Transport Hypothetical

[Nup]

You are moving country and have decided to transport your pc in parts via luggage on an airplane. What are some obvious pitfalls and how do you avoid them. 

[frokes]

Don't put any components in your carry-on luggage, don't know how a GPU looks on X-ray but Cheese and charging cables apparently look like C4 with wires...xD Just use check-in luggage and the parts should be fine given suitable packaging. Keep in mind that your luggage will be tossed around by ground crew to some extent so package accordningly.

[Prodigy_Smit]

24 minutes ago, Nup said:

You are moving country and have decided to transport your pc in parts via luggage on an airplane. What are some obvious pitfalls and how do you avoid them. 

i would bubble wrap the shit outta my GPU and CPU if i am not talking it in handheld luggage and would be careful with the case if it had a tempered glass side panel. Finally make sure not to put anything heavy on the mobo

[Prodigy_Smit]

1 minute ago, frokes said:

Don't put any components in your carry-on luggage, don't know how a GPU looks on X-ray but Cheese and charging cables apparently look like C4 with wires...xD Just use check-in luggage and the parts should be fine given suitable packaging. Keep in mind that your luggage will be tossed around by ground crew to some extent so package accordningly.

Bro no jokes in canada's airport they made us throw away a sponge and some chargers incase it was C4 or contained a bomb.

[frokes]

Just now, Smit Devrukhkar said:

Bro no jokes in canada's airport they made us throw away a sponge and some chargers incase it was C4 or contained a bomb.

Yep! My bag was treated, let's just say, differently when it came out of the x-ray ^^ Got to keep the cheese in the end tough

[starry]

I will never do this again. I had to move very suddenly with a very limited budget, we decided to only bring my partner's PC to share and go back and get mine later because it was lighter and smaller. We had a free checked bag with our ticket, so we put it in there, very very well packed in, to a degree that I would be comfortable throwing it out of a second floor window (I would never do this).

 

Somehow, when we got it back, there was a massive dent in the corner of the case, everything inside looked fine on first inspection though, but the PSU never ran the same. Random bluescreens and full on hard resets for months until we could afford to replace it. I opened up the PSU housing later out of curiosity, there was water damage and several loose components, i have no idea how that happened but not to the hard drive or the motherboard, or how it still turned on, but Im glad I stopped using it.

 

The case was like $20 anyways so I didnt really mind the dent so much, but with that much packing, they must have thrown it very very hard at something

[Prodigy_Smit]

3 minutes ago, frokes said:

Yep! My bag was treated, let's just say, differently when it came out of the x-ray ^^ Got to keep the cheese in the end tough

We need to have a special containment unit for cheese.

 

[Prodigy_Smit]

2 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

there was water damage and several loose components,

TF did they do to it? Sounds like it would have been treated better in a rodeo

[starry]

Just now, Smit Devrukhkar said:

TF did they do to it? Sounds like it would have been treated better in a rodeo

Ifkr, I cannot fathom how liquid got in it, completely wrapped in bubble wrap and plastic.

[frokes]

3 minutes ago, seapriestess said:

I opened up the PSU housing later out of curiosity, there was water damage and several loose components, i have no idea how that happened but not to the hard drive or the motherboard, or how it still turned on, but Im glad I stopped using it.

Damn that sucks! The water damage could just be condensation from moisture being trapped in your packaging that then condenses at altitude. As for the other dmg, I have friends who worked at our local airport and I've heard quite a few horror stories about the handling of luggage. Even if the ground crew themself are carful there is still a chance of severe bumps occuring during the sorting and handout, especially the belts are apparently rough AF on some luggage

[starry]

3 minutes ago, frokes said:

Damn that sucks! The water damage could just be condensation from moisture being trapped in your packaging that then condenses at altitude. As for the other dmg, I have friends who worked at our local airport and I've heard quite a few horror stories about the handling of luggage. Even if the ground crew themself are carful there is still a chance of severe bumps occuring during the sorting and handout, especially the belts are apparently rough AF on some luggage

I never thought about moisture condensing at altitute! I think that solves that mystery, PSU is sitting on my shelf now, no idea what to do with it. And yeah I figured handling would be bad but didnt think it would be dropped-out-of-a-3-story-window-bad. I basically engineered the packaging like an egg drop challenge, it would have be absurdly overkill for normal ground shipping. Sort of like this:

Edited August 17, 2020 by seapriestess
Realized I can put 2 posts into 1