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General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: jefflieu on November 17, 2017, 11:59:16 pm

Title: Big box from Arrow
Post by: jefflieu on November 17, 2017, 11:59:16 pm
Last week I ordered 4 8-pin comparator and a development that fits in your palm.
Here's what it came:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ilcqEoT4Fo-gjMCo3ql0bQKXQ8nf0VXh (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ilcqEoT4Fo-gjMCo3ql0bQKXQ8nf0VXh)
That box is just to fit this tube :D, see the comparators sitting at one corner?
https://drive.google.com/open?id=11nXCqfCJlXtCNmBIv37cCoyw7SWjHdGm (https://drive.google.com/open?id=11nXCqfCJlXtCNmBIv37cCoyw7SWjHdGm)
Space in an airplane is cheap I guess :D. I'd file a complain if they had charged me for shipping.

Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: HalFET on November 18, 2017, 12:09:49 am
Ah, gotta love standard packaging sizes! :-DD  At least RS started cutting boxes down sometimes, but Arrow and Farnell are just oblivious to shipping costs I think.  ;D

Reminds me of the time we took delivery of a single small bottle on a shipping pallet. I wish there were pictures of that one. :-DD
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: rdl on November 18, 2017, 01:32:43 am
That's pretty bad. Mouser sends small quantities of chips in tubes all the time, but they at least cut it down to size. Once they sent me a small amount of stuff in a box that was way too big, but I'm pretty sure it must have been because they ran out of smaller boxes and didn't want to delay the shipment.

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/insane-packaging/?action=dlattach;attach=203430;image)

I seem to remember a picture where somebody, HP maybe, had shipped a floppy disk on a full size wooden pallet.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: rsjsouza on November 18, 2017, 02:28:44 am
I seem to remember a picture where somebody, HP maybe, had shipped a floppy disk on a full size wooden pallet.
This history is famous:
https://gizmodo.com/5343411/hp-ships-power-cord-in-giant-box-with-attached-pallet
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: rstofer on November 18, 2017, 02:42:12 am
None of these packages got lost in shipment!
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: Red Squirrel on November 18, 2017, 03:31:08 am
Ah, gotta love standard packaging sizes! :-DD  At least RS started cutting boxes down sometimes, but Arrow and Farnell are just oblivious to shipping costs I think.  ;D

Reminds me of the time we took delivery of a single small bottle on a shipping pallet. I wish there were pictures of that one. :-DD

Lol I saw something like that once, I think it was a power cord on a pallet.  :-DD  Probably Dell.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: Mr. Scram on November 18, 2017, 03:41:02 am
Lol I saw something like that once, I think it was a power cord on a pallet.  :-DD  Probably Dell.
Look not one post above yours, but two :)
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: station240 on November 18, 2017, 07:24:48 am
Also from HP is this gem.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/enormouse/ (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/enormouse/)
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: daqq on November 18, 2017, 11:28:44 am
Yeah, some companies go full retard when it comes to shipping. See https://thedailywtf.com/articles/(Less)-Screwedup-Packaging for some fine examples.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: TomS_ on November 18, 2017, 11:32:33 am
I got a soldering iron tip delivered in a box that is about 300x200x150.  :-//

I guess they arent paying by volume.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: tszaboo on November 18, 2017, 11:41:52 am
There was a story that we ordered a reel of capacitors or something like that from our Chinese branch. And the Chinese lady organizing shipping thought that it has to be "shipped" with a "ship", so she reserved an entire 40 feet shipping container for the reel. In her defense, usually we were sending dozens of half ton machinery.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: HalFET on November 18, 2017, 08:01:36 pm
There was a story that we ordered a reel of capacitors or something like that from our Chinese branch. And the Chinese lady organizing shipping thought that it has to be "shipped" with a "ship", so she reserved an entire 40 feet shipping container for the reel. In her defense, usually we were sending dozens of half ton machinery.

 :-DD :-DD :-DD :clap: That's massive overkill.

Then there are also the gas bottle/cylinder pick-up/delivery guys. They toss "depleted" bottles of Xe-F gas into the back of their truck without too many questions, not on a pallet, not chained/strapped down. Keep in mind, depleted usually means there's still enough xenon and fluorine in there to knock out (or worse) a medium sized conference room.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: Jeroen3 on November 18, 2017, 08:16:43 pm
I recently ordered 20 spools of leaded solder from RS. It came, as required, with the 10 page MSDS... twenty times.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: jefflieu on November 18, 2017, 09:31:01 pm
 :-DD :clap:
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: glarsson on November 18, 2017, 10:05:32 pm
Lol I saw something like that once, I think it was a power cord on a pallet.  :-DD  Probably Dell.
Sometime close to 1985 a pallet was delivered from Digital Equipment to us by truck and forklift. On the pallet was one big box. Opening this box revealed a packing list and several smaller boxes. The packing list indicated that all but one box was empty (very common for DEC at that time). The non-empty box contained one even smaller box (and some packing material). The even smaller box contained one piece of paper. On the paper was printed one license unlock code for some software on our VAX/VMS systems.   :palm:
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: mc172 on November 18, 2017, 10:10:29 pm
I always laugh at RS over here - they're always going mad on packaging. The last example - ordered two 50 Ohm N connectors and five 25-turn potentiometers. They arrived in a box big enough to get two Rigol oscilloscopes in. They're not always quite so bonkers but they love their little paper bags and brown packing paper.
I once ordered some pretty large (around Ø25x40mm?) capacitors for a job - about 25 of them. Each one was packaged in a part numbered heat sealed plastic bag. Each was then put into its own paper bag, all put into a massive paper bag, in a cardboard box.

On the plus side, getting packages from RS reminds me a bit of my youth - they're the same bags that I used to put penny sweets in at the shop as a kid.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: Jeroen3 on November 18, 2017, 10:28:07 pm
Try ordering 500 potentiometers, without suffix P from RS.
You will get a box, with a bag, with individually sealed bags with each 1 potentiometer.
Title: Re: Big box from Arrow
Post by: jmelson on November 19, 2017, 08:13:29 pm
Many, MANY years ago (like 40) I ordered a bunch of chips from Avnet.  In that order were something like 25 74LS04 chips.
These came in ** 22 ** separate packages, shipped from 22 different branches.  I called up and complained, as the shipping charges were 10 X the cost of the parts.  They credited me the shipping charges.  It was fairly obvious somebody was trying to make me "go away" as I was a very small customer.  No WAY they would only have one or 2 of these totally common parts per branch.  Whoever did this didn't know, however, that my business partner was a manager at Avnet.

Jon