It's been a bit quiet around this part of the website the last few weeks. I'm neck deep in an edit for a project I directed/DP'd a couple of weeks ago and I'm prepping for another shoot in NYC this coming weekend. Turns out there's only so much time in a day.
That being said, I did manage me work out a DIY PVC pipe case for my two Astera Titan tubes. There aren't a ton of case options for LED tube lights unless you've got quite a few of them. I've been looking for case options for individual tubes that could fit in another case vs. dedicated cases that would just be an additional checked bag for flights and/or one other case I'd be lugging around on shoots. I've been using the cardboard tubes the lights ship in, but they got rained on during a shoot and quickly started coming undone.
Astera has a fancy $1,500 case for their Titans that's super nice, but it holds eight LED tubes, is heavy AF, and tough to travel with. They've also got a soft case, but it's not a good fit for what I'm looking to do. Hot Rod Cameras has a custom case for Quasar tubes, but again, I'm not looking for an additional, dedicated case that'd most likely end up costing me more in checked baggage fees than if I'd just rented at the destination.
Surprisingly, the Google searches for "DIY tube light case" were more about building your LED lights which is something I'm not even close to wanting to do. There are tons of YouTube videos for DIY PVC pipe cases for fishing rods, so I figured that'd work. Freakin' kudos to the YouTubers and the rest of the internet for making step-by-step tutorials for the rest of us to follow. If I hadn't been rushing to get these done in between my normal work day and family responsibilities, surely it'd have made for a useful resource.
For this project I used a 2" wide PVC pipe and glued a fixed cap on one end and a screw top setup for the other. The pipe came in 5-6' pieces, so after working out the measurements with the Titan tubes, I hacksawed them down to 41" long and sanded off the painted and raised labels on all the parts. For the interior padding, I glued 2" of dense foam to the interior end of the closed/fixed cap. I also ended up making something like a sock to put over the light so it doesn't get scratched and banged up once it's inside the rigid case. There's a bit of extra fabric on the open end of the sock to act as additional padding to keep the whole thing snug once the cap is screwed on.
All in I think I've spent about $50 on parts, so that's like $25/case. They haven't traveled or been on a working set with crew yet, so I'm curious as to how they'll work out. If I were to do it again, I'd like to find a bit thinner walled PVC pipe and not be as messy with the purple primer/glue process. The sock is made out of some fleece-type fabric my mom and I scrounged from her sewing room. I'm hoping the seams hold and the fabric doesn't stretch too much. The DIY PVC cases are close to the same length and diameter as the cardboard tubes I've been using, so it's not a problem to fit them in my 48" Tenba stand case. I'm planning to also get a couple of C-stands with turtle bases to go in the same case to make for a travel-friendly, battery-powered interview lighting setup.
UPDATED 6/1/21
Traveled back and forth to NYC in mid-May with these DIY PVC cases. The lights did fine and were packed in that long case with a couple of C-stands with turtle bases. The case did get a bit heavy but was still under 70 lbs, even with a 15lb sandbag.
The TSA did go through and open both PVC pipes while in the screening process on my flights out and back. They left their handy dandy "TSA Screening" note inside the main case and I could tell they'd pulled the lights out of their blue socks. No harm, no foul, and they lived to fly another day.