Encasing your finished electronics project

[chris414]

So what do you do when you've finally finished your project and everything is neatly mounted on a PCB? Consumer electronic devices like flash disks, calculators, computer mice, etc etc etc have such nice plastic casings and just generally look a lot more professional than what I've resorted to in the past (usually a screw-top junction box chosen as small as possible to cram everything in).

Are there any relatively inexpensive ways to attractively / professionally display one's electronics projects (something someone can make at home)?

 

[Sceadwian]

Just look for 'project enclosures' on Google, there's a lot of stuff available out there. They're generally just plastic or aluminum boxes of whatever dimension you require, decorate to taste. If you want something fancy either learn how to custom fabricate plastic (a hobby in and of itself) or find a small job shop that will do custom vacuum formed enclosures for you.
If you want to practice on your own custom fabricting plastic you only need three things. A mold, which can be made of wood, or basically any material that's the shape you want that can withstand a few hundred degrees of heat from warmed plastic, sheets of plastic and a heat gun. You can then make different molds for various shapes and curves and piece things together with epoxy, sand and paint. But there's a lot of effort involved. You heat the plastic to temperature wrap it around the mold and cool it, it's very difficult to do complex shapes this way neatly though.

 

[Dragon Tamer]

you can also make your project housing out of wood. (or as i commonly resort to, cardboard boxes) if your stuff is in a housing that looks like a commercial project box, or a homemade housing, it usually tends to get more respect form people that know less about electronics than you (aka people on the street).

 

[Noggin]

I've bought a few things from Plastic Enclosures and Plastic Boxes - Electronic enclosures of over 350 sizes - In the US, UK, Europe - PacTec Enclosures