New BS-0 "dropped" before delivery, what would you do?

[WobblyHand]

Just received a new BS-0 clone from eBay the other day. Upon inspection there's a hole in the side of the box. It appears the worm drive shaft end may have hit the ground and damaged the screw. (Yes, it's just barely marked, but I'm not worried about the screw itself, but everything that the force was transmitted to.) Box has other signs of mishandling, such as crushed corners and slightly loose strapping. The box appears to have been dropped. I should know, when I picked it up by the strapping, the load shifted and almost dropped it. The seller was contacted, but their advise was merely to take everything out of the box and fully inspect it. That's fine and dandy, but the inside of the box looks like this unit spent some time on it's side. (Both sides actually, there's evidence of the box not being UP as the arrows on the box indicate.) As the manual advises this is a precision piece of machinery, I'm a bit worried.

Your advice? I thought I was buying new (and undamaged) equipment - that's what the listing says. I'm concerned about hidden damage. Being a beginner, not even sure how I could detect it. Want to be fair, but don't want a 53 lb door stop either. As you might be able to see, there really isn't much in the way of packing material to restrict side to side movement of the base.

 

[kb58]

Short answer: It's "probably" fine. Take it out, inspect it, and turn all the controls to see if they're smooth.

Those boxes were never intended for shipment by themselves and I've received my share of heavy items in boxes lined with Styrofoam, and yes, with shafts punched through the side. Hard to believe that shippers are fine with that but suspect they're willing to roll the dice and blame the shipping companies if something goes wrong, instead of packing them better. It's "probably" damage incurred during shipping to you and laziness on their part, not something nefarious like them purposely sending something in that condition. Probably.

 

[finsruskw]

Could be that it was stacked on a pallet at one time and shoved into or alongside another pallet already on a van trailer??

 

[Janderso]

That is a shame. Please let us know how it is once you inspect it.
Bummer

 

[WobblyHand]

Agreed, probably fine. The sellers did blame the carrier, in some sort of broken english. Of course, if you get the carrier involved they will claim improper packing and try to weasel out of any responsibility. The packaging is adequate if the boxes are kept upright. I'd bet these boxes were also stacked on the side despite the UP arrows on both sides of the box.

Screw head looks more like it hit pavement, you know, the telltale sign of little bits of grit or stone. More concerned about worm gear or shaft impact issues, tapped threads in the shaft, or the impact hit being transferred to the cast housing. No more comment on the rest of the contents, since I haven't even unwrapped it all.

I've received some pretty mangled boxes before, but none that claimed to be precision machinery. Guess I've been lucky.

What I'm hearing so far - inspect and go from there. As a relative beginner, I'm not too sure what to look out for. I've never even used a dividing head, so I don't know quite how one should feel. Smooth and non-binding, anything else?

 

[WobblyHand]

While I'm here, anyone got a cleaner copy of the manual? The exploded view and most figures are a little fuzzy, like it's the 100th copy of a copy, etc.

 

[macardoso]

I'm sure you can get it replaced for a bit of hassle and lost time. Try to determine if it is worth that to you. Otherwise, clean up the shaft with a fine file and start making chips!

 

[mickri]

Tell the seller you want a refund and to return it. Sometimes the return shipping cost is so high they will tell you to keep it and give you a refund. The only way to know that something is not broken inside the dividing head is to take it completely apart. Looking at the outside won't reveal anything wrong on the inside. If you paid with a credit card notify your credit card company. They will stand behind you. I'd notify paypal too if you paid through paypal.

 

[C-Bag]

I feel your pain. I went through almost exactly the same thing with a Chinese co. on eBay. I tried to work with them and in hindsight I should have probably bailed early on. Mine was a tool grinder clone with even less styrofoam. The thing weighs 110lb and turned the bottom of the packing to dust and was not the machine promised and had damage. I also got if I tried to return it through the mail it would get further damaged. They had warehouses in SF and LA where they had the correct machine so I drove the 7hr round trip to swap it out. All day sucker. This was with much back and forth, and don’t worry, but so much misunderstanding and messing about. When all said and done it was over an 8wk period. I ended up ok but it was a LOT of work.

 

[Flyinfool]

As for the box and packing, who cares, your throwing it in the trash anyhow. Its whats inside that matters.
For that nick on the screw, it looks like a standard socket head cap screw, If the nick bothers you it is about $0.50 at the hardware store.
OK that's the easy parts.
with not knowing just how much of an impact the end of the shaft took, my first concern would be the bearings, It does not take a lot of impact to damage bearings. You get what I have always called Brinell marks, it is where the force presses the balls or rollers into the races and leaves very tiny dents. In time these tiny dents will become big dents and a very rough bearing. The only way to inspect is to take the bearing out, clean all of the grease out of it and look at the races with a magnifying glass for shiny spots spaced the same as the balls or rollers, if it is really bad you can feel the dents as you rotate the bearing in your fingers while applying an axial load.
In this case the shaft will never be turning at high RPM, (unless you have a really strong fast arm). this tool in the grand scheme of things gets very little actual use and the bearing are so over rated for the application it is ridiculous, The bearings were chosen for their physical size and not for their load carrying ability or RPM handling ability. This is a common engineering compromise.

Unless the casting broke the gears should be fine.

From what I can see in the pics, it does not look like the shaft took a real hard hit, the damage to the head of that screw is not much, so I would be real surprised at any casting damage. Worst case (while still unlikely) would be to the bearings on that shaft. If the bearings look and feel good grease them back up, put it back together, and be confident that what they shipped is what you got.
While you have it apart you can clean it all out, Many clone machines are known to have a lot of swarf from manufacturing still floating around inside and the grease used is of questionable quality.