Hi, I work at a "Major shipping provider" in the united states. Let me share with you some tips on how to ship sgi hardware:
1. always assume that there might at one point or another be 5-6 20lb boxes of dog food stacked on top of your delicate o2.
2. always pack things so that a 150 pound desk set decelerating from a 35 degree angle off a roller line won't really damage anything in your package.
3. insure packages in small boxes would survive being thrown a good 4-5 ft to the top, and against, a steel trailer.
4. anything packed in a flimsy thin rectangle box with a single layer of bubble wrap will invariably have 20+ pounds of random automotive parts stacked on them. I see this everyday.
5. Your heavy over-sized onyx systems in large boxes? expect a 1/2 chance of them being dropped 5 ft onto the innards of a steel container. Every heavy thing loaded into the under-section of a trailer is dropped recklessly. no exceptions.
I received a well packed, but none-the-less damaged system in the mail today. It made me sad because it was from the same company I work for.
solutions:
styrofoam: specifically styrofoam that completely envelop the system. packing peanuts shift around. from the west coast to the mid-west, your package goes through 4 different hubs. That's potentially 4 different people loading your package onto conveyor equipment, and 4 different people packing it back into a wall of boxes which may contain a 50 lb weight-set, or a 3ft industrial oil drill. ( yes we ship those ). Bubblewrap is 'better' but people don't understand that with physics, and conservation laws, any weight on top of bubble wrap is going to be shifted directly into the machine that you are sending in the mail. Sure, it's nice to avoid scratching and scuffs, but it does nothing to alleviate load. Systems shipped in the mail should be physically isolated from the surrounding environment. Which leads me to:
milk-crates: Almost no one sends anything in these really, but they should, since you aren't going to get a custom o2 or fuel syrofoam mold. There needs to be a rigid 'shell' around your system which acts as a load-bearing structure, to isolate your system physically. The inside of this can then be bubble wrap to avoid inertial bump scuffing your system against milk crates.
wooden boxes: I have seen this used often with sensitive laboratory equipment. Things like SEM heads or x-ray tubes are actually packed in a box made out of wood, which has anti-static bags and packing foam / bubblewrap inside of it. This is really the only way to ship something large that you care about.
other: other clever systems I've seen used in our facilities include pelikan weapons carrying cases, and those large durable lunch boxes, which are used to transport delicates.
all the best
1. always assume that there might at one point or another be 5-6 20lb boxes of dog food stacked on top of your delicate o2.
2. always pack things so that a 150 pound desk set decelerating from a 35 degree angle off a roller line won't really damage anything in your package.
3. insure packages in small boxes would survive being thrown a good 4-5 ft to the top, and against, a steel trailer.
4. anything packed in a flimsy thin rectangle box with a single layer of bubble wrap will invariably have 20+ pounds of random automotive parts stacked on them. I see this everyday.
5. Your heavy over-sized onyx systems in large boxes? expect a 1/2 chance of them being dropped 5 ft onto the innards of a steel container. Every heavy thing loaded into the under-section of a trailer is dropped recklessly. no exceptions.
I received a well packed, but none-the-less damaged system in the mail today. It made me sad because it was from the same company I work for.
solutions:
styrofoam: specifically styrofoam that completely envelop the system. packing peanuts shift around. from the west coast to the mid-west, your package goes through 4 different hubs. That's potentially 4 different people loading your package onto conveyor equipment, and 4 different people packing it back into a wall of boxes which may contain a 50 lb weight-set, or a 3ft industrial oil drill. ( yes we ship those ). Bubblewrap is 'better' but people don't understand that with physics, and conservation laws, any weight on top of bubble wrap is going to be shifted directly into the machine that you are sending in the mail. Sure, it's nice to avoid scratching and scuffs, but it does nothing to alleviate load. Systems shipped in the mail should be physically isolated from the surrounding environment. Which leads me to:
milk-crates: Almost no one sends anything in these really, but they should, since you aren't going to get a custom o2 or fuel syrofoam mold. There needs to be a rigid 'shell' around your system which acts as a load-bearing structure, to isolate your system physically. The inside of this can then be bubble wrap to avoid inertial bump scuffing your system against milk crates.
wooden boxes: I have seen this used often with sensitive laboratory equipment. Things like SEM heads or x-ray tubes are actually packed in a box made out of wood, which has anti-static bags and packing foam / bubblewrap inside of it. This is really the only way to ship something large that you care about.
other: other clever systems I've seen used in our facilities include pelikan weapons carrying cases, and those large durable lunch boxes, which are used to transport delicates.
all the best
<-------- A very happy forum member.
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There's already a sticky, my permanent web page of advice...
