Question Where to get inexpensive packaging materials: padded boxes for hard drives, mobo, cpu/cooler etc?

[SAmalathion]

I live in SF Bay area California. I want to break down an old build and send it across the country to family as a hand-me-down. But looking online it seems the boxes to safely ship hard drives and whatnot are bizarrely expensive. Does anyone have advice on where to get these on the cheap? e.g. if I go to a Fry's would they give them to me? I tried some of the local computer repair small businesses but they toss the stuff out and don't have much.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Craft stores. However, living in the Bay area might mean you're sol.

 

[Sgt. York]

I see what you did there.

 

[JackMDS]

Go to a post office, take few of the free priority mail boxes. Get some bubble wrap and ship via priority mail in few boxes.

 

[mindless1]

1) I have packing materials because I don't throw away *all* packing materials when I buy things.

2) If the local shops are throwing these things away, they are in their dumpster, but once upon a time ago I befriended someone who worked at a local mom 'n pop computer shop, and it was a goldmine for leftovers cheap if not free, including hardware.

3) What do you think is special about a box to ship a HDD? Ideally it should be in an anti-static baggie but so many things come in those, surely you have one? Otherwise, wrap whatever you want around it, bubble wrap,, crumpled up newspaper, an old towel, etc, just taping the padding securely around it OR putting so much in an outer box, that the inner box the HDD/etc is in, has no chance of moving around much.

Consider that when you bought hardware new from a merchant, it wasn't packed so great yet survived the trip. You must do due diligence to pack things reasonably, but this is what insurance is for.

FWIW, I've shipped entire systems fair distances, and only took off the CPU heatsink, and took the video card out. I made 100% sure the recipient understood that the heatsink had to be installed before powerup. I might pack a HDD separately rather than mounted in a case (if it was worth anything, not just some old near $0 value thing because they're better off with an SSD anyway), but an SSD I wouldn't bother.

Remember that if you ship UPS or Fedex, it's more the weight than the size of the box (till it gets into "dimensional weight" class) so you do not need a box that is exactly the right size, just to have padding to make up the difference. Obviously some padding weighs less than others.

 

[EliteRetard]

Instead of breaking down a whole system, you could try expanding foam.

You can buy cans of expanding spray foam at hardware stores. You may want to experiment a bit first if you're not familiar with how the foam expands (it can take a few hours for some). There are also various types, from low expansion to high expansion (low expansion is less risky for the inexperienced). Use a thick garbage bag (that wont puncture/tear easily by the sharp bits in a PC) and loosely press the bag into the large open areas of the PC and hang the excess bag over the outer edges of the case (it'll help with any overrun). Then spray in your foam and let it grow...once cured you can trim if needed to fit the side back on the case (or add more foam if not enough). You can also make custom cushions with the foam, doing it like a manual 3D printer. Spray a wide flat "L" shape on the inside corners of a box etc (and the foam can be trimmed to fit any shape/size).

 

[mindless1]

lol, what could possibly go wrong...

 

[EliteRetard]

lol, what could possibly go wrong...

Probably a lot if you're inexperienced and careless. But if you can figure out how to build a PC, you should have enough competence to figure out how to carefully pack with foam. And again, you can experiment on other things first.

 

[mindless1]

You cannot pack it with foam. Either the foam is too loose to prevent damage because you let it expand before it was in place, or if it expanded in place the mere removal of it may cause more damage than shipping would have.

The interior of a PC is not like a vase you wrap the material around, has protrusions, pin headers, a static electricity damage potential from merely pulling the foam out. That could bend any cards in the motherboard slots more than shipping vibration ever would.

I was about to say that it might work for a HDD already in an ESD safe bag except that AFAIK it expands to a hard cell condition that isn't as cushioning as the typical HDD packaging.

Before I did that, I would do what I did to a friend as a joke which was stuff a PC I was sending to him ( a free hand-me-down so if it didn't turn out well I wasn't in debt to him for it) full of packing peanuts. I was merciful and didn't shove any in the PSU that would require opening it to remove them.

Anyway I think it's fair to say that if this was a viable alternative that solved more problems than it caused, OEMs would be doing this.

 

[RLGL]

Over thinking the situation. Dell etc ship fully assembled, take it out of the box, plug and play.

 

[EliteRetard]

*snip*

Anyway I think it's fair to say that if this was a viable alternative that solved more problems than it caused, OEMs would be doing this.

There are quite a few OEMs who do this...that's where I got the idea (and the photo [there are tons more]).