How to mail an SD card with gummy glue
flyingcarcomputer.com
flyingcarcomputer.com
I used to ship micro-sd cards in plastic cases through the mail, here in the UK. At first I used standard DL (letter) envelopes, since they are cheap and the case inside the envelope didn't push it over any depth size limits.
However, when I got two angry support emails for having sent them "empty envelopes", I had to ask them for photos, which both showed a small sd-card-case sized hole along one short edge, with some tell-tale marks. What was happening was the leading edge of the envelope was going through some kind of thinly-spaced rollers, pushing the case to the rear end of the envelope, and then the rollers had such a grip on the envelope that they squeezed the sd card out through the corner of the envelope like a squeezing a pip out of a lemon.
So I had to move to padded envelopes, which were then a more consistent depth over the whole length of the envelope, and so they worked fine in the mail machines. But that upgrade ate into my margins since I was only working on a small scale.
It's little details like these cause vague statements like "It is normally recommended to use bubble wrap to protect SD cards in transit" - lessons learned the hard way!
What about putting the microSD into an adapter [1] first? I imagine you can find a much better deal when ordering in bulk.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSD-Memory-Adapter-MICROS...
https://abra-electronics.com/robotics-embedded-electronics/r...
As for the article, it mentions:
> It is normally recommended to use bubble wrap to protect SD cards in transit, but I have never seen bubble wrap inside a normal envelope which made me suspect that this would elevate the rate of delivery failure.
Bubble wrap envelopes exist, obviously. The envelopes are a bit larger but would work. When I order small items from Ali, this is often the packaging they used.
I would have been happy with 8 GB!
That is why there aren't genuine smaller cards: there just isn't a large market for them because the parts availability means the smaller capacity cards wouldn't work out any cheaper to source, so any noticeable drop in price would be through the seller reducing their markup. For the same price, people will buy the larger ones for the same price just-in-case they need more space later because why not? Even if there is a small price difference, if 8Gb or less is pennies cheaper than 16Gb or more, people will generally go for the larger option.
So to “why sell counterfeits?”: the scammy sellers can't sell them honestly in enough quantity to be worth bothering, so they lie.
Even the initial “Q&A” post seems to assume some basic existing knowledge of the project.
This is probably uncharitable. But it would be an explanation for the hand-wavy copy.
I can imagine building a hobby, niche unique OS and then other hobbyists installing it themselves, but not what OP is seemingly trying to do.
He is spending time trying to figure out how to send an microSD and all the regulations of selling an electronic device instead of simply building the OS. It seems quite backwards to me.
Based on the articles it seems like he has been spending months on this. I don't know... just build the OS and develop selling points...
So RPi, but more vague and vulnerable and less useful. And maybe more expensive?
They are aiming this at someone with:
> a high discretionary budget for personal electronics and willingness to pay a premium for novel ideas.
But what are those novel ideas that would justify the “quite high” price?
And if I wanted a BSD-based desktop computer with “No AI. No Cloud. No Distractions”, I would just buy a Mac Mini, not log into an Apple ID, disable Siri, out it into Do Not Disturb. And Mac OS has never been a “walled garden”. So from a customer’s perspective, why wouldn’t this be an easier, cheaper, and superior solution?
Er, what?
A person was riding their bicycle and had cold hands, as they rode with cold hands they pondered why no one had ever created heated grips for bicycles. They reach out to others, and a project begins. The momentum builds until someone mentions to the group that no one had done this because gloves were a perfectly viable solution to cold hands. Gloves.
> https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the_complicator_0x27_s_glov...
I think the search term is "handlebar mitts".
I’ve considered fabricating some sort of handlebar shields for my ATV when I need to be out in the winter when it’s raining (I work in agriculture in Eastern Oregon) because it seems that gloves that can handle both wind, cold and wet just don’t exist.
Often “waterproof” gloves simply aren’t or have a non-waterproof area on the back/wrist that gets soaked when rain flows down my vinyl (or pvc, I forget) jacket leaves.
What I currently use, extra large heavy duty kitchen gloves over smaller insulated gloves, with vinyl jacket sleeves going over the combination, tends to poorly retain heat in wind, especially while riding. An upside of just using a kitchen glove layer, is they are easy and cheap to have spares ready when they get muddy, or break.
Heated handlebars sounds nice actually, though that wouldn’t be a fully fix to the wind problem.
I’d also love see some sort of jacket made of shingled layers of vinyl that allows for breathability when it’s warmer but still wet in the spring. (Perhaps use some sort of spacing between shingles to foil capillary action) Gor-Tex style jackets are worthless if you are sweating while it’s raining, may as well just use vinyl and get just as sweat soaked while having a cheaper jacket that lasts longer under damaging conditions.
Winter/rain gear seems intended for people in snow or just standing around.
The "uncomplicator" responds with "just blow them off with a fan".
Be the uncomplictaor.
_edit_: actually I'm the 2nd degree complicator compared to crafish's reply, which is just "cut four rounded slots with an x-acto", no adhesive necessary.
2nd edit: two diagonal slots, one for each corner. Be the uncomplicator.
Heated grips are reasonably common… on motorcycles.
index card + scotch tape
The easiest way to distribute these was to scotch tape the micro-SD to an index card and then write something about the content on the index card.
Of course, that's not an option for customers-facing stuff, but then you really don't want to be in the business of distributing micro-SD cards to customers!
Tip: If you fold over the index card and join the edges with Scotch tape it makes a handy little envelope to store a USB stick or SD card in - and you can add some written notes for contents, date, etc.
Mailing SD cards in their final form in a regular envelope is not secure. An adversary can intercept and reformat, and folks will be none the wiser unless you provide some kind of tedious 3rd party integrity-check tool. I realize this is probably unlikely, but still, like.. why?
Flashing from a reliable source is the gold standard.
I suspect what the author initially hoped to make was a physical offline consumer device, like a classic TomTom or a ReMarkable. But then they seem to have noticed that's not a one-person job, so they've reduced their scope to selling an SD card that plugs into an off-the-shelf Olimex dev board. Mailing the SD card is them keeping their dream of being a physical hardware business alive.
I want to make the experience as seamless as possible given the constraints, and popping the SD card in the slot is the best I came up with so far.
Having said that, the comment by tjohns below made me rethink some things. I may end up providing both the download link, and also mail the SD card.
> Mailing SD cards in their final form in a regular envelope is not secure. An adversary could intercept and reformat, and it'd be tough to tell. I realize this is unlikely, but still, I'm like.. why?
I agree. It's a poor medium for many different reasons. However, if I can sell these, then I can sunset them and start working on the actual electronic device, which will house the OS and software on eMMC or SSD.
[1]: https://hackaday.com/2013/11/12/keep-your-sd-cards-data-safe...
Long story, short: customers can just stick in the device, without having to figure out how to image an SD card.
x ⊕ y = z
z ⊕ x = y
y ⊕ z = x
signed
keys
Some 33 years after the introduction of PGP, this remains a significant stumbling block.
The validation checks themselves can be readily publicly distributed. Though of course if desired, they can also be distributed with media, or in a separate postal mailing.
PKI leverages OOB comms such that a single OOB exchange can validate an entire further chain of messages.
Payload sizes
validation checks themselves can be readily publicly distributed
distributed with media
>separate postal mailing
PKI leverages OOB comms such that a single OOB exchange can validate an entire further chain of messages.
ultimately, the only solution we have so far is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exc...
Since all this guy is actually selling is an SD card, he probably should get custom SD cards printed with his own logo on the SD card itself, packed in his own custom packaging. His marketing claim is that this is a premium product, so it needs premium-looking packaging. This is cheap from China. The setup fees are low.
(I once sold a boxed software product. $4000 for the first custom box, $0.25 thereafter, made in Silicon Valley. Visited the printing plant and went over the files with their prepress person, who had a Mac connected to an offset platemaking machine the size of a small car. She said "You want to see the press"? So I put in earplugs and went to look at the press, which was about a hundred feet long. It was turning out "museum quality" art prints at about three prints per second at the time. That shop did those as a sideline between box jobs.)
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Camera-Sd-Card-Micro-...
[2] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Custom-5G-Paper-SIM-C...
4, and NanoSD is the smallest, although the size difference isn't as big as between the other 3
How about the 8-megabyte Cisco-branded PCMCIA flash card I've got around here somewhere?
[1] https://www.androidauthority.com/what-is-nano-memory-968723/
Never write an article promoting some solution, without discussing some alternative!
There are possible issues with gummy glue; it can be stubborn in adhering to cards. Getting stubborn piece of gummy glue off the back of a tiny Micro SD card could be not fun. You don't want to require the user to excessively handle the card or put mechanical any stress on it. They are thinner and more delicate than credit cards (and the bulk of those is just plastic. Only the chip and the magnetic stripe are sensitive). Some users could end up trying to use a MicroSD with a piece of the gummy glue on it.
I wouldn't want to put anything across the contacts of the SD card, which would mean that the adhesive would be on its back. But in that case, the contacts stick out of the page, inviting damage.
Imagine the user clumsily shaking the letter out of the envelope, such that it it fall out, opens, lands with the SD card down, and is immediately stepped on by their five-year-old.
If you put it on the paper contacts-down, you can tape over the back.
Wtf. I had no idea there was a 'mini' size between standard and micro. Never seen them in the wild.
My favorite was the was the stack I'd use for MicroSD cards:
MicroSD to Mini SD > MiniSD to regular SD > SD to Compact Flash > CompactFlash to PCMCIA/CardBus
This stack of widgets (5, including the card itself) worked fine -- it wasn't fast, but fast wasn't a goal. They all nested together in a fairly durable form that was the size of one Type I PCMCIA device. No wires.
There are envelopes with bubble wrap lining. All the Chinese stores use them and I see them more often than cardboard boxes.
Edit: I couldn't find a good video but skip to 4 minutes in this is perhaps relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQBjRF9mX1Y Cheesy cheesy video but kinda sciency.
I bet it is enough not to move around in the envelope. I guess there are anti-static bags if paranoid.
Here is one I’ve found for example [0], although a double sided one might “look more professional”.
But for SD cards, I would expect affixing it to the inside of a cardboard sandwich with masking / painter's tape to be perfectly adequate, though not by any means pretty.
I wouldn't fault a manufacturer / vendor for doing this. Sure, it's not "wow", but exceedingly practical which is commendable.
From the post he links in the first sentence, about "how [he] decided to [...] mail SD cards to [his] customers"
When I bought a PowerMac 30 years ago it came with a manual. It assumed zero computer operating knowledge. That the mouse had to be slid across a mouse pad, and not pressed against the screen.
Plenty of scope to add your own branding
I'm with the person you're responding to. It's not clear from this description what he's doing, but it sounds like he's gluing paper to something (the envelop itself?) and then using gummy glue to attach the card to the thicker piece of paper. Credit cards just come attached to a piece of paper that is not, itself, attached to anything else. It's not obvious to me why he'd do it this way.
I mean, I understand why they don't like to do this, dealing with the end user is a huge pain, it is much easier to deal with the distributors and have them deal with the end user. So barring direct sales I wish supply chain auditing was easier for for us end users. the best you tend to get is a "distributers" link on the manufacturers website, most of whom are b2b only distribution that are not happy selling low volume directly to you ether.
Yes, you will pay more for an SD card from one of these places than on Amazon. But not insanely so. That is the price of assurance.
(My own trick is to just buy cards from one of Microcenter's house brands. Their buyers know what they're doing (Microcenter's flash memory products are both excellent and priced right), and nobody is going to bother making counterfeits of them due to a lack of broad market appeal.)