Hi, just found this community. The inaugural post here showing a desk top full of miscellaneous boards reminded me of the random bits I have in boxes, stored away and not being hacked on like they should be :/

I wonder if there would be interest here in a sort of swap-by-mail thing where we post boards or parts we feel bad about not using and swap them for other things, that we might want to use instead… maybe an MCU dev kit for some sensors, or a even box of nice cookies if the hacking spirit is snoozing right now (as it is for me – so many other things in life to do at the moment…)

I find it actually harder to focus on doing a project because there are too many bits in my boxes sometimes.

I think the idea of donating bits to schools for students to use would be cool as well, but haven’t looked into it much (would they get used? Which schools have good programs with teachers that could actually use donations?)

  • @dragontamerEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    Hmm.

    I kinda had the opposite: I almost was giving up electronics earlier this year, but I decided to keep my stuff and start experimenting again. That being said, all hobbies come to an end one way or the other, so having a way to swap / donate / give away my Oscilloscope / Hot Air Gun / Soldering Iron would be good.

    Just not today, lol.

    A lot of the uCs are pretty cheap, at least the ones I play with. My set of old AtMega328 28-pin PDIPs were only like $1.50 each back when I bought it, and today are kind of obsolete in the face of AVR DD chips (also in 28-pin PDIPs).