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I have 70 or so CPUs to send to Boardsort. Instructions say to package them in individual clamshells, which is understandable, but costly at nearly a dollar per clamshell. I've sold bulk working CPUs to other buyers in the past and bubble wrap-- thee CPUs to a fold-- was more than adequate to protect the items. May I send CPUs to Boardsort using the wrapping technique?

How you send them is up to you. But clamshells are reliable.
I would suggest buying cpu trays for a few dollars each. 6-24 cpu slots per tray. That’s the safest route for sending bulk CPUs.

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i have bought clamshells on ebay for .25-.30 cents apiece.

I will on occasion send a cpu to be tested to bolster the funds of an outgoing package, or if I don't feel like messing with ebay.
Get some ESD bags (usually free trash) stick the CPU's in there in a single layer, wrap that with bubble wrap (also free if you know where to look). Short answer: your method will be fine.
Really, anything better than tossing 70 cpus in a plastic bag and throwing that into a box.
Clamshells are great, but for a one way ticket (Boardsort won't be sending these back to you) it is overkill. And expensive.

I wrap mine up in tri-fold paper towels and tape the ends. I tape 5 of those together and pack them in a small box and haven't had a problem yet.

I buy the small 4x7 bubble envelopes at wally world and cut them in three then tape it shut. Having a 2+x4 bubble wrapper to put the cpu in. I mark the outside with the cpu # and then when I am ready to send them in I just have to go thru and fill out the list. I already have them packaged and I know what is inside.
Joe

Clamshells work for individual CPUs. They run around 10-15 cents each.
There five standard sizes.
Large pin (pentium era ceramics, black fibre, modern AMD)
Small pin (486 sizes)
Wide pin (pentium pro, opteron)
Large LGA (sun, HP)
Small LGA (core, I series)


Trays come in 4-20 cpu sockets. In even numbers.
Small, large, and wide
Crafty people can very carefully cut double-wall trays to single chip trays.
Trays start around a filler each though. And wequire packaging knowledge.
Don’t get caught up in “designed for xxx cpu”. No generic trays are designed for any specific processor.

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Here are some tips for shipping cpus for testing.

Clam shells are nice, but they often pop open and the cpu falls out defeating the purpose. You can put a small bit of tape on each of the 3 open sides to help secure them closed. And as noted, they can be costly.

Cpu trays are nice for storing but not practical for shipping. We use many trays in-house, but we would never ship cpus in a tray. They would immediately all fall out and the trays are not designed to be "locked" together, even with tape. Don't use trays. Customers who have were dissapointed by the condition by which they arrived.

In my opinion, the best and cheapest way to pack and ship cpus for testing is the folded paper towel technique using only a small piece of tape (not too much!).

Wrap each chip by laying it on the edge of a 1/2 (or 1/3) cut sheet of paper towel and roll the cpu up in it and then roll it sideways essentially wrapping the cpu on all sides. Then take the small piece of tape and secure it closed. Do not use so much tape that we have to get out the jaws of life to extract the cpu potentially damaging the chip and ourselves in the process.

Using a sharpie or something, mark on the wrapper what the cpu is (example: i7-4xxx).

Then take all of those alike cpus (all of your i7-4xxx's for example) and place them into a ziplock bag or some other container. Repeat with each class of cpu in their own collective bag.

For the cpus that you only have singles of, you can combine all of your singles into one bag.

Take all of the bags and place them into a secure, sturdy box with some padding to make sure they are not banging around too much. Place in your box a packing list with contact and pay info (you can generate that online and print). You can ship the box directly or include it in with your scrap by placing this box carefully with your other items in the larger shipping container. USE COMMON SENSE. Scrap is destructive and it will destroy other items within its own container if some thought is not applied.

I should probably mention my failure to reiterate zip ties in this thread. I so commonly talk about them I forget to mention them here.
If you do use clamshells or trays use intersecting + zip ties to hold processors in or hold the shells shut.

Shells and trays are best for pga (pin) processors. I don’t believe there are any on the buy list right now.
The tray idea is more to counter the generic ebay stupidity of sticking pinned processors in polystyrene blocks and then using stretch wrap to hold it together. Instant static zap.

For LGA (flat) processors:
Place the processors on the side of a sheet of paper towel in the middle of the right. Gently fold over the length of paper towel. This creates a long narrow bundle.
Fold the tails together and tape them. Then wrap a SINGLE length of tape across the taped fold.
Quick secure static free bundle.

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Sounds like the first shipment of CPUs I sent in where I wrapped the CPU in a paper towel and then wrapped in packing tape! Sorry Chris :)