Edit: so it turns out that every hobby can be expensive if you do it long enough.

Also I love how you talk about your hobby as some addicts.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    167·
    1 year ago

    Electronics / microcontrollers.

    Took just a few months to go from, “I can make a wifi connected weather station for like $20 in components!?” to “oscilloscopes cost how much?”

    • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
      10·
      1 year ago

      I’m really happy I don’t have enough space for that stuff. Otherwise I would be poor. It’s hard enough to keep myself from buying another old computer.

    • choss@lemmy.ml
      7·
      1 year ago

      I would love to read about this $20 weather station! Do you maybe have a link?

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        11·
        1 year ago

        Mine is pretty basic but is built on the shoulders of giants. Also that $20 was from pre-pandemic / pre-chip shortage prices. I’m guessing it’s more like $35 now, or maybe high $20s from ali express.

        I use Home Assistant for home automation. It has a now official addon called ESPHome for easily configuring esp devices and adding them to Home Assistant.

        I bought some cheap dev boards off amazon and thankfully they worked
    an esp8266 microcontroller with IC2 headers and a microusb port already onboard
    a bmp280 that measures temp, humidity, and barometric pressure
    a lux sensor with a plastic dome over the top
I soldered them together on a prototyping board

        All the components were supported by esphome, so I just needed to write the device config and then flash the devboard via esphome (in a web browser) over the built in usb.

        I 3d printed a housing for it, but you can also buy boxes. It needs airflow but also needs to stay dry. You can use a spray sealant to help avoid corrosion from ambient humidity. I skipped that step because I want to see how quickly it becomes problematic… and I should probably check on that.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.oneEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Lol I feel ya. I ended up making and selling electronics kits to fund the hobby somewhat.

      I have been using cheap vintage oscilloscopes the whole time.

      Not sure what they go for now but $100 for a 20MHz scope and $200 for a 100MHz was what it was several years ago. Cheapest I got off a buddy for $40. I am still using that one.

      Sometimes I fix broken ones and sell them. One time I got one that they thought was broken but turned out it was just the basic settings. I like trying different ones so I have gone through a dozen or so by now.

      Now* that I think about it, o-scopes are a whole other hobby lol.

      Anyway. Yeah by the time you get the test gear and enough sensors and microcontrollers and whatever it adds up.

      Right now I’m working on a power supply design for a 50W class D stereo. Found out big toroidal transformers are not cheap. Oof. And enclosures big enough (especially if labeled “amplifier” or “stereo”) are ridiculously spendy.

    • foofiepie@feddit.uk
      3·
      1 year ago

      Erk. I got into this. What’s the tipping point that gets you eyeing oscilloscopes? I’m at the fiddly smd stage.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        My next step is custom boards and smds, and an oscilloscope seems like a good way to diagnose when reflow goes wrong. I already have had some fights with I2C using dev boards. But really I’m eyeing one because I have allusions about doing fine calibration on analog sensors.

        I should add that I’ve been talking myself out of an oscilloscope for 2+ years now. I don’t REALLY need one.