We’ve been getting reports of a few hardware bags exploding in transit. If this happened to you can you reply to this post to let me know if it was the bag with the non-locking nuts and the Allen wrench or the bag with the locking nuts? I want to find out which so we can double bag it or pack it in a different spot so it doesn’t happen.
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For me it was the locking nuts, bag of small plastic parts broke open, box was coming apart at one of its seams and a chip in the sled plastic. At first I thought the piece was some flashing until I saw where it came from. Fortunately the kit came with what I needed to glue it back.
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I’m not sure which bag it was that exploded for me. I know where it was in the box, though. I had to inspect things last night because the box was delivered damaged (the postal service thoughtfully marked it as “received already damaged”, which is a fib I think). I don’t think that I lost any nuts or screws but haven’t had the time to count them. I’ll be doing that tonight after I get done working.
I don’t want to find out what that sticky stuff was on the box. I’m going with someone spilled their soda on it in the mail truck. I wasn’t sure if it was any of the liquids sent in the kit or not. I did find all 3 things that it could’ve been safe inside (thread locker in a bag, silver pouch in another [assuming it is the silicone grease right now], and the retail pack of super glue).
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That was my first thought when I saw the outside of the box, but then I was thinking that none of those parts contain enough liquid to cause that much mess.
If anything inside is damaged, let us know.
I took everything out of the box. Nothing looked damaged in my quick inspection. At least, there weren’t any small plastic bits or cracks that I could find. I am planning to do a more thorough inventory tonight. If there are extra nuts and things that were in that bag, I may not do a count of the loose ones, just put them all in separate containers to make it easy to grab.
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There are like 100 extra. The first bag had exactly what we needed and then I changed the design and we needed a few more so I decided if there was going to be a second bag we might as well put so many extra in that I wouldn’t have to worry about changing the design again and needing even more.
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Yep, the bag with the lock nuts ripped open.
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That’s the second one of those that I’ve seen. It looks like we need to re-think how they are packaged.
DM me your address and I will send you a replacement
@anna When you get around to shipping my two can you put them together into an outer box? - They’ll have a rough ride getting here to Timor
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I did find some damage to the sled. Some is superficial. One of the support pieces that holds the metal rods in place was snapped off, same as @clintloggins ended up. This was just from me unboxing.
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DM me your address and I’ll send you a replacement right away. Until it arrives, you can probably assemble everything normally since that part will be compressed into place by the locking collar that goes around it, or if you want to wait the replacement should be there in a few days. That seems like a weak spot for sure since that’s the second one of those that we’ve seen.
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I also decided to count all of the screws, nuts, and locking nuts as I was sorting them into different bins. I may have miscounted but am only off by one of the larger screws. I’d have thouo with my angry mailman (he does smile on the rare occasion) more would’ve been missing.
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Having a surface mount cap come loose in shipping - I can’t remember ever seeing this and I’ve shipped millions (literally) of consumer products containing electronics.
@Bar, you should have @Glen_Paul ship the board back to you and examine it closely - it may have been soldered poorly (maybe insufficient solder paste) or placed poorly before soldering. You will probably be able to tell with a close examination.
That kind of cap has two leads, one on each side, and they are partially visible even when soldered in place. You could examine them without desoldering or cutting anything and at least see if there is a completely soldered joint with good wetting.
It may have been soldered correctly but if the leads are malformed it will sit crooked.
@MartinJ , those are really good pictures of the sled. What kind of camera and lens did you use?
@bar , when I look at the full size pictures, I see what looks like a brittle fracture with no sign of deformation or yielding. Did you say this was glass reinforced PVC? Do you know what % glass was used, and maybe have a spec sheet for the PVC resin? A spec sheet for the glass filled resin would be great if it came from the supplier like that as a standard product. It seems to be exhibiting brittle behavior, and that is affected by both the % glass used and the plasticizers incorporated into the plastic resin (these vary a lot).
If the sleds were tossed into a bin in the factory (likely) or packed in such a way that heavier objects (motors?) could slide into and strike the support feature it might cause the damage.
…and I should add that as you pack the kits for shipment, maybe inspect each one for this kind of damage, so you can filter out any that were caused at the factory or in transit from the factory to you.
My cell phone. It’s a pixel 6. I didn’t even let it do any of that fancy editing.
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I have some similar issues from what Martin showed. Do these breaks along the inner rim of the sled impact anything?
Yeah, and there were two of those so we will have to look into it. I’ll inspect the next batch as they come through to make sure that they aren’t arriving like that and also we will start wrapping them with some more padding.