The 
Cardboard Box is a Mekanism item that picks up a placed block along with everything inside it, so you’re able to carry it somewhere else and put it back down exactly as it was. It works on 
Chests, machines and most other blocks, and it’s best known for being able to move a 
Monster Spawner.
To use one, right-click a block with an empty box and the block will turn into a box where it stands. You’ll then break that box, place it wherever you want it, and sneak and right-click it with an empty hand to unpack it.
How to Get It
A Cardboard Box is crafted from 4 
Sawdust in a 2 by 2 square, so it’ll fit in your inventory crafting grid. Sawdust comes from the 
Precision Sawmill, which gives some as a by-product whenever it’s cutting logs and other wooden items.
That means the box is quite cheap once a sawmill is running, as it only costs wood. You also get the box back each time you unpack one, so a single box can be used over and over, and a few of them are enough to move a whole room of machines.
How to Use It
Packing a block
Hold an empty Cardboard Box and right-click the block you want to move, without sneaking. The block is replaced by a Cardboard Box sitting in the same spot, and its contents and settings are stored inside, like the items in a Chest or the energy and upgrades in a machine.
Break that box with anything and it’ll drop as an item that you can carry or store. A box with a block inside won’t pick up another one, so each packed block takes its own box, and they’re used up from the stack one at a time as you pack things.
Unpacking it
To unpack, place the box down, then sneak and right-click it with an empty hand. The original block will appear in its place, and the empty box pops out as an item for you to pick up again.
Packing a block needs a plain right-click, and it won’t do anything while you’re sneaking. Unpacking is the other way around, as a plain right-click on a placed box is ignored and it’ll only open when you sneak.
What It Can and Can’t Move
Most blocks can go in a box, including ones from other mods, and that’s true whether they hold anything or not. The ones it refuses are unbreakable blocks like 
Bedrock, a short list of vanilla blocks, and some of Mekanism’s own larger machines.
| Group | Blocks |
|---|---|
| Vanilla | Beds, Doors, Trial Spawner, Vault, Bedrock and other unbreakable blocks |
| Mekanism machines | Digital Miner, Pressurized Reaction Chamber, Isotopic Centrifuge, Solar Neutron Activator, Modification Station, Pigment Mixer, Seismic Vibrator, Security Desk, Radioactive Waste Barrel |
| Mekanism transmitters | Every Universal Cable, Mechanical Pipe and Pressurized Tube |
| Other | Another Cardboard Box, and any block another mod has tagged as not relocatable |
The Mekanism machines on that list are mostly the ones that take up more than one block, so to move a 
Digital Miner you’d sneak and right-click it with a 
Configurator in Wrench mode instead. Every other Mekanism machine keeps its contents when it’s picked up that way as well, so the box is mostly for blocks from vanilla and other mods.
Spawners
A normal Monster Spawner isn’t on the list, which is why the box is able to pick one up with its mob still set. The newer 
Trial Spawner and 
Vault are blocked though, so those can’t be taken out of a Trial Chamber this way.
Security and modpack limits
If a block is locked with Mekanism’s security and you don’t have access to it, the box won’t pick it up either. Pack owners are also able to block whole mods in the config, so on a server or in a modpack you might find a few more blocks that it refuses. The Configurator page covers the wrench, which is the next thing to learn for moving machines around.
FAQ
Right-click a block with an empty Cardboard Box, without sneaking, and the block turns into a box. Break it to pick it up, place it where you want it, then sneak and right-click it with an empty hand. The block comes back with everything it had inside, and you’ll get the box back as well.
Place the box down as a block first, as it can’t be opened while it’s in your inventory. Then sneak and right-click it with an empty hand, which puts the stored block back in that spot. A plain right-click without sneaking won’t do anything to it.
It’s able to pick up a vanilla Monster Spawner, as that block isn’t on the box’s blacklist, and the mob inside stays the same when it’s placed again. Trial Spawners and Vaults are blocked, and a modpack might have added Spawners to the blacklist as well.
The block is likely on the blacklist, like a Bed, a Door, a Digital Miner or any Mekanism cable or pipe. It also won’t work while you’re sneaking, with a box that’s already holding a block, or on a block that’s locked with security you don’t have access to.
