🔴 Mailbag Monday 25th November 2024 - No.1303

[@douro20]

I've had a brand new variable autotransformer (Variac is a registered trademark) shipped to me several years ago from a Chinese seller who had a warehouse in Texas. It was shipped in the original packaging and the box was damaged on one corner. Luckily the transformer itself wasn't damaged but there was a spare fuse loose in the bottom of the box.

[@bblod4896]

Besides zip ties and velcro wrap, try spiral wrap. I used it on my outboard to bind some oil lines together. They don't dig into the lines like zip ties and handle heat better than Velcro.

[@douro20]

I have a sealed stepped variable resistance sitting somewhere but I forget what kind of instrument it came from. I wish I had a good enough ohmmeter to characterise it.

[@tonyh6309]

I recently received a Datron 1061 with pieces of really soft, 15mm sheet polystyrene cut to the exact sizes of each side, front, back, top and bottom and 'kept' in place by putting it all in a thin black plastic bag which had a bit of tape on it - no box! By some miracle it wasn't smashed to pieces on arrival even though the front corner was poking through. The worst packing I've ever encountered. Bizarrely it must have taken a lot longer to pack than putting it into a box. Usually I request the sellor to package carefully, as you do, but this time an offer was accepted and it was shipped before I even knew I'd won it.

[@randyab9go188]

The trademark holder of the Variac trademark General Radio is long gone and is now a generic term like Kleenex.

[@douro20]

Industrial Service & Equipment bought the rights to the name after the divestiture of GenRad. It is still registered (US Registration #3046656)

[@Irilia_neko]

The secret is you can send what ever comment you want about the packaging but the packaging is already done before they put the product on ebay.