remembr that some old plastics turn very brittle and that therefore some loder devices can be delicate. YEs, I am thinkign for HP9800 keyboard bezels, which crack if you look at them wrongly. The HP9100 calculaotr may look as though it is built like a brick privy, and, yes, for the most part it is sold. But a sharp knock can fracture the electroe support rods in the CRT. If the electrodes the short together, you can end up blowing out transistors all over the chassis when you power the thing up. Not to mention having to find a new CRT. All old devices should eb packed well IMHO. It's werth paying extra to get proper packing. -tony

I haven't done this much, but when I have stuff shipped by truck, bolted to a pallet, it *always* arrives in totally pristine condition. My impression is that they never touch it at any point in the trip except using a forklift through the pallet itself. I'm picturing very wasteful packing of trucks (unless there are shelves inside), and it's certainly not a good deal for things that don't weigh much of anything, but it might not be such a bad idea for an RX01/02. I've heard of a TU77 being shipped coast-to-cast labeled as "scrap metal" for practically nothing and arriving in fine shape. John Wilson D Bit

In article <5146813A.1040000 at sydex.com>, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> writes: As most people on this list know, I buy terminals. They're big. They're heavy. They're fragile. I've bought a large number of them. Every single time one has been damaged, it was due to J. Random Ebay User trying to pinch a few bucks on shipping and not packing it properly. It really didn't matter who the carrier was: UPS, USPS, or FedEx, they've all sent me damaged goods and it was *always* because the seller didn't pack it properly. So when I make comments about what has been reliable for me, it's not based on a single one-off experiment, it's based literally on hundreds examples over 10 years. You can shout till the cows come home that I'm wrong and you hate UPS, or whatever, but data is data. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline> The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org> The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org> Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

On Mar 18, 2013, at 4:52 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote: How well do you find the Instapak stuff works? It looks like it should be just about ideal, but I have no data to support that other than the fact that the two or three heavy items I've had shipped to me in it came through fine. I dislike UPS for various reasons, but breaking packages is not one of them. And with the way the mail carriers in Philadelphia treat my mail (including rubber-banding packages to my door handle on a busy city street), I'm liking them a lot better than the USPS these days. Come to think of it, the only thing I've really disliked about any of the carriers in the past is poor customer service in depots or franchises, and they're all better than the USPS here in SW Philly. - Dave

I've had a few thigns shipped in that expanding foam and IMHO it's excllent. Devices with quite deliacte parts 9glass display tubes [1], etc) have arrived with no problems after bieng shipped across the Pond. [1] My expeirenice suggests that vacuum fluorescent display tubes are a lot more fragile that CRTs or valves. I ahve no idea whay they are such thin glass. There;s local shop here that claims to send anything (legal) anywhere and foam. Iv'e not tried them, however (I receive a lot more than I send). -tony

In article <5147A016.3020308 at gmail.com>, mc68010 <mc68010 at gmail.com> writes: Not true. On at least two occasions, I have gotten stuff from "experts" that had insufficient packing and was damaged. For instance a bunch of Sun lunchbox machines and their associated keyboards. Every single keyboard had damage when it arrived, because it was all packed in too densely with a bunch of heavy items with no padding around it. I can't recall the specifics of the other item, but it too was from an "expert" and arrived damaged. In each case the person skimped on the padding/protection in an attempt to save me a few measly dollars. I can't repeat this often enough: It's not saving me money to have goods arrived damaged. Or, as your Mom probably used to say: Better safe than sorry. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline> The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org> The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org> Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

On 18/03/2013, at 9:40 AM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote: I once had an ebay user post an Amiga 1000 to me with no packing other than wrapping it in brown paper. It would have been ok if they taped something over the floppy eject button to protect it.. I now ask (or specify) how the item will be packed before bidding.

Sorry its an English slang?expression. It just means anything thats quite heavy. An English?Ton ?is 2240 Pounds? We also?have one related to speed on a motorcycle "to do a ton" means 100 Miles per hour. Rod G8DGR ? ________________________________ From: Henk Gooijen <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Sunday, 17 March 2013, 21:14 Subject: Re: Selling a DEC RX02 on Ebay Weight ... a ton? Correct, if "a ton" is approximately 60 lb (less than 30 kilos). Still, shipping that weight will cost money, that's true! - Henk, PA8PDP -------------------------------------------------- From: "Alan Perry" <aperry at snowmoose.com> Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2013 6:06 PM To: <cctech at classiccmp.org> Cc: <cctech at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Selling a DEC RX02 on Ebay