Project box vs generated enclosure
A stock ABS box is the cheapest possible housing and perfectly adequate for one unit on a bench. It stops making sense the moment you need more than a handful, because every one of them needs the same holes drilled by hand — and hand-drilled holes are why prototypes look like prototypes.
Stock box up to about five units. Past that, a generated housing wins on total time before it wins on money, and it wins on how the thing looks immediately.
| Criterion | Off-the-shelf project box | Generated enclosure |
|---|---|---|
| Cost, one unit | €4–12 | €34 and up |
| Cost, twenty units, finished | €4 plus an hour of drilling each | Falls with quantity, no labour |
| Fit to your board | Standoffs where the moulder put them | Standoffs on your mounting holes |
| Connector cutouts | Filed by hand, never twice the same | Cut in the model, identical every time |
| Thermal behaviour | Unknown until it gets hot | Computed before you order |
| Availability | Tomorrow | About eight working days |
| Repeatability | Depends on your hand | Revision hash, identical in a year |
The hidden cost is the drilling, not the box
Twenty boxes at €6 is €120, which looks unbeatable next to a generated housing. Then each one needs a rectangular USB cutout, two LED holes and four standoffs adjusted, and the honest figure is forty minutes per unit with a file and a step drill. That is thirteen hours of work with a variable result.
The comparison people should make is not box against box. It is box plus labour plus the way the finished thing looks in a photo, against a housing that arrives with the holes already in the right place.
Where the stock box genuinely wins
One unit, today, on a bench, where nobody will see it. There is no argument for generating a housing for a single test jig that lives under a desk, and we would rather say so than sell you one.
It also wins when your board outline is still moving. Generate the housing when the board is frozen; before that you are paying for a fit to a thing that is about to change.