It depends on how your checkbox variables are named. Checkboxes only send the variable when the box is checked, otherwise it sends nothing. So if you have cb1 and cb2 and you only check cb2 then you will only have the variable $cb2 to work with in the script that is called.
I've used a method of getting multiple checkbox information by creating my check boxes in an array cb[1], cb[2] and then using a loop to go through each element to see if it was set.
Here's some code samples:
<input type=checkbox name=checkbox[$i] value=$type_id>
if (is_array($checkbox)) {
$type_id = current($checkbox);
}
while (next($checkbox)) {
$type_id = current($checkbox);
}