I got 2 of the Pelican 1040 cases, with the foam inserts: one for me (I have an N810), and one for my wife (who has an N800). I know at least one person on these forums suggested that this kind of hard-case might be a little over-kill ... but I live in an area that gets a bit of rain in the winter, and I'd hate to lose my indispensable NIT due to rain or an accidental drop. Anyway, the Pelican cases got here yesterday.

Each foam insert is one big block of perforated foam that fills the interior of the 1040 (each pelican model has a different product id for its foam insert, so be sure you order the right one). There's a non-perforated border, and then you can "pluck" small squares out of it (not cubes: the perforation is done in squares that run the full depth of the block, so each individual piece is sort of a square prism shape). What I did was pull them out in a large block.

(I've got some low quality pics of what I've done toward the end of this post)

For the N800, you need to pull out the ENTIRE set of perforated foam. BE SURE to pull it out in 1 big contiguous block (I'll explain why later).

For the N810, you want to leave 1 row of squares on each side (the narrow sides of the rectangle), since the N810 isn't as long as the N800. Again, BE SURE pull out the rest as one contiguous block.

Now, you'll have 1 block of foam pulled out of the rest. Divide it up in to lengthwise strips: you'll have 8 narrow strips that run the entire length of the gap you've made in the foam. These lengthwise strips are why I said "BE SURE" above.

Take 3 of these strips, and lay them down in the bottom of the gap. This provides a bed upon which your NIT can rest. The lid will fit 4 strips, with gaps at either end. You'll have 1 strip left, which you can break up into individual squares and fill in the gaps at each end of the lid, if you want.

Once you've laid out the arrangement, you'll at least need to glue the lid strips into place. I haven't done that yet, but I'm planning to use plain white (elmers) glue for it. I plan to also glue the bottom strips and border foam into place, so that all of the foam stays nice and secure.

This layout fits the NITs just perfectly. When you put it into the nice empty area that forms the bed, each one will rest perfectly in its place (not 100% flush with the top of the main foam block, but really close).

NOTE: the fit is not so snug that the NIT doesn't move at all. That's why you really want to glue your extra strips to the lid. There IS a little bit of a rubber liner in the lid, but I don't know that it's thick enough to make me feel comfortable, and the movement might just be barely enough to let the NIT get some internal damage if you accidently drop the entire thing.

The one thing I am NOT sure about: whether or not the foam strips that are glued to the lid will have a slightly abrasive enough texture to cause a problem for the screen. So, I'm thinking about buying a simple swatch of black felt, cutting it to fit, and then gluing that to the lid foam. Anyone who has thoughts about that, please let me know.


Some (low quality because my camera phone isn't high end) pictures:

1) Both cases. The one at the top of the picture is the one fitted for an N810. You can hopefully barely see that the bed is in fact slightly narrower (left to right) than the bottom one.



Also, you can see one of the lengthwise strips on the tray, sitting to the right of them (it's the one extra).



2) The case I fitted for the N800. This is how well it fits into the "bed" I've made for it. You can also barely make out the four lengthwise strips in the lid. You should be able to see that there's a small gap to either side of those strips in the lid. I plan on dividing up that one extra strip to fill in those side gaps.





3) Same as above, but without it's N800. You can barely make out that there's 3 strips in the bottom of the bed. They barely fit, it takes a little bit of finesse to get them in there.





4) Same as #2, but this is the one I fitted for the N810. I don't have the strips in the lid because I did the work on the N810 first, and since I wasn't sure exactly how it would turn out, I didn't end up with nice contiguous strips. But I can still piece-meal them into the lid. But be sure to learn from my mistakes :-) (the lid's foam side gaps will be a little bigger with the N810 though, because the strips are a little shorter; but you should still have plenty of foam in the 1 extra strip to still fill in those gaps).





5) The one fitted for the N810, but without the N810 in it. (it's also the lowest quality of the group ... sorry ... you probably can't make out anything useful ... I'll try to replace this picture with a better one later, so I'll include it now as a place holder)




The Pelican 1040 fits very nicely into the main compartment of my Maxpedition "Fatboy" versipack. Also in the main compartment, in one of the mesh pockets, is my iGo Stowaway keyboard in its soft leather case. The other mesh pocket in the main compartment has a small ballistic nylon accessories pouch (that I used to carry my N800 and N810 in).

Again, sorry about the poor picture quality. Hopefully the text and the pictures are just good enough to get an understanding of what I did, in case you want to duplicate it.

nice job. That would be great for traveling so it doesn't get crushed in your carry-on luggage.

Mr Klaw? Mr vanity Klaw?

So, glued everything into place.

Turns out, in order to cover the entire inside of the lid with the left-over foam, for the N800 you end up with 3 extra squares of foam. For the N810, you end up 3 short. Since I was doing one of each, it worked out, but something to be aware of for anyone who is only going to be doing N810's.

Sweet, Pelican cases are THE best case you could possibly buy, I would not expect less than the best coming from Pelican. Awesome cases, thanks for sharing.

i had bought one. it is good.
I found foam in a package for PCB, cut the foam to put one piece in each half. around the bottom half, i use sticky foam-like stripe (one side is sticky). I do not even use glue.
now I can put N800 in its sock in the box. the foam grabs it well.
i like it.

umm. wow. i carry and drop my n800 all the time without any sort of case, just a screen protector.