How important is that transport screw?

[jlindsey86]

Well after a few months I have found THE cd player I want. It is in mint condition and plays perfectly. Only problem is that the owner isnt sure if he has the transport screw. Is there any chance, that shipping it without the screw, it would still work? Can you use any screw to secure it?

[drspiff]

In answer to your first question, every screw costs money to install/design in at the factory, so my guess is that the transport screw is important.

Will it ruin the CD player if it is not in place? You are talking about putting a CD player through the same transportation system that can destroy a Sansui G-8000.

But all is not lost. Assuming that the missing screw is metric machine threaded, as opposed to self tapping, then any screw of the correct length and threads will work as a transport screw. Ah, you see the difficulty. Since the screw is missing, you can't match it. So you are reduced to getting a bunch of screws of differing threads and lengths and trying until you find the right one.

Or you can take your chances on the package handlers...

[tentoze]

It's there for a reason. Hard to say if the unit will survive shipping unscathed without it. It basically boils down to what Clint Eastwood asked- "Are you feeling lucky?"

[ozmoid]

There are pars in the CDP that are not (under normal use) subjected to massive inertial forces. When the unit is shipped (factory->distributor->retail outlet) the unit IS subjected to massive inertial forces. The transport screw is holding something in place that would otherwise break (or break free and damage other components) if subjected to enough inertia.

Good Luck!

[RetroHacker]

Honestly, I have never seen a CD player damaged by being tossed around without it's transport screw. Granted, I've never shipped or received one in the mail, but I've gotten many CD players that were thrown or tossed in piles, had hundreds of pounds of junk stacked on top of them, etc. (I used to work at an electronics recycling center) and never ran into problems caused by inertia-induced trauma with any of the ones I've dragged home from there or elsewhere over the years. Now, that's not to say that your player will survive, I'm sure that the higher end models have heavier transports in them, but still, I personally have never had one damaged by lack of a transport screw.As always, your mileage may vary.

If the seller is like me, he should have all sorts of screws laying about, if he can find one that fits, then even if it's too long, he could use something as a spacer, a scrap of wood or plastic with a hole drilled in it and a washer to make sure the screw doesn't sink into the hole in the wood. I wouldn't imagine that it has to be _the_ screw, just so long as it threads properly into whatever. It should be a machine screw, so it won't be that hard to find one that threads in.

Also - have him check, a lot of devices have a storage place for the shipping screw, I've seen that before, where you take the shipping screw out, and screw it into a nearby hole to store it. It might be hiding there.

Or, if you're worried about internal parts shifting during transport, you can get this neat product at Home Depot. It comes in a can, and it's an expanding foam meant for sealing around pipes and stuff. All he'd have to do is loosen one end of the cover to get the nozzle in, and fill the thing up with expanding foam. It'll keep everything from moving. Ever. Of course, it'll never work after that, but hey, it won't get damaged in shipping. <grin>

-Ian