Ed Oscuro wrote:If they shipped it face down, they actually did all they could to prepare it for the consumer shipping service. There shouldn't have been any force on the plastic back shell to do that - obviously, the usual has happened and the "package" was turned all around and upside down during its trip - oh, and dropped too. I hope the next roll of the dice doesn't come up snake eyes again - actually I wish I could know what the real loss rate for shipping PVMs was. It can't be terrific though.
We're not quite at the point where it makes economic sense to try and have replacement PCBs made - or even, in many cases, to ship them properly - and we might not ever be actually; better tech might eventually do in the venerable CRT for retrogaming purposes. As it is, unfortunately it's still cheaper to just try again, as you're doing.
Maybe this is a sign that you should look up consumer, component-carrying Trinitrons (or other quality TV brands) in your area. The RGB to component boxes should work fine for a lot of material.
It really depends on who ships the PVM. I have had over 30 PVM's/BVM's shipped to me over the past two years. I have had about 12 BVM's/PVM's come via UPS, all sustained damage that could not be fixed (mostly shadow mask damage). The rest of the shipments went via fedex and the only monitors I have lost via fedex were due to poor packaging (talking only 3), I have yet to lose a CRT that was properly packaged that came via fedex.
I was talking to a retired Sony tech this week that I bought a BVM off of. The first BVM he shipped came via UPS and the shadow mask was damaged on the right side of the monitor. When he called to bitch a fit over the phone the UPS phone operator told him that packages shipped via UPS must be able to withstand a five foot fall. Apparently there is a five foot fall somewhere in their main hubs now where one conveyor belt dumps packages onto another. They do not filter fragile packages off this line leaving them to take the full brunt of the fall. On top of that there is a chance your package will not move out of the way fast enough (still bouncing from the fall) and another large package can fall on top of it and crush it. There is nothing to pad the fall.
Sooooo moral of the story is shipping a CRT of any size via UPS is a HUGE gamble, I do not recommend it. Fedex however does not do this shitty little drop and will treat packages marked as fragile with more care (if they catch them that is, they don't all the time). Also never ship economy, the more time in transit the more time it has a chance of getting damaged. Always at least ship the standard services. Fedex will usually ship a 14 inch PVM for 30-40 (unless shipping to new york for some reason) and 20's for around 55-75.