Octopus Overlords

I'm mostly venting.

I'd like to take a CNC router to Korea. It's not that heavy and I am willing to pay to bring it as an oversized bag on the plane. The problem is finding a nice strong tote that is 30 inches x 30 inches x 14 inches. Loads of big totes or containers exist but they all seem to have one big dimension and the others are both around 20 (give or take an inch).

The last resort is to just wrap it really well in bubble wrap and packing tape but it seems like there should be a better option.

Is cost a factor? If not there is no doubt a Pelican case close to the right dimensions.

Oddly enough there is no Pelican case large enough in the right dimensions. Getting a second dimension greater than 27" is tough.

I'm now looking at car rooftop bags. They come in the right sizes and can give a nice outer layer to something wrapped in bubble wrap.

Build one?

You could buy duct tape & 4x8 sheets of coroplast https://www.homedepot.com/p/Coroplast-4 ... /205351385 to make your own. We've check bagged some led strip lights that way several times.

If money is really no object and you still have a little time....

Https://www.casesbysource.com/product/a ... -ata-31800

30x30x16 (interior) Parker.

Thanks stessier and LawBeefaroni; I knew someone would find something!

The coroplast is a good idea as I already have some around the house in the form of old yard signs. I'll almost certainly use that to stiffen the bubble wrapped package. I might still go with the car top carrier bag as a final outer layer but I might just skip it.

A possible cheaper option might be two of these tied together minus the lids https://www.amazon.com/Plano-Sportsmans ... way&sr=8-5 Here is the supposed interior dimension 34.75 in. L x 13.5 in. W x 16 in. H

Why can't you just ship it via FedEx instead of lugging it around with you? Unless you mean North Korea .

Madmarcus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 04, 2019 10:13 am I'm mostly venting.

I'd like to take a CNC router to Korea. It's not that heavy and I am willing to pay to bring it as an oversized bag on the plane. The problem is finding a nice strong tote that is 30 inches x 30 inches x 14 inches. Loads of big totes or containers exist but they all seem to have one big dimension and the others are both around 20 (give or take an inch).

The last resort is to just wrap it really well in bubble wrap and packing tape but it seems like there should be a better option.

How long are you going to be there and needing the router? It may be easier to connect with a local maker community and buy/rent time on a machine. I found this community in Seoul. from this article.

That's another can of worms. Prior to deciding to go overseas I was just getting into the idea of a personal CNC. I'd messed around with 3D printing and normal shop machining as part of robotics but I had a list of things that I wanted to try that didn't really fit into either of those methods. So, in a rare burst of spending, I bought a personal CNC (Carve King if anyone cares). I assembled it and made sure it worked but life intervened and I didn't do much with it. Then life seriously intervened when I decided to head to Seoul.

Now that I'm settled there all of the desire to start messing around with CNC has come back. I've been over to http://fablab-seoul.org/ but between distance and machine time cost I know I wouldn't do much. Especially because, for better or worse, I really don't like making public mistakes so anything I do at a makerspace/fablab type place is going to have to be perfect or I'm going to get frustrated and stop.

The other, even weirder, twist is that I am trying to get the Carve King to Seoul. With a 17.5x17.5 working area it's good for smallish stuff. I also have a kit that is supposed to be a CNC for full sheets of plywood but I've never tried it out. I won it for the last school I was at in the US but due to many delays in shipping to the educational winners the school didn't have the space by the time it arrived and said I could just take it with me. It would be easier to take to Seoul but much more of a pain to deal with in Seoul.

The thoughts are probably moot now. Even without padding it is closer to 50lbs than I thought. So it's either take it completely apart which would eliminate the need for an oversized container or pay for oversized AND overweight which isn't going to happen. Or ship it and pay customs fees which also isn't going to happen

I wonder if you can order one shipped from China via Aliexpress and still come out cheaper?

You can probably sell it locally and recoup most of the cost when you leave.

A brief search in the spring showed that I could get a machine with a 12"x7" working space for $175+ on AliExpress. Probably more like $200 with shipping. Which is enough to be above the customs limit in Korea so I'd likely have to pay something extra to get the package. That size is big enough to do some of the things I'm interested in but not all. The machine I currently have has a working area of 17.5x17.5. Unfortunately anything bigger than the 12x7 starts to get really pricey. Note that an overweight and oversized bag to get my current machine to Seoul is also basically $200.

On a purely monetary standpoint it looks like I should bite the bullet and take the one I have. It's basically the same cost and does more. Plus I know it works (I've read of problems with the AliExpress machines although the one biggest issue has mostly gone away in the last couple of years). But $200 is enough to make me question how much I would use it. Pyperkub is right that there are alternatives to owning the machine even if they are much less friendly to just messing around when the mood strikes (also much less friendly to iteratively working out the details of designing something).

BTW, this is why all of my hobbies are cheap hobbies! Spending more than $100 at a time on something that isn't a need is very difficult for me.