Carvey update

Hi @AngusMcleod yep, we’re probably getting some ShockWatch tags this week. However I’m not sure what that will do for us. The photos of the boxes are pretty devastating. I want to see the video of what they are doing to these packages.

Yea they end up paying replacement cost but the problem is their process takes 4 weeks and you need original packaging. We don’t have time to wait a month and leave customers hanging.

Also we don’t have an infinite number of parts to burn through. The practical part of it is we need them to handle the packages in a reasonable manner so they get to the customers in good condition.

Ironically we had a sticker on the box that said delectate instrument handle with care and the puncture went right through the box just below the sticker.

@Zach_Kaplan
I have a horrible UPS story, but it doesn’t need to be aired here. The long and the short of it is that unless you have a big, big stick - they ignore you.

When it became known that we were associated with a huge UPS customer that used a BIG stick - UPS solved our problem within ten minutes.

use fedex!!! use fedex!! those packages survive a plan crash for heavens sake

but no really i am not sure of the details of your operation but if ups cant handle it a personal meeting with Fedex WILL get the job done

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@Zach_Kaplan

As we produce medical devices, I spec ASTM for our products, a quick overview http://www.testedandproven.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ASTM-versus-ISTA-for-Distribution-Simulation-Testing.pdf

I use http://www.smitherspira.com/ for our box testing, I’ve been very happy with their testing, and also their ability to provide feedback to our box manufactures for packaging improvements. For instance, we took a box design from our box manufacture, tested it and it performed well in all except the corner drop test ( unacceptable G’s ), and they gave is great input to go back to our box people with specific design changes ( a tweak to the form layout ).

BTW, one of the tips from our box people, which disappointed me personally, was to avoid high % or recycled material in the box cardboard. The more times it has been recycled, the shorter the fibre length, and the less inherent strength in the material. So higher recycled content, less impact resistance for equivalent thickness and walls. I want to be as green as possible, but unfortunately you can’t ship sheet metal boxes in high recycled content cardboard !

Having said that, like you, I have also shipped product from one side of the country and back, just to make sure everything was OK, and to give confidence in the design.

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Hey @Andy4us yea check out the test we did in our KS update. We failed the first time but passed the second time. The box takes a beating but nothing like what we saw when shipping to actual customers.

Here’s the official update on this topic. Phil has just sent me a proposed schedule and we are going through it now to think through it a bit before publishing.

I’m going to be interested to see the pictures of damage. My gut tells me on the KS Update link is that you need an additional foam "band around the middle to help reduce flex of the box in the middle, or drop in foam pads. A couple of the products we resell that are probably about the same weight and size as a Carvey have 4 of these http://www.allenfield.com/packaging.asp?cid=1&prodID=2162 . The UPS and Fedex drivers use them a lot.

That has a cardboard tub the product sits in, 5 walls, sides and bottom, and then a cardboard top of 4 sides and top drop on, and the handles go through the double side thickness to help look it all together. Everything is double walled cardboard, so 4 thickness on the sides in effect.

For fastening loose items, or for doors, the fiber reinforced packing tape works well and is very popular on many of the items that we resell.

Here’s the picture of the gory pictures taken of the BEFORE old packaging after shipment with no straps:

Here’s the AFTER

Here’s is the BEFORE of the inside:

Here’s is the AFTER of the inside:

Here’s is the BEFORE of the side foam with no cross bracing:

With the resulting crack on the front. The front was getting loaded with the full impact of the force when dropped off the back of the truck we assume.

Here’s is the AFTER of the side with cross bracing foam:

We think the cross bracing is more evenly distributing the force and the straps are giving the driver the option to carry it instead of shoving it off the back of the truck.

hmm thats interesting i would have thought the x carriage would have been supported from the wasteboard but if it works it works

very nice

The waste board moved in the Y direction. The X is held up by the two massive solid aluminum blocks on the left and right side of the machine.

@Zach_Kaplan

hmm so the whole wasteboard moves on that machine? (i havent look into the carvey to much sorry)

but so if the x rails are supported on the end what supports them in the center sense the x carriage is sitting in the middle? now I may have this wrong but all your support relies on the 2 metal rods the carriage slides on seems if it was pushed all the way to one side and a rigid foam spacer from wasteboard to carriage was installed

actually looks like you have some space front and back of the wasteboard so really you could spread the load out even more so you are transferring loads directly to the wasteboard

I am just spit balling here because I thought i heard in one of the updates that if alot of force was applied to the x carriage something was going wrong with it in your tests but I might be wrong

and your major goal of this was to have no assembly required for the end user correct? as far as the packaging goes anyways

ok ok I was looking at the pictures more and i see the problem with the x carriage it got shifted to one side I wonder iof there are holes on the inside of the left or right of the machine that a simple zip tie could go through instead of using all that foam on the rail with zip ties (zip ties are expensive lol) so with it shifted all the way to one side and zip tied with only 2 or 3 ties and a small amount of foam could in theory eliminate a few of those ties in the current config and save you some money

@Zach_Kaplan

hmm i know one problem with zip ties is that they are hard plastic and with alot of vibration that does not mean good things for paint either I am sure your shipping these machines overseas correct?

You may still get into trouble with the front. You’re just going to have to see. The cross brace will help strengthen the foam when there is an impact the side that the front faces, it will help stop the right hand side ( of your picture ) from compressing back and passing a force onto the front cover.

However, if just dropped from a truck onto that side, the inside part of the foam has to deform to provide the deceleration of the Carvey. It could be that the foam was not compressing, but twisting slightly to decelerate the Carvey when you put it into testing. By adding the braces, you could affect that movement.

On one product, we ended up adding a second strip of slightly less dense foam against the product to bring the deceleration G’s down to an acceptable level.

Like EMC testing, I’ve learned that box design is 50% engineering and 50% voodoo with a healthy sprinkling of testing thrown in.

I know you needed to solve an immediate problem, and it looks like you did a good of investigating that and providing fixes to what you had. If possible though, I would definitely recommend a trip back to the lab if your box manufacture can’t also do some basic testing, do an analyses of affected tests, and at least rerun those tests.

I once stood in a 10 foot shelving throwing the box as hard as I could to the floor to try and figure out a power supply bracket issue we had. Life can be tough sometimes !

Thanks @ontheEDGE and @Andy4us. @ontheEDGE when we added the second row of foam it seems to have solved the problem since we distributed the load more evenly.

@andy4us I’m afraid you are correct. All we can do now is ship more units and play the waiting game. We haven’t had a failure with this new style so I’m optimistic. However, I can say with certainty someone will have a damaged package. We’ve had MakerSlide come back to us in an L shape.

@Zach_Kaplan

Wow!! L shaped huh if I was in your position I would be furious those are the sorta things that can make or break a small business such as yours

I personally like that you personally get on here every day and talk with customers lol dont ever lose that the bigger you get

I am not even a carvey customer but I was checking out the kickstarter page and all the updates look extremely truthful and in depth that would keep me any day as a loyal customer for furture things to come

I always dream about working for a company like yours where inovation is the main goal

I am glad everything is getting sorted out if I can be of any help just let me know

Looking forward to the future

I can see these types of things happening. Last year I had a bandsaw delivered from Ups freight and I watched the driver literally kicking and dropping other grizzly and powermatic power tool boxes out of the way. It was a little mind blowing.

Thanks for your reply, I don’t know if the damage is intentional or not but it hurts. Hopefully everything will be solved and I will get my Carvey soon.

We shipped a batch today. Hopefully they will all arrive safely.

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Hi Zach, how was feedback onthe last shipped batch?