OpenBuilds have and always do a great job. This is in no way a reflection of their services. Am in desperate need for the replacement Blackbox. Order was FAST like lightening. Used Fedex International Priority Shipping from US to Australia and it is through customs in Sydney within 2 business days. The Australia run has been slowed significantly though. They sent it to Brisbane and let it go on either road/rail freight for the last 2000kms of the trip (still in Queensland, same state). Fedex on the phone said it should never have been placed on road freight. Our CNC is dead in the water at the moment. It is such a disappointment that all the hard work from OpenBuilds for fast processing as well as the AU$70 we spend on the freight was all for nothing if it's going to take a week longer to get here. So deflated, I will probably not get paid this week as my job requires the machine working. Sucks to go through a week of not much food just because the Australian part (which I think is TNT) tried to save a few bucks and not honor the minimum road freight guides by Fedex. It's not even delayed due to weather or health or anything like that. Just a choice to not let it fly for the last leg of it.
Just as bad in NZ Sean - I have a package that's been stuck in Auckland for around 2 weeks so your not alone!
I live in South Africa - so you guys are still lucky in my book (; But yeah that is terrible and I feel really sorry for you. Just a tip from my own arsenal, stuff that my livelyhood depends on - needs to have a spare sitting on the shelf before it breaks. Once it becomes Business and not a hobby, you need to secure against possible failures. It has unfortunate costs involved yes, but when trouble strikes - having spare controller, brushes for your spindle, extra endmills, etc becomes a lifesaver
Yeah, I had a Banggood parcel in the post office (after customs) for 3 months, had pretty much given up on it when it suddenly started moving and arrived. It was a 2.5W LED laser. Customs in 2 days! wow! Agreed.The people I work for are running a multimillion UKP international project which relies a lot on effective Zoom meetings. I have had to teach them to think about redundant hardware and systems to keep the Zoom meetings alive, getting 9 different countries all online at the same time is hard enough and if the host goes offline they all disappear by the time you get back. Stuff like: working on a laptop via a network that needs power? (1) Better have a battery powered cell modem handy AND make sure that laptop is fully charged at all times. Working via your cellphone? Have you got extra airtime? Have you got an external battery pack? Do you need to drive to a spot with better reception? do it before the meeting! Working from a desktop? Have a laptop ready to go, and a cellphone, and a ...... etc etc etc. Also have a spare headset ready to plug in. (1) like Peter I am in South Africa where we have a critically broken national electricity grid. The result is scheduled power outs we call loadshedding , which boils down to 'just turn half the city off for 2 hours'. At least there is a schedule so we can plan for the outages. Here at the university the library has a massive genset so we can host meetings in that building, but the venue has to be booked ahead of time.
I have been begging my boss to just keep spare Blackboxes. I would love to just have a drop in ready. Once we get this one I will be ordering another. Just really needed it before the end of the week so I could make money. Hopefully the boss does right by me. I should consider myself lucky given those circumstances. Not happy that you both have to go through that but it really does put a bit of perspective light on my situation. Thanks for sharing.
