Knowledge Base

While a shipping case is meant to withstand the rigors of transport, too often these cases are bulky, heavy and difficult to handle. Our heavy-duty shipping cases with wheels are the perfect option – lightweight and easy to maneuver yet tough enough to handle hundreds of trips by land, sea and air.

As you can see from the picture above, we have a large selection of case wheels. Adding wheels can be a great option for just about any case, and we also have a large selection of handles. This includes telescoping handles, which make it easy to maneuver your Bel-Air case through a crowded airport or train station or any other high-traffic area. If you don’t find the exact type or style of wheels or handles you want on our website, just let us know what you need, and we probably will be able to find a good source for your components.

Of course, we also offer many other custom options. If you would prefer a shipping case without wheels, we can provide you with different types of case feet. We also have a large selection of latches and locks and can design cases either with built-in rigid wheels or removable casters.

Naturally, we also offer an assortment of color options for your case. Our standard case colors are silver or black, but we have several additional stock colors including white, blue, green, olive, red and yellow. With a specific minimum order, we may be able to provide you with custom colors or color matching. We also can create a molded-in logo for your case or custom decals or engraved plates.

These color and customization options add a professional flair to any shipping cases with wheels and make it easier for your team to identify shipping cases at the airport, on a trade show floor or anywhere else you need to take them.

Top Protection – Even In Extreme Conditions

We also can add humidity indicators and pressure relief valves to your custom case. Our team has designed custom cases for military and aerospace applications for many years, and these clients often need what is known as a controlled breather case. These cases have tight seals to lock out dust, humidity and moisture, but we add a pressure relief valve to ensure that allows some air intake while still locking out moisture. The pressure relief valve also ensures that the user can open the case easily even when exposed to fluctuations in temperature or altitude.

Off-The-Shelf Vs. Custom Shipping Cases

If you need to transport equipment as luggage or freight frequently, you have several options to consider. You can purchase an off-the-shelf shipping case or a custom shipping case. Off-the-shelf shipping cases can be a good option if you just need one case or the items you are transporting aren’t very expensive or delicate or if you need cases available right away.

Custom shipping cases with wheels are a better option if you need to transport anything particularly delicate or expensive (or both). Our shipping cases are built from scratch and designed around your equipment or products. While it takes a few weeks to build a Bel-Air Case, these cases are highly protective and meant to last for years and years. We have customers from the 1960s that still use their 50-year-old cases.

Of course, there are several different types of custom equipment cases. Our shipping cases with wheels are vacuum-formed from high-density polyethylene, which is a durable, lightweight, moisture-resistant and impact-resistant type of thermoform plastic.

Other options include roto-molded cases or injection-molded cases. These also use plastic shells, and while roto-molded cases are highly durable, they are very heavy and neither injection-molded or roto-molded cases are as customizable as our vacuum-formed shipping cases.

Fabricated cases, which are created out of laminated wood or composites, are available in just about any size or configuration you might need, but these also are quite heavy and tend to be more expensive than cases made from plastic. Still, if our vacuum-formed cases don’t seem like the right fit for your equipment, we will let you know and help you find another source.

Custom Foam Interiors

While the exterior of your shipping cases needs to be durable, the foam inside the case can be just as important. Too often, a case manufacturer focuses only on the exterior shell and just hands off a case with a chunk of diced foam. Then the customer has to cut away at the foam to create cavities for their equipment. These imprecise cavities won’t really protect your equipment and this type of foam tends to break down quickly and will need to be replaced.

We never hand off a case filled with cheap “pick and pluck foam,” instead we fabricate high-quality custom foam interiors for each case, built around your equipment. Our foam cushions every centimeter of your equipment and provides additional impact resistance and protects against damage from vibrations, as well.

Our design team can fabricate any type of foam interior that you might need, and we are experts at creating complex die-cuts, interior walls, shock mounts, panel mounts, windows, plastic dividers or whatever else you might need.

How To Get Started

If you need shipping cases with wheels, you can simply click on the Request a Quote tab on our homepage. First, provide us with contact information and then you have the option of filling out our Simple RFQ Form or the Complete RFQ form. Once you’ve completed the form, just click submit and one of our case specialists will begin working on your free quote. If you have questions, just click on the Contact Us tab and fill out our quick contact form or call us at (866) 235-2472.

Lighting equipment is both expensive and delicate, and if you need to transport any type of lighting or related equipment, you need lighting cases that are tough enough to handle rugged environments. At Bel-Air Cases, we’ve been designing custom lighting cases for more than 50 years and can provide you with attractive, protective shipping cases that can handle the rigors of transportation.

Lighting Case Options

At Bel-Air Cases, we offer two options for equipment and lighting cases – you can choose between our carrying cases or our heavy-duty shipping cases. Our heavy-duty carry case might be a good match for smaller pieces of equipment, such as cameras, lenses, light meters and other smaller items.

For larger pieces of lighting equipment, our heavy-duty shipping cases are the best option, and we can add wheels and handles to any case to make them easier to maneuver. Our shipping cases also are built to stack neatly and efficiently, which makes it easier to store your equipment, and each shipping case includes molded bumpers and stacking lugs.

For cases smaller than 30”, we can add a telescoping handle and wheels, but for larger shipping cases, we usually recommend adding a 3” or 7” end handle as these cases already are long enough for easy and comfortable maneuvering. All of the hardware is created using durable materials such as stainless steel, and we use tough aluminum valances for each case.

The exterior shells of our equipment and lighting cases are vacuum-formed using high-density polyethylene (HDPE). We chose HDPE as our top material choice for several reasons. HDPE is a highly affordable plastic, but, more importantly, this is one of the most rugged, durable materials available. HDPE has high impact resistance and high moisture resistance, and our cases can handle temperature extremes and rugged conditions without affecting the equipment inside the case.

Furthermore, HDPE is an excellent option because it is extremely lightweight. Not only does this make it easier for the customer to carry or move their lighting cases, but it also can reduce your shipping costs. Other case types typically are formed using heavier materials, and it costs more to ship a heavy case. We also build each case around your equipment, so there’s no excess material. With HDPE, you can have a smaller, lighter case that is easier and less expensive to transport yet still highly protective.

Lighting & Equipment Cases With Foam

While the exterior of your lighting cases needs to be able to handle rugged environments, such as the cargo hold of a plane, we also focus on designing custom foam inserts for all of our equipment cases. Each case can include a custom foam insert that is built specifically for each piece of your lighting equipment. Our quality foam will cushion and protect your lighting equipment, camera equipment, audio-visual equipment or anything else you need to store and protect.

Custom foam is always a big part of any lighting case project, and we never simply hand off our cases with a chunk of diced foam. This is a cheap type of foam, also known and pick and pluck foam. This poor-quality foam doesn’t last as long as the durable polyethylene foam we use, and when customers receive this cheap diced foam, they are forced to cut or pick away at the foam to make cavities for their equipment.

We believe that if you are paying for custom lighting cases, this should include a custom foam interior. We can usually construct foam sets for around the same price you’d expect to pay for cases with foam slabs or diced foam, and our foam provides far greater protection for your delicate items.

Many Custom Options

While we can customize the size and configuration of your lighting cases, as well as the interior foam, we also have many other custom options available. We offer two standard colors for our plastic shipping cases – black and silver, but we also have additional stock colors, including red, orange, yellow, blue, green, olive and white. With a minimum order, we may be able to provide you with color matching or custom colors.

We also can personalize the shell of your equipment and lighting cases with a molded-in logo, custom engraved plates or custom decals. This adds a professional touch to your shipping cases and also makes them easier to identify at a busy airport or perhaps at a large event or trade show.

Contact Us Today!

While creating hard plastic cases for lighting, including LED lighting, is one of our areas of specialization, we can create heavy-duty shipping cases for just about any type of equipment. Through the years, we have built equipment for military and aerospace clients, as well as medical equipment cases, diagnostic equipment cases and even carry cases for sales kits and OEM cases.

If you have any questions about our custom lighting cases, you can contact us at (866) 235-2472 or click the Contact Us tab on our homepage and fill out our quick contact form. If you are ready to make a purchase, simply click on the Request A Quote tab and provide us with some information about the type of shipping cases that you need us to manufacture.

If you have expensive or fragile items that need to be shipped often as cargo, custom shipping cases are essential. At Bel-Air Cases, we can design just about any size of shipping case you might need for virtually any product. Here’s a quick look at the types of shipping cases we commonly design and produce.

Shipping Cases For Equipment

Throughout the last 50 or so years, we have designed and built shipping cases for a myriad of equipment types from a wide range of industries, including:

• Aerospace Equipment
• Military Equipment
• Music, Film & Television (Lighting equipment, AV equipment, photography equipment, etc.)
• Medical Equipment
• Sales Kits & OEM Cases

ATA Shipping Cases

As manufactured, our heavy-duty shipping cases meet stringent ATA guidelines and many MIL specifications, so if you need ATA cases, we can help. Any shipping case can be designed and built to meet almost any airline, military, government or aerospace specifications. So, whether you need shipping cases for your next trip to Mars or shipping cases durable enough for transport as military cargo, just call us and let us know what you need.

Shipping Cases For Trade Shows

While our traditional shipping cases can be a great option if you need to tote items such as computer equipment, audio-video equipment or lighting equipment to a trade show, we also offer unique custom expo cases that are designed with your trade show materials in mind. These trade show cases can handle transport with ease but are able to hold oddly shaped or sized items, such as banners, graphics, art and other types of trade show displays.

Need Shipping Cases With Wheels?

While our cases are much more lightweight than many other types of cases, what goes inside is often fairly heavy, and shipping cases with wheels make it easy to move your case through a crowded airport or trade show floor or wherever you need to go. We also offer an assortment of handles, including telescoping handles.

Whether your main concerns are appearance, function or cost, we can find hardware options that suit your needs. In addition to customizing your shipping cases with wheels and handles, you also can customize the hinges, latches and feet. If you want to add locks or padlocks, that also is an option we can provide.

Additionally, we offer many other custom options. For instance, we offer silver and black as our standard case colors, but we can form your shipping cases using our optional stock colors which include white, yellow, orange, red, olive, green and blue. With a minimum purchase, we may be able to provide color matching or custom colors. We also can add a molded-in logo, engraved plates or custom decals to your shipping cases and expo cases.

Shipping Cases With Foam

While the exteriors of our shipping cases are built to handle the jostling, bumping and banging associated with transportation, the interior of our cases can be just as important. We design fully custom foam inserts for all of our shipping cases. Whether you just need a basic foam liner or a custom die-cut insert with multiple cavities, interior doors, panel mounts or other features, we can make it as simple or as complex as you need.

We never simply hand off an empty case with a chunk of diced foam, which, unfortunately, is a common practice in the case industry. This type of foam, also known and “pick and pluck foam” is not only low in quality, but it also forces the case owner to snip away or pluck away foam to create cavities for their equipment. The result tends to be a mess and there tends to be a bunch of foam left over that you just throw away.

How We Build Our Shipping Cases

Our shipping cases are vacuum-formed using high-density polyethylene. We chose this material for a variety of reasons. The transportation industry is tough on cases and luggage, and this material can handle the rigors associated with transport on planes, ships, trains or in the back of a truck bouncing along a dirt road in the middle of a remote jungle.

While polyethylene is highly impact-resistant, we also design our heavy-duty shipping cases with molded corner bumpers, which help protect the delicate and fragile items in the case. Additionally, the polyethylene that we use is moisture-resistant, which protects your equipment from humidity or even a torrential downpour. Our cases can handle temperature extremes, which is why they are a popular option with our military and aerospace clients.

The materials we use, including the polyethylene for our cases and the heavy-duty aluminum valances and steel hinges, are tough and durable, but also lightweight. This makes the cases more maneuverable but also can reduce shipping costs as weight is usually a factor when determining the price of transport.

Custom Vs. Stock Cases

All of our shipping cases are “made-to-order,” which means we don’t have any cases completely built, in-stock and ready to ship. That said, we have more than 50 standard shipping case configurations in our design library. Keep in mind, if you don’t find what you need within that case library, we can create a new size just for you, although that will increase production time by several weeks.

Additionally, if we think your equipment or items would be better suited to an off-the-shelf case or another type of case entirely, we will be upfront and honest about it. In some cases, our vacuum-formed cases aren’t the best fit for your needs and budget, although, with vacuum forming, we can provide you with a level of durability and customization that few other case types provide.

At Bel-Air Cases, we’ve been designing custom shipping cases for more than 50 years, and we can design any type of shipping case or expo case that you might need. To get started with a shipping case project, click on the Contact Us tab on our homepage, fill out our quick contact form and a representative will be in touch shortly. You also can call us at (866) 235-2472 or send an email at info@bel-air-cases.com.

At Bel-Air Cases, we’ve been designing and producing custom carrying cases and custom shipping cases for more than 50 years, but when we talk about customization, we don’t just mean the size and shape of the case, but also the foam interior. A Bel-Air plastic case with foam is built to precisely carry and protect all of your precious items.

Why Custom Foam?

Many custom case makers will design your case and hand it over to you with a chunk of diced foam inside. This also is known as pick and pluck foam, and it’s a low-quality foam that we would never give to our customers. If you are paying for a custom-made plastic case with foam, we believe that the interior foam also needs to be completely customized.

With pick and pluck foam, you force the customer to snip away at the foam to create cavities to hold their items. These cavities won’t be a perfect fit for the items, which means they aren’t fully protected.

Here’s an example of why pick and pluck foam just isn’t good enough. The other day whilst hollowing out a loaf of bread to create a soup bowl, it became clear that this was a good example of why cheap foam is a bad idea. Although carefully cutting with a knife to hollow out the bread, the end result was uneven and imperfect, and while it was fine for holding soup, it would have been completely inadequate for something delicate or fragile.

Pick and pluck foam is just like that loaf of bread. It’s not easy to cut or trim away to make a perfect cavity and this type of cheap foam breaks down very quickly. Additionally, you end up throwing away a good portion of the foam. Why should you pay for case foam that you aren’t even going to use?

Aside from the poor quality and forcing your clients to do their own picking and plucking, we feel that simply passing off a case with a chunk of diced foam is lazy. If you are paying a premium for a custom case and ending up with pick and pluck foam, what does this say about the quality of the case? It requires zero effort to just hand you a chunk of foam, so we worry that this indolence might extend into the design and production of your case, as well.

Our Custom Foam Interiors

In some cases, our foam interiors are quite simple. If you aren’t quite sure what type of items will be placed into your case, you might be fine with a custom foam liner. These liners will fit the interior of your case precisely and we use the highest quality foam. This foam will provide extra impact resistance during transport and help keep your items as safe as possible.

However, if you need a plastic case with foam and you know precisely what will be toted inside, we can create any type of custom foam interior you might need. We can hand-cut or die-cut cavities in any shape or side. We also are experts at fabricating interior walls, plastic dividers, interior doors, windows, panel mounts and shock mounts. As you can see from the pictures above, your foam interior can be simple or as complicated as you might need.

Through the years, we’ve designed equipment cases with foam for a wide variety of products. This includes equipment for the military and the aerospace industry, which obviously requires a high level of durability. We also create cases for lighting equipment, video equipment, camera equipment, medical equipment and many other delicate and expensive items.

Which Plastic Case Is Right For You?

At Bel-Air Cases, we produce cases in three categories – carrying cases, shipping cases and expo cases. All of our cases are built using tough, impact-resistant plastic shells with aluminum valances. The plastic we use (high-density polyethylene), and the aluminum valances keep the weight down without reducing the impact resistance of your case.

The plastic we use is not only durable and impact-resistant, but it also keeps out moisture and can handle extreme temperatures. You can trek through a hot rainforest in the middle of a downpour or traverse the tundra on a dog sled with your Bel-Air Case and the contents will remain safe from the elements. Whether you are attending a trade show in New York, shooting a movie on location in the Sahara Desert or planning a trip to Mars, our heavy-duty cases are equal to the task.

When it comes to carrying cases, we offer medium-duty and heavy-duty carrying cases. These carry cases often are used for sales kits and as OEM cases. The medium-duty carrying cases are very lightweight and designed for toting in the backseat or trunk of a car and can be transported occasionally as luggage although if you are shipping this case, we do recommend boxing it first.

If you need a lightweight carrying case that can be transported frequently as luggage or cargo, we recommend you opt for our heavy-duty carrying cases. These are ideal for delicate items or heavy items up to about 40 pounds. They are easy to tote and maneuver in crowded places, yet still provide a high level of protection.

If you need an ATA case or a shipping case that will be shipped often as cargo or luggage, our heavy-duty shipping cases are a perfect match. We build these tough cases with ATA standards in mind, and they can be shipped again and again with no harm to the items stored inside.

These cases are ideal for shipping heavier items (over 40 pounds), as well as delicate or valuable items such as computers, commercial tooling, video equipment, medical equipment and even items such as motorcycle engines.

Our expo cases are created with trade shows in mind. These cases are designed to hold odd-sized items, such as graphic materials, trade show displays, banners, art and other objects that don’t fit into our regular style cases.

Of course, all three styles of Bel-Air Cases can include custom foam inserts. But we also offer many other custom features. You can add many different styles of wheels, handles, latches and locks and you can customize the look of your plastic case with foam.

Black and silver are our standard colors, but we have several additional stock colors including white, blue, olive, green, yellow, orange and red. With a specific minimum purchase, custom colors and color matching may be available. We also can add molded-in logos to your cases or add engraved plates or custom decals.

If you need a plastic case with foam (or several) and want to get started with a case project, just head to our homepage and click on the Request A Custom Quote tab and fill out our quick contact form. A sales representative will be in touch as soon as possible with a quote for your custom case project.