This is getting stupid now. I just bought 5 trimphones as a job lot. all very well packaged and no obvious damage to the box. 4 arrived ok but the handset of the 5th one was broken clean in two!
The good part is the dealer who sold them to me has been really helpful and called me up today saying he's sending me a free phone plus a replacement handset. Now that's what I call customer service! :)
It's crazy how much stuff gets broken in the post or on courier vans though, even when very well packaged. I'm starting to think all delivery people are crap!
Andy.
There is nothing like a considerate seller. I have always tried ti keep to the golden rule with them and most have returned the favor.
Quote from: andy1702 on February 23, 2017, 01:33:39 PM
It's crazy how much stuff gets broken in the post or on courier vans though, even when very well packaged. I'm starting to think all delivery people are crap!
It seems to me that if the item was damaged in transit, it was either cracked when sent or the packing could have been better.
IMHO, It's not fair to blame the shipping companies, as they tell us to pack to withstand a 6 foot drop.
Was the handset resting on the phone in the shipping box? That is a sure way to destroy a handset and/or a phone.
You should be able to glue the pieces back together with super glue (Cyanoacrylate) applied carefully to the edges of the crack and generously on the inside of the handset. You may be able to hide the crack on the outside somewhat using M.E.K. to dissolve the plastic.
Larry
Larry
Quote from: paul-f on February 23, 2017, 04:13:01 PM
It seems to me that if the item was damaged in transit, it was either cracked when sent or the packing could have been better.
IMHO, It's not fair to blame the shipping companies, as they tell us to pack to withstand a 6 foot drop.
It's absolutely ridiculous that any item being shipoed should have to withstand ANY drop at all. We pay good money to have stuff shipped and this it what we get. I ALWAYS blaime the shipping co because it is their fault and no excuses. It's just lazy, ignorant, over-paid staff. Roll on the day they're all replaced by drones!
Paul ... The only time I've seen a reference to something being able to withstand a 6 foot drop has been with respect to crystal, ordinary glass ware, chemicals in plastic containers, or anything else of a similar very fragile classification.
Canada Post doesn't mention any sort of drop test, other than once it's packaged, "drop it off" at your local postal outlet.
Here's the Canada Post web site page dealing with shipping and shipping preparations : https://www.canadapost.ca/common/tools/pg/manual/PGabcmail-e.asp#1472598
But what some eBay shippers are unaware of when it comes to telephones, is always ship the handset or receiver, separately from the main part of the telephone, and "NOT" sitting in the cradle or receiver hook as the case may be.
Jeff Lamb
Quote from: LarryInMichigan on February 23, 2017, 05:31:56 PM
Was the handset resting on the phone in the shipping box? That is a sure way to destroy a handset and/or a phone.
You should be able to glue the pieces back together with super glue (Cyanoacrylate) applied carefully to the edges of the crack and generously on the inside of the handset. You may be able to hide the crack on the outside somewhat using M.E.K. to dissolve the plastic.
Larry
Larry
No, the body of the phone and handset were packed in seperate bubble-wrap and then placed in a box with 4 other phones and more bubble-wrap packed tightly around all the individual packages. The guy I bought them off has been dealing in phones for well over a decade and definitely knows how to pack stuff. I now totally refuse to use royal mail, parcelforce, parcels to go for anything.
Andy
Looking at where it's broken, I'm sure I read somewhere in the past that it was a common place for them to break (sharp angle, angry phone call, slam, broken!), but I haven't a clue where now, just one of them small marbles of information rattling about in my head... ???
Are any of these phones rotary? And if so, do their dials still have tritium tubes? I have a Trimphone dial round here somewhere that still has a very faint glow, which is quite surprising given its age (47 years now I believe)... :)
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=8812.msg94803#msg94803
Three of them are rotary and at least one has the dial with the tube still in place. I've not checked the other two yet. I didn't notice any glowing though. The half life of tritium is very short. I wonder if there's any way it could be recharged?
Andy.
Quote from: andy1702 on February 25, 2017, 03:32:41 AMI wonder if there's any way it could be recharged?
Andy.
Sadly not, it's a combination of the tritium half life and the phosphors breaking down, so the tube would need flushing out completely and refilling, so at that point you may aswell buy new ones, which don't exist unfortunately, you can buy straight tritium tubes though, but those would be tough to fit in a round dial... ;D
I don't know if there are any restrictions on receiving shipments from this vendor, but I have done business with him in the past, purchasing tritium illumination vials for optical equipment. He has offered vials in different sizes and colors and may be able to supply what you need.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?399475-B-rt-s-Tritium-thread
Never ship a phone with the handset on the cradle.
D/P
As the seller promissed, a replacement handset turned up in the post this morning, together with another complete replacement trimphone. Absolutely excellent service from Simon the seller. If only the shipping companies has the same commitment to customer service.
Andy.
I was having a think about the trimphone dial illumination (and lack thereof), and started looking about on t'internet for circular tritium tubes (or "betalights" as they also seem to be called), and came across some 6mm long tubes small I know, but, upon looking at my dial's tube, it seems to be a thin glass tube inside an outer plastic sheath, so, those 6mm tubes, take enough of those to fill a clear plastic tube of appropriate length and inside diameter, and you could form a C-shape tritium tube that consists of multiple little tubes... :)
The only difficulty is the cost, as for one of these little things, the price can be about £6 a pop... :o
B@rt has always been a good vendor, but you can see from the orders on his thread that what you need would be quite a large quantity. I was wondering if something like this cord could be a substitute. If there is provision for the tritium light to conduct to where it is needed, the area could be exposed to light and glow for a finite time period, or remain lit under UV illumination.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2yds-Glow-in-the-Dark-Silicone-Cord-fly-tying-Caddis-body-1-Last-Cast-Lures-NEW-/132103742122?var=431453441043&hash=item1ec1ff22aa:g:SFsAAOSw2GlXIj~6
It's an interesting option, I've seen other people use glow-in-the-dark paints before now (either painted inside the dial or onto a piece of card that is cut-to-fit behind the dial face), but that stuff could work too, it's just whether or not the phone received enough light to keep it lit up long enough, after all, the tritium tube illumination was to make the phone visible at night akin to WE Princess and AE Starlite phones, but without the need for external power, it was just withdrawn from the dials because of fears about radioactivity (which is negligible with Tritium, can't even penetrate paper, let alone human skin)... :)
Just a shame current-day tritium tubes are so expensive, but I guess they're being made in fewer numbers these days with restrictions on radioactive materials being shipped about the world, even though a Banana is more radioactive than a tritium tube... ;D
I was thinking something like the cord could be a less messy and more easily reversed option to paint. Then if it weren't the thing, not such a great loss.
To go back to the original topic....
I always send packing instructions when purchasing a phone. Besides isolating the handset from the body of the phone, the box needs to be filled tightly with packing, and not those silly airbags (which are not reusable by the way, they are lucky to make a single trip). My mailman says he has seen the boxes tossed into a floor to ceiling pile, anything crushable will be. And it seems marking "Fragile " is an invitation to toss the box. I don't blame all the people handling the packages, but it only takes a few to cause a lot of damage. That, and company policies that put reducing handling time above all else create the situation we have today. A couple of days ago I received a box containing a mouthpiece that couldn't have been more crushed if you drove a truck over it. Thankfully it was packed well enough.
I might give the luminous paint on a piece of card a try. Another thing I was wondering about would be an LED shining down the end of a clear acrylic tube fibre-optic style. Could an LED run off the line voltage?
You can run an LED off line voltage, but you'll need a dropper circuit to lower the power down to what the LED can take (which also depends on what LED you use), aswell as have it regulated so that when the line rings, the LED doesn't get fried by ringing current... :)
This rather old video (I remember seeing it about the time it was new!!) loosely describes how to do it, but doesn't go into detail of what is required to power the LED light:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoaLGvJkoP8