is there such a thing as a cheep juncion box?

[Idiot]

where can i get a good enclosure at a good price ?

[Transmogrifox]

You can get a cheap junction box at a place like Home Depot, Ace Hardware, or any other local hardware store.  They don't make for "professional" looking stompboxes, but they're durable and well suited to the purpose of protecting your circuits.

If you want a not so good, low quality and not very durable box, you can buy radio shack project boxes.  The only "good" thing about them is that they're cheap, but they're not very well suited to being stomped upon.

Now if you want real good enclosures that are possible to convert into professional looking stompboxes, you would probably want to buy them from Small Bear.  Steve has a good variety of different sized boxes suited to stomping.  The most common around this forum is the Hammond 1590B.  They're not cheap.  If you're building stompboxes to save money, I would recommend the standard indoor electrical junction box that you can buy for $3.59 (or something like that) at about any hardware store.

[tiges_ tendres]

when I need something for myself just to be functioning on stage, not to look pretty, I use the raco boxes.

I think you can pick up the small square ones, with the lid for about $1.69

ugly, but cheap.  Let Form follow Function for a change!

[petemoore]

  JB welding the punchouts is recommended for RACO stompbox conversions.
  Otherwise when drilling, use a backing so that the drilling pressure is supported.
  Also drilling across the punchout lines a certain way may cause the drill bit to gouge and grab the punchout upon exit.
  Drilling very squarely and lightly as the drill bit exits [you'll notice much more metal being removed than when it's beginning it's hole] may reduce cutting stress.

[ildar]

  JB welding the punchouts is recommended for RACO stompbox conversions.
 

There are flush lids for the Raco boxes (no punchouts), and if you do your drilling there, no need for JB Weld. However it may not be feasable to have the holes for your jacks on the top of a box.

[petemoore]

There are flush lids for the Raco boxes (no punchouts),
  That'd be nice, I haven't seen 'em yet...

[ildar]

  That'd be nice, I haven't seen 'em yet...

Two words: Home Depot.   

[mojotron]

This is a link to a thread discussing what I do for most of my boxes:

http://www.elixant.com/~stompbox/smfforum/index.php?topic=30980.msg212132#msg212132

I have some with up to 6 knobs and 2 stomp switches with 16mm Alpha pots, but I've been moving to 9mm Alpha pots to facilitate better use of realestate.

Like others, I use electrial boxes for stuff I make for myself. I sell stuff in Hammond 1590 - B,BB or DD enclosures. I found that as I get to modding stuff, I change things around enough that it's easier to work with the top rather than the sides of the box.

Here's another couple of pictures.

On top is a picture of how I use them together - if you make most of your own stuff you can get a whole lot more on a pedal board making them all the same like this and running in/out/power through the top.

Lower, on the right, is my clone of a DP1 (in the middle of being tweaked) where I put some 9mm Alpha pots on some stripboard. Later I drilled out an enclosure for this, but while I was prototyping mods to it this turned out to be a convenient way to keep most of the circuit inside and have the parts I'm tweaking hanging out of the back... making it easier to adjust things while jamming with it in sort of a prototype state and if I hook them up with 18GA wire the piece of strip board is really stable until I figure out where and how many knobs to plan for when drilling the tops out.

[petemoore]

  I can see a MojoDrive resistor in the last Pic!
  Pic of an inside, showing how the circuit board are mounted and where would be cool to see.

[mojotron]

  I can see a MojoDrive resistor in the last Pic!
  Pic of an inside, showing how the circuit board are mounted and where would be cool to see.

I'll have to break out the camera... Basically, what I have done is to wire everything to the top of the PCB - like most of the GGG/Tonepad PCBs are oriented for example. So, when I get done there's a natural parallel orientation of the PCB to the top of the enclosure. Then, all I do is to stick some thick rubber padding on the back of the board and lay it in the bottom of the electrical box; the PCB will have enough natural pressure pushing it against to bottom of the electrical box to keep it secure, and the rubber keeps it form moving around. Infact, I the bottom side of the PCB holds the rubber without glue or cable ties.... So, if I need to make a change to one of these projects I just remove the 2 screws and start soldering - no un-doing the re-doing a bunch of stuff. 

When I first started doing this, it was just to prototype a few pedals. But, now I have a lot of these that I never pop open anymore - it would be good to secure the PCB to the top. I thought this out a bit and planned on securing the PCB to the top with some stand-offs glued to the back of the pots - this way you can just keep a bunch of electrical box bottoms screwed together and then just swap out the tops when you want to move things around. Paul Marossy and other people also had the idea of just putting the tops on a couple of rails.