Shipping Service Quality

I buy a lot of computer parts to support my hobby of repairing computers. I buy several hundred items a year, enough that I need to keep track of each order and shipment to ensure that it makes it to me. Otherwise I forget.

Given the 100+ shipments this year, this is what I've found:

All items "lost in the mail" are due to bad US-based eBay seller practices. Items get lost due to lousy label printing and poor label attachment. These items have all eventually showed up, but it is definitely the seller's fault, and not the shippers.
For domestic shipping, USPS is the most reliable and predictable. UPS Ground and FedEx Smartpost are very slow. FedEx Smartpost uses ground trucks to move items thousands of miles, and then they hand it to USPS for delivery. I guess it is cheap.
Items from overseas (mostly China) normally makes it to me within 3 weeks, but it can be as quick as 7 days, or take as long as 8 weeks. So I can't bank on timing when ordering items from China.
LaserShip is getting better. They're still sloppy, but not as horrid as my previous experience with them. I speculate that they have a lot of driver turn-over, which results in inexperienced delivery people.
USPS's "informed delivery" is pretty awesome.
Amazon's real-time delivery tracking is very awesome - when it's available.

Other Thoughts: None!

Fixing a SodaStream Jet, part 1: Disassembly Guide

I've had my SodaStream Jet for years, and once in a while something has gone wrong. Disassembly is the first step to repair. Start with this article to see how to disassemble the SodaStream, and then once you have that down, scroll through my other articles to see how I repaired specfic SodaStream problems. SodaStream Jet Disassembly Guide Tools Required Flat head screwdriver Phillips head screwdriver 1. Remove the Carbonator. Duh. 2. Remove the black panel lever The front big black tilt lever needs to be removed first. Removing this panel is tricky, but it isn't impossible. Looking up at the bottom of the black panel, there are two tabs, one on the left and one on the right. These tabs fully secure the panel in place. The trick is to use a flat-head screwdriver under the plastic to gently lever the tabs out of the way. Note in the pictures how I approach these tabs with my screwdriver. I usually release the left side first, and then I release ...

Sodastream Carbonator Leakage, Usage, and Weight

SodaStream 60L "Carbonator" CO2 cylinders have a specific weight when empty, plus about 410 or so grams for the CO2 they should have when they're "full". A little while ago I went to buy a replacement Carbonator from my local hardware store. The dealer pulled a new Carbonator out of the box and sensed it was lighter than usual. He put the "light" Carbonator in the "empty" pile and sold me a different one. At that moment I concluded that it would be smart of me to weigh both new and empty SodaStream carbonators. Here are the results. Weighing a SodaStream Carbonator - for both Science and Consumer Protection. The dealer told me that sometimes the carbonators leak after they leave the SodaStream filling facility. That means there could be an opportunity for customers like me to get ripped off! The SodaStream cylinders I buy claim to have a net product weight of 410 grams - and that means that a full Soda Stream Carbonator shou...

Fixing a SodaStream Jet, Repair #2 - Broken Fill Button

My Soda Stream Jet's fill button broke, which means I can not longer carbonate water by pressing the pushbutton. This caused all sorts of grief in my household. Here is how I managed to repair my Jet to give it another 10 years of life (hopefully). First, a look at the button The fill button on the top of the SodaStream is actually a simple lever. Pressing down on the button moves a pin that does the actual work of pressing open the Carbonator's valve. Unfortunately, the axis point is fairly thin and can see a lot of stress. That's where my Soda Stream button cracked. [ I think the usage tip here is "don't over-press the button like a gorilla, it doesn't do anything but put high stress on the button."] Cracked levering point of the button The Pesky Lever Retaining Pin The Fix It was pretty easy for me to replace the button: Take off the back of the Soda Stream and remove the carbonator. Push out the the button lever's steel retaining pin. This takes qu...

Macintosh: Upgrading an eMac

It's been a long time since I wrote this article, but the fact remains: The good old eMac can still be useful if you take the simple steps to keep it as good as it can be. All can run Tiger, and most can run Leopard - great operating systems for their day with a bit of useful life. This article describes the procedure I used to upgrade my old eMac, including: Replacing the internal hard disk with a large capacity drive. Increasing the memory for performance Upgrading the operating system Here I'm upgrading a 700 MHz eMac, but the procedure and tasks for upgrading other eMac models should be almost identical. Upgrading versus Replacing My sister's eMac is of the 700 mhz variety, with 256 MB of memory. The machine seemed to be getting "slower", and the original 40 GB disk was becoming jammed packed with photos and iTunes, and within a few months she'd be out of disk space. There were two options to address the problems: upgrade the eMac, or go o...

Modernizing old house network wiring - Part 6 - Assessing my Coaxial Cable TV Cabling

My prior blog entries were all about converting my house's telephone lines for Ethernet use. Today I started to address my old home's coaxial cable tv cables. Cable TV was a huge thing from the 1980s until the 2000s, but it is a dying concept. Still, the one thing I've learned is that you need to understand something before taking out an axe. Almost every room in my house has a cable TV outlet (some rooms have more than one). In my basement, a cluster of 9 cables appear in the telecom panel, with some connected to a giant splitter and some just hanging loose. Half the cable seems to have been run properly: inside the walls of the house. The other half was sloppily strung up on the outside of the house. It looks like most of this cable was installed 20 years ago. So without further ado, I'm going to assess what I have. Identifying and Testing each cable My first order of business was to figure out where each cable was going to, as only one cable was labelled ("att...

Fix a Lightning Cable with Heat Shrink Tubing

We've all seen a Lightning cable that has started to fall apart. They get used every day, and after enough tugs and yanks on your iPhone, they start to fray. I've seen a lot of these frayed cables, so I've started to fix them before they break with heat shrink tube. I get my heat shrink on Amazon, like this handy and inexpensive pack. I prefer the heat shrink tubes without internal glue - it has higher flexibility and a smaller outside diameter once shrunk. Heat Shrink Tubing on an Old, Frayed Lightning Cable In the photo here, you'll see that I slid on a 1.25 inch length of heat shrink over the lighting connector, and then shrunk it into place. I chose a diameter that just barely fits over the lightning connector. In all, it took about 60 seconds to perform this repair. Warning: the white plastic of the lightning cable has a pretty low melting point. It seems to start to melt at about 125°C (or about 250°F), which is the same temperatur...

The Lance J. Technoweb

Search This Blog