Custom Foam for Pelican 1200

[lalalandrus]

I am uploading a design file for the pelican 1200 for the mavic. I own a laser cutter which I used to cut out the foam.

Mavic Foam Pelican 1200 by lalalandrus

Since the drone is supposed to be portable I decided to pick the smallest case that it will fit into. I was unable to find a good foam cutout so I am sharing what took me hours to measure and test.

Included is also an insert for filters that can be 3D printed.

 

[JMF]

Very cool, where do you get the foam ?

 

[Plawa]

Looks a bit cleaner than my solution

 

[lalalandrus]

Looks a bit cleaner than my solution

never too late to get more foam...

Very cool, where do you get the foam ?

believe it or not there is a foam store! this is the place where i got mine locally but i am sure you have the same whereever you are located
Burnaby Foam Shop | The Foam Shop

 

[JMF]

never too late to get more foam...


believe it or not there is a foam store! this is the place where i got mine locally but i am sure you have the same whereever you are located
Burnaby Foam Shop | The Foam Shop

Thanks !

 

[abadrs]

How much was the pelican case?

 

[lalalandrus]

i am cheap i got it off craigslist for 20 bucks cdn. amazon.com sells it for 36 USD
https://www.amazon.com/Pelican-1200...8&qid=1515407728&sr=1-3&keywords=pelican+1200

 

[MichiganMavic]

Great job on the foam cutouts [emoji106]. That looks just like the pelican used for my handguns. I like the compact size, but couldn’t figure out where to put my iPad mini.

 

[matth1000]

Great job on the foam cutouts [emoji106]. That looks just like the pelican used for my handguns. I like the compact size, but couldn’t figure out where to put my iPad mini.

I have some Velcro and elastic bands and I put my iPad mini behind the sponge in the lid. Fits great. Bit of hard foam glued to the lid so the screen doesn’t get scratched then the lid foam stops contact between the iPad and mavic.

 

[micmacpilli]

... I own a laser cutter which I used to cut out the foam.

Looks really great and professional. I'd like to know more about your laser cutter!

I started designing my own intricate inserts for my drone, photography and tool cases in SketchUp years ago, but when I looked for a company to have them cut, all the offers where in the range of several hundreds of pounds and that seemed rather excessive to me for a piece of cut foam (the one I had designed for my drone back then would have cost 160 £ plus shipping according to one online company, just for their cheapest single colour foam (though I guess these would have been cut by water, maybe that's higher quality?) - OTOH I found a complete backpack including a precut two-colour insert on Amazon for just 90 £).

I have looked into cutting the foam myself by renting time at a laser cutter but all hacker spaces and creative places in my area prohibit cutting foam due to fire hazard.

So my question is:
Can you recommend an affordable cutter for home use? I reckon I'd be willing to spend 300-500 quid on a machine allowing me to cut inserts "for ALL TEH THINGS!!1", so that might be a good investment.

Thanks

 

[lalalandrus]

Looks really great and professional. I'd like to know more about your laser cutter!

I started designing my own intricate inserts for my drone, photography and tool cases in SketchUp years ago, but when I looked for a company to have them cut, all the offers where in the range of several hundreds of pounds and that seemed rather excessive to me for a piece of cut foam (the one I had designed for my drone back then would have cost 160 £ plus shipping according to one online company, just for their cheapest single colour foam (though I guess these would have been cut by water, maybe that's higher quality?) - OTOH I found a complete backpack including a precut two-colour insert on Amazon for just 90 £).

I have looked into cutting the foam myself by renting time at a laser cutter but all hacker spaces and creative places in my area prohibit cutting foam due to fire hazard.

So my question is:
Can you recommend an affordable cutter for home use? I reckon I'd be willing to spend 300-500 quid on a machine allowing me to cut inserts "for ALL TEH THINGS!!1", so that might be a good investment.

Thanks

i have a chinese laser cutter affectionately known as the "K40". i bought it for 360 USD from ebay. it does require a little bit of tuning, but if you are smart enough to design your own stuff you should be able to figure it out. there are a couple facebook groups that can help you along as well. this is probably the only laser cutter in your price range.

example: New 40W CO2 Laser Engraving Cutting Machine Engraver Cutter USB Port | eBay

 

[Dronin]

Very cool, where do you get the foam ?

There's a foam that's popular on Youtube Tool Videos (I guess) called Kaizen Foam. A friend of mine made me aware of it. He's a "tool guy" and swears that it's superior to Pull N' Pluck for being clean and holding things in place. I haven't used it yet, it's available on Amazon and from:

Kaizen Foam - FastCap - Woodworking Tools

Sam's Club was selling really nice Pelican knock-offs for $25 $ 40 in 2 different sizes. I bought the larger one, it was on sale during Christmas for $30 ($10 off). I really like it. I have small Pelican that just holds the Drone, Batteries, and Controller, and now I have the large case I just bought from Sam's that can hold all of it, Drone, Controller, iPad mini, the 3rd party iPad holder, charger, multiple batteries, props, etc. I will use one for if I need portability, and the other one for travel.

 

[lalalandrus]

Everything is superior to pull n pluck. The foam i picked was a very high density polyurethane foam used for sound deadening display cases.

That kaizen foam would be pretty good to use the template and stack up. Pretty easy to use.

 

[Gre32]

That's really well done. I'm thinking of getting the foam cut to size with a CNC router, not sure if it'll be financially viable to produce just the one though.

 

[lalalandrus]

That's really well done. I'm thinking of getting the foam cut to size with a CNC router, not sure if it'll be financially viable to produce just the one though.

1. Print the template on paper
2. Glue to cardboard
3. Make sure knife is very straight and cut
4.????
5. Profit

 

[HydroStatics]

never too late to get more foam...


believe it or not there is a foam store! this is the place where i got mine locally but i am sure you have the same wherever you are located
Burnaby Foam Shop | The Foam Shop

Any upholstery company or "Fabric land" type store also