This kind of "tinkering stuff" makes me want to buy it just because. Of course, once I have it, it will end up inside the drawer collecting dust along with my RPi, ESP32, etc...
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“The project” - your creative drive to “do a project with this device” is completely fulfilled by purchasing.
It’s a strange thing but there’s a direct line from creative desire to buying then not doing.
This is why I have so much electronics junk it’s all projects that I “completed” when I hit the buy button on Aliexpress.
I'm trying to channel my tinkering drive into software projects. Somehow these usually to get at least to the "hello world" level. Also, when left unfinished, they don't occupy the precious 3D space around me.
Also I need to sell an oscilloscope and a bench power supply :)
Heh. And here I’m being tempted to purchase a soldering iron again…
Well, if you don't buy it, then you won't build anything for sure. If you have a drawer full of little components, the time may come to actually use it.
Yep it starts being really fun when you can go directly from an idea to making it, because you already have the components on hand from previous projects/hoarding.
This applies to all different fixes and hobbies so well. Just this afternoon my old Miata had the power steering 'cooling lines' finally rust through. Once I got home, I rummaged in my toolbox for old car tubing, rummaged elsewhere to find some small hose clamps and spent at most an hour cutting off the rusty parts, reattaching with line and clamps, refilling, and cleaning things back up. (luckily the cooling loop is on the low pressure side of things, so if it moves fluid a -> b and is kinda sealed up, it's good to go)
Point is: Having the drawers of 'I'll save this just in case!' in all hobbies does in fact come in handy. I find this especially true when some sort of project requires 'yet another adapter' to convert thing a to thing b. Project either goes through or it doesn't, but later on when trying to attack something else, having that little drawer full of weird but useful cables and adapters within living room walking distance sure feels rewarding.
My Raspberry Pis have also gathered quite a lot of dust during the years but they're pretty nice to have around. I needed to start hosting a web service and instead of buying a VPS to run it on, I just dusted off the old Raspberry Pi 2 and set up my service there.
I hate it when I buy some microcontroller doodad and then open my electronics drawer and see that I had one already!
Ha, I also have an RPi, Pinephone box. Sad that these Linux phones were basically a hope-scam.
The hope is still alive
This is just an ESP32 with a display
In a neat package/form factor and software. And for 2$. I don’t see a reason why you’d buy the components separate, it’ll probably cost you way more time and money. Or am I missing the point of your comment?