Need Robot Transportation Chicago-Los Angeles

erco

Just bought a new toy: an older Hitachi industrial robot.·It will·be bartending at my Christmas party IF I can find a reasonable way to get it transported from·~Chicago to·the Los Angeles area. At $150, it was just too good to pass up. An ebay deal gone wrong, the "winner" disappeared and I swooped in.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190221667799&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123
Anyhow, it was a pickup only item, and a friend of mine in Marengo, Ill got it for me·to ship it.·The snag is that the seller's 60 lb estimate was way off, it's more like 125, and that's not packed or crated yet. Trying to get it here without breaking the bank, it will probably cost more to ship than buy. I'm investigating various carriers, if anyone has any good insight on value shipping or knows someone driving a truck out this way, please advise! No rush on shipping, I have until my Christmas party! Thanks, all.




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·"If you build it, they will come."

RobotWorkshop

You might want to checkout some of the forums where people buy/sell full size Arcade games and Pinball machines. There were people who specialized in moving them around for reasonable rates and one of them may be able to move this for you. If you can wait till one of them is passing by you should be able to get a decent rate. I did this years ago with an old Pinball machine "Williams Pinbot" that I bought in Florida. Took a while to get it but the price was right.

Good luck on your project. Sounds very cool!

Zoot

That is a sweet $150 little item there. You gonna paint it red and green? Candy-cane stripes?

At 125-150 pounds motor freight I would think nearly any western motor freight carrier should be able to transport this inexpensively if your friend will bring it to the shipper's warehouse/distribution center and if you pick it up from the warehouse on your end on the day it arrives (you pay a lot more for "door-to-door" than "warehouse-to-warehouse" and for "storage" if it needs to held overnight or longer).

Have you posted for a bid at www.uship.com?

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

Dgswaner

pay for my airplane ticket and a Uhaul and I'll drive it back for you.

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"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

erco

It's pretty sweet, but this is the one I REALLY wanted, also in Chicago. Maybe ship two-for-one???

http://cgi.ebay.com/ASEA-Assembly-Robot-Mechanical-Arm-Control-Panel-M19P_W0QQitemZ120267488966QQihZ002QQcategoryZ50924QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

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·"If you build it, they will come."

Zoot

Yeah, but you'd need Jabba's Party Barge to go with it...

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

iamdenteddisk

almost any freight truck with free space will haul for you insured, bonded -trick is to get a local busines to let you know when they have freight going that way .
On avrage a driver will haul coast 2 coast for a flat rate the company pays that rate ,contact them and offer to absorb some of the cost for x amount of that space then the parcel is delivered with (bill of laden)"meaning reciver is responsable for the parcel untill it is picked up by secondary driver" .
the first reciver gets it with a shipment order"bill of laden" for a local shipper to go from there to you. you are responsible for organizeing it all ,but only three things to be concerned with
1 buying space from the original shipper.
2 the first reciver being willing to recieve laden goods.
3 cordinateing the secondary local shiping company .

I useto do all my ebay sales this way as fedx and ups would load my heavy computer monitors on the bottom of the truck and under weight/stress crush box,packing,crt would be collapsed into crumbs when they arived ,so I ask around how to get my monitors there safely this is what it come to.
useing ups 8 out of 10 destroyed with/without insurance
useing fedx 10 out of 10 destroyed with/without insurance
useing usps 2 out of 10 destroyed with/without insurance

Most cases aswell their insurrance only return shiped for free.
even with the "fragile,breakable,glass-stickers"
I tried custom packageing useing internal and external crate and foam didnt work any differently

buying freight space from a local furniture company useing "freight liner" 9 out of 10 went through ok and I found it goes even smoother 10 for 10 if you crate up without a box and shrinkwrap so you can see whats in there.
at the time I was dismanteling company's and buying recycles so most of my cost was just shiping so I had a chance to testmarket shipping methods without to much loss ,at first I would test/clean and ship 5 monitors before 1 got through.

Over all you might even want to go with a 1 person from a to b like suggested above. its all expensive &risky .Take a vacation to there .

Rory Storm

Wow, erco, you have a -2 feedback rating.· That's very impressive.· Looks like you are building quite the reputation at ebay.

erco

Rory: Actually, my ebay reputation is not nearly as impressive as your inability to read; my original post clearly stated that the "winner" disappeared. He had the -2 rating.

Thanks for playing.

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·"If you build it, they will come."