I bought a Behringer distortion pedal a while ago, and because of my budget it was pretty cheap and flimsy. lately its been giving some power plug problems so i decided to make it a bit more sturdy and isolate the plugs from the actual circuit board. Hopefully this will make your cheaper pedal last longer then normal

Step 1: The Parts...

You will need:

-Wood or whatever material you want to make a casing
-the internals of the pedal ( just the circuit board)
-shielded wire (must be shielded)
-2X female jacks
-2X male jacks
- An 9V adapter that fits your pedal
-Soldering iron and solder
-Pedal parts (you can choose how you make your stomp switch so materials are according to your preference, I used meccano and foil

Step 2: Plan Out and Make the Case

Plan your case to your preference to accomodate the following:

-the circuit board
-the loose wires
-jacks the may protrude into the case
-Inputs including: Power, Guitar in, Amp out
-the stomp switch
-the knobs of the pedal

make the case really sturdy for stage use and knocking about. You may want to add rubber stoppers to the base to stop it slipping

Step 3: Set Up the Wiring

You will need to solder the following:

-the male jack to the female jack (twice, one for input, one for output)
-the stomp switch to the circuit boards stomp switch
-the power lead to the circuit board

Step 4: Painting the Case

Paint the case in any colour you want and let your designs run wild! you can also rename the pedal to whatever you feel the effect sounds like.

Step 5: Connecting Everything

you will need to connect your male to female cables into the inputs and outputs of the pedals. The power plugs will also have to connected

Step 6: The Stomp Switch

you can choose how you want the stomp switch to activate the system, but iv used a raised flexible plastic maccano piece covered in foil, then below it have the other half of the circuit