I look forward to seeing this. We talked about your ideas briefly at The MD tech museum. I just use insulation and or soft foam to prevent things from shifting around. Use friction to keep everything in place Bill On Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 6:04 PM Jonathan Chapman via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I just put the stuff in the car with furniture blankets and other padding around it making sure if it has a fragile side such as front panel that its well protected from something heavy shifting into it if I have to slam on the brakes. Use ratchet straps to keep heavy stuff from moving.
That's basically how I handle both personal vintage computers and industrial customers' equipment (as long as it's not especially fragile).
I'm thinking about having foam-in-place boxes made for each chassis.
We buy Sealed Air InstaPak-RT bags and do this ourselves for shipping fragile equipment, especially things with CRTs. We buy ours from ULINE to make sure they're the real thing and in date (they do expire). Make sure you buy the "RT" kind, it stands for "Room Temperature," the other, cheaper InstaPak bags require preheating.
***BE SURE TO WRAP THE EQUIPMENT IN PLASTIC OR HEAVY CLOTH WHEN FORMING***
These things expand with force, and if one ever bursts, it'll be like spraying a can of Great Stuff foam on your hardware! Wrapping the item also prevents the foam from entering holes/cutouts and making a shape that can't be removed without wrecking the foam.
Thanks, Jonathan