So last week I placed a largish order, including 150 qty of CP2102N QFN24. Unfortunately they came in three cut tubes, none long enough to be placed on the vibration feeder for my pick-n-place machine. The quantity exceeds the ICs/tube by a lot so the shipment should have come in a full tube and a partial. Instead someone wants to save box size and cut a full tube in half. Smart A$$! So I called in looking for a solution, such as asking the vendor to send me an empty tube (I don't have such sized tubes) who completely understood what the problem was. Except that it's been a few days and no response from the "warehouse". So I called again and a different rep answered. According to her, the warehouse can cut the tubes to fit in smaller boxes however they like and I can't tell them to not to. So it's a crap shot what I might receive, a handful of cutup tubes none of which is worth my machine or a full tube (not likely since she said the warehouse cuts the tubes to avoid having to use larger boxes). I just wonder if anyone has 4mm QFN24 tubes I can buy off your hands. It's a PITA ordering things without knowing or specifying what I want to receive. At least if I order mouser reel I get a reel (oops!) I've bought in the past from this vendor tons of tubes with different sizes without encountering such issues, just not the 4mm qfn24!!!
Ask your competition for one of their empty tubes!
Excellent idea! I'm close to digikey. I'll just order a bunch of stuff and ask nicely for a tube 
Hi,
The length of the package may have made freight costs higher.
Some carriers are happy to charge by mass/volume.
Others have length limits for certain "small" packages.
Tom... 
They were always ready to help us with problems. Good company!
They could have asked for more shipping charges, like automatically calculating whether a separate box of tubes will be needed. The funny thing is the box I received was big enough to hold the tube because it should be short not like the long ones for SOICs.
Well, 3 phone calls and 4 days later, they are finally possibly sending out a couple of empty tubes. So if I really needed the parts for a build last week when I received the parts, the build would be delayed by about a week. I need to be planning more lead times for things like this.
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