Funny thing is that when I unpacked them in Abu Dhabi, the crate was damaged and not very rigid anymore but the printer wasn't. I fixed the crate before shipping back and now it is the opposite.
Looks like I will need to take this one apart and reassemble correctly again, he was a bit wobbly in the first place...
And I will need to look into ways to better pack the machines, I always fill the crate with foam. Also on the bottom there is 3 cm foam in which the feet are plugged so the foam sits flush with the horizontal bottom bars. Will need to look into ways to improve this.
So fellow robot travelers, how do you ship your machines?
I use a Pelican 1620 case for lugging around my makerbot cupcake. The squishy foam inserts seem to do a good job of holding it firmly in place and absorbing most of the rattling movement.
ReplyDeleteMy Ultimaker's in a big Pelican case. It flew 4 times without any problems. TSA also wasn't a problem with my US trip. I was planning to make a lighter case, because right now I can't bring a lot of other stuff, because I'm almost over the allowed weight with just the machine it it (both are about 10kg).
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, you are talking situations where you take it on a plane yourself no? Thats probably the least problem. We need to ship 8 crates in advance to the exhibit and for some reason I don't think a pelican case would be suitable for cargo shipping. That's almost exclusively wood crates that are used. Maybe a custom flight case would be best.... Also I am a bit afraid of the price for a pelicase that can fit a Rapman, it's considerably larger than a Makerbot, although ultimaker comes close no Erik?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip about soft foam, maybe the styro is to hard in the first place...
I think I am also going to make some wood mdf boards with corner holes in them that can slide over the bars on al for sides because I also found that the corner blocks moved 3mm on the thicker bars on some corners, maybe because of the lube?