Amazon Return vs. Replacement

I’ve been taking advantage of Black Friday deals since early November. I purchased Apple AirPods Pro 2 Wireless Earbuds at Amazon for $153.99 (list price $249.00), and they arrived yesterday (the actual Black Friday after Thanksgiving). I intended to give the AirPods as a gift, and unfortunately the box was heavily soiled as pictured here:

The AirPods were shipped in an iconic brown cardboard Amazon box, and the cardboard box had no signs of damage or soiling, so my guess is that the AirPods packaging was soiled prior to shipping. My plan was to return the item with the soiled packaging and buy the same AirPods Pro 2 item again. I’ve returned items in the past by simply clicking the “Return” button from my order history, stating a reason, and I’d immediately be given a return merchandise authorization (RMA) with free return shipping via my neighborhood UPS Store.

The process was a little different for the AirPods Pro 2. When initiating the return, I had to select from one of multiple reasons for the return, but none of the reasons included soiled packaging.

The closest matching reason was “Product and shipping box both damaged”, so I picked that one even though the product was not damaged, or at least I had no reason to believe the product was damaged because I never broke the seal of the box. Anyway, instead of granting me an RMA, it forced me speak to an Amazon representative who instead helped me initiate a replacement. The text of the email confirmation was as follows (with redactions):

Hello,

I've created a replacement for you at no additional charge. Here are the details:

Order Number: xxx-xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx

Here is a direct link to check on the status of your replacement order:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/summary/edit.html?orderID=xxx-xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx

Please click on the following link to be brought to your personalized return label and follow the instructions provided:

https://www.amazon.com/spr/returns/label/rmaID/xxxxxxxxxxxx

We look forward to seeing you again soon. If you need troubleshooting help, look for Get Product Support in Your Orders. You can talk to an expert, get setup help, and more. Learn more

Best regards,
xxxxx
Amazon Tech Support

I was told that I do not need to immediately return the item with the soiled packaging and that I could wait until after the replacement item arrives. What I don’t understand is why I would not immediately return the current item—if not now, then when? I have no intention of keeping both items, as I assume I’d be charged for the replacement item if I do not return the original item. Overall, this whole return/replacement process has been a minor hassle, and it would have been nice if Amazon did not ship a substandard product to me in the first place. I guess it’s one of the small risks related to buying from an online retailer. Had I purchased the item from a brick and mortar store, I surely would have asked for another pair of earbuds without the soiled packaging before I walked out the door.

Locating USPS Collection Boxes

Today I wanted to send a physical greeting card to a friend via US mail. Our condominium complex has a dropbox for outgoing US mail, but the 4.5-inch slot was not wide enough for me to insert the greeting card without folding it. Instead of driving to the nearest post office, I decided to find the nearest United States Postal Service (USPS) collection box. The iconic blue collection box in my neighborhood was removed many years ago, and this has been happening across the US in an effort to cut costs, reduce mail theft, and possibly for other reasons.

The first thing I did was launch Apple Maps and search for “USPS Collection Box” which revealed exactly what I was looking for. Here is a representative example of what is displayed on the macOS version of Apple Maps (the iOS version looks similar):

Although Apple Maps met my needs, I wondered what the same kind of search would look like in Google Maps. To my surprise, Google Maps does not appear to include the location of USPS mailboxes, at least based on my queries for “USPS Collection Box”, “Mail Collection Box”, and other variations. My findings were consistent with this Reddit thread.

Another obvious place to look for USPS collection boxes is the USPS website, https://www.usps.com/. From the main page, simply click on Locations to invoke the search function. From there, click the “Location Type(s)” dropdown menu and select Collection Boxes as pictured here:

After entering your parameters and clicking the “Search” button, you should see a map like this:

Although the USPS collection boxes are pinned on the map, I prefer the Apple Maps version because I think it looks better and you can also navigate to the nearest collection box using the GPS function.

In summary, if you need to locate a USPS collection box and are using an Apple device, go to Apple Maps and search for “USPS Collection Box”. For all other scenarios, search for USPS collection boxes on the USPS website.

Tesla Sentry Mode Video Recordings

Our family owns a Tesla Model Y, and when we park the car in unfamiliar environments, we usually activate Sentry Mode. When the Tesla is parked and locked Sentry Mode allows the vehicle’s sensors and cameras to remain powered on and ready to record suspicious activity. In addition to automatically recording videos of passers by, several things occur if a threat is detected (i.e., car is shaken or towed): alarm sounds, headlights pulse, and an alert is sent to the mobile app.

Video recordings can be viewed on the Tesla display screen, but did you know that you can also transfer them to your computer? Simply find the USB flash drive where the recordings are stored. On our 2023 Tesla Model Y, the USB flash drive is stored in the glove box. Remove the USB flash drive from the Tesla and insert it into any laptop/desktop computer with a USB connector. In the SentryClips directory, you’ll see directories that have the following naming convention:

yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss

Within each of those directories, you’ll find an event.json file which contains metadata about the time and location of the sentry event, as well as the reason for triggering the event. You’ll also find a thumb.png file which is a 128x96 pixel thumbnail image from your front camera. But most importantly, you’ll find a series of video recordings with the following naming convention:

yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss-back.mp4

yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss-front.mp4

yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss-left_repeater.mp4

yyyy-mm-dd_hh-mm-ss-right_repeater.mp4

As you can see, the files are named based on the date, time, and 4 camera locations. There may be multiple batches of 4 videos with different timestamps, depending on the duration of the detected event. If you ever need to view, archive, or share the video recordings from a sentry event, those are the files you need. Each video has a resolution of 1280x960 (4:3 aspect ratio) in Advanced Video Coding format. Each batch of 4 videos has a duration of 59 seconds, with the possible exception of the last batch in the directory which may have a shorter duration.

I made a short video to illustrate what you can capture with Sentry Mode video recordings.

3D Printing and Air Quality, Part 2

Image credit: Tom’s 3D Printing Guides and Reviews, https://toms3d.org/

I recently discussed air quality issues related to 3D printing. Shortly after posting my thoughts, I came across an article/blog and accompanying YouTube video by Thomas (“Tom”) Sanladerer that addresses the same key issues that I’m concerned about: what are the health risks related to 3D printing, and what can we do about it? Overall I felt that his work was very interesting and appropriate for the medium in which it was presented: a personal website and social media.

I’ll start with a quick critique. From the perspective of a scientific publication (which I realize is NOT the intent, nor does the author attempt to convey his work as a scientific publication), the main shortcoming of Tom’s work is that it was hard to understand the primary objectives and study methods. Based on “The Question” section, initially it sounded like he was simply trying to quantify emissions across different kinds of filaments which is further corroborated by the “Sensor Build” section. But in the “Test Setup” section he goes on to discuss that his purpose was to “check whether enclosures can help with emissions”. Then in the “Mitigation” section he starts to discuss filtration and extraction systems in addition to enclosures. Therefore, if you’re expecting to read a scientific publication similar to one published in peer-reviewed journals, you’ll find that it may resemble them in some ways, but it’s not organized as such. It may be that with a little bit of work, his study could be repurposed into a manuscript and accepted into a scientific journal.

However, Tom’s work has some advantages over traditional research publications. First, his findings are presented in a very clear manner, both in the paper and the YouTube video. There are lots of photographs and figures that engage the reader to learn more about his efforts to improve air quality related to 3D printing. Second, his work is very informative. For example, he discusses the differences between particulate emissions and volatile organic compounds. He also provides some detail about how he built his own sensors for his investigation. While this kind of information can be found in scientific publications (usually in a Background section), he is able to combine educational content with his intervention because his work is a hybrid between a review article and interventional study. Finally, the main advantage of Tom’s work is his potential reach into the 3D printing community. While most 3D printing enthusiasts will not spend time performing literature reviews in medical bibliographic databases, they are more likely to watch YouTube videos and come across his study (which is admittedly how I learned of his work).

One of the many important lessons we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that communication of information often does not originate from the most reputable of sources. The general public is unlikely to look up randomized controlled trials to assess vaccine effectiveness—rather, they listen to people who they know and who they trust, whether it be a celebrity, an athlete, or heaven forbid—a politician. My point is that the level of scientific rigor is far less important here, and I applaud Tom Sanladerer for creating excellent content for the 3D printing community to consider, the key message being that 3D printing may be associated with health risks, and we should be more mindful about how to mitigate those health risks. Until all 3D printer manufacturers build the necessary filtration capabilities into 3D printers, the onus is on the consumer to take safety into their own hands. Safe 3D printing everyone!

3D Printing and Air Quality

I’ve been a 3D printing hobbyist since May 2023. The ability to download or even make my own models and 3D print them into physical objects has been fascinating to me. I was so enthralled by this technology that I had only more recently started to seriously contemplate the potential health risks related to 3D printing. Unlike certain activities such as driving a car, skiing, and scuba diving where there are obvious risks for adverse health outcomes, the hidden risk of 3D printing is related to long-term exposure of aerosolized plastic byproducts of the 3D printing process.

A review article entitled “Summary and derived Risk Assessment of 3D printing emission studies” provides a summary of 50 studies related to 3D printing emissions and is the most recent comprehensive analysis I’ve seen. The following figure illustrates the particle formation process in which heating of filament results in the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and when the VOCs cool, they form small particles or condensate onto other existing particles.

What can be done to reduce health risks relate to 3D printing emissions? The following figure summarizes methods that have been studied and published and categorizes them into methods that reduce risk of emissions (on the left) and methods that are inconclusive.

The methods that have been demonstrated to reduce risk of emissions include:

• Lower print temperature
• PLA instead of ABS
• Larger room volume
• Higher air exchange rate
• Avoiding malfunctions
• Using a cover

It seems to me that the long-term health risks of 3D printing emissions are still not completely understood. The popularity of consumer 3D printing is rising, especially given the advances by 3D printer manufacturers related to ease of use, so more studies of long-term outcomes related to exposure of 3D printing emissions is warranted. Meanwhile, I think we must assume that we could be doing more to protect ourselves from emissions.

I have had 2 bedslinger 3D printers: a Creality Ender-3 V2 Neo and now a Bambu Lab A1 Combo. Neither one has an enclosure or filtration system to combat filament emissions, and I’ve used both 3D printers in my living room. I’ve always printed with PLA because of its popularity, low cost, and multiple colors available. It is merely by coincidence that it has the lowest emissions of all filament types, but that is certainly a driving force for me to stay with PLA. A few months ago, I placed an air filter next to my 3D printer (as pictured at the top of this post). My air filter has both a HEPA filter that is supposed to trap airborne particles and an activated carbon pre-filter that is supposed to trap VOCs.

As you can see, my setup is suboptimal because of the lack of an enclosure, so despite the presence of the air filter in proximity to the nozzle, it is probably only trapping a fraction of all the emissions, at least initially. Therefore, my general routine when using my 3D printer is to run the air filter on its highest air exchange rate setting while printing, open windows in the living room if outdoor weather permits, and leave the air filter running for a while after the print is completed. I’m open to suggestions related to further reducing exposure to 3D printing emissions.

Bambu Lab Warranty

Image credit: https://rasterweb.net/raster/2015/03/15/3d-printer-malfunction/

As I mentioned previously, my Bambu Lab A1 experienced a Heatbed Temperature Malfunction which resulted in me getting a replacement A1 Combo. A replacement was offered because my printer was still under warranty, and the warranty is the topic of this blog post. The current Warranty Statement is dated October 12, 2024, and there are general provisions that ask you to keep all of the documentation related to your purchase:

It also says to keep your original packaging box and materials in case you need to return your device:

There is a 14-day Return and Refund Policy which in my opinion is kind of short, but at least there is a policy.

The Replacement Policy is slightly more generous, as you have 30 days:

I was fortunate to have reported my Heatbed Temperature Malfunction to Bambu Lab Customer Support on day 29 after receipt of my A1 Combo, and therefore I was eligible for either replacement or troubleshooting support.

I shipped the defective device to Bambu Lab on 10/15/2024, and I received my replacement A1 Combo 2 weeks later on 10/29/2024. I’ve printed several models with my replacement A1 Combo, and everything seems to be working fine.

Out of curiosity, I asked Bambu Lab Customer Support if I’d get another 30 days from time of receipt of my replacement device to exchange my product if it too was defective, and the response I received was that the replacement device does not come with a new 30-day replacement window.

First of all, I hope that I don’t experience any more issues with my replacement A1 Combo. Second, if I do experience errors related to the hardware, I hope that the customer support agent who replied to my inquiry is incorrect about replacement printers not having a new replacement window. I hope I will never need to find out, but if you have any experiences to share about issues arising from your replacement Bambu Lab devices, please leave a comment. Happy 3D printing everyone!