Comment by LoveMortuus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LoveMortuus | Hacker News Reader

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As a person who's financial weak, I always go with the cheapest option that I can find, especially if this is my entrance ticket into the specific space.

Yes, the cheapest option will probably have more issues then the more expensive one. But that's actually good, because if I can't deal with them, I probably would give up with a more expensive one. And this also allows me to experience what really matters to me and what I don't care about, so that if I decide to upgrade I can be much more specific on regards to what I need and what I don't need.

About a year ago I entered the space of microscopy, I was lucky enough to be able to get an old one for free from the university, one that they've deemed no longer suitable for the students (probably because it doesn't have a light), but for me it is perfect, it does everything that I need it for. As for the light, I just use an LED or phones flash.

Zero cost entry, and honestly I don't really feel the need to upgrade, I did buy an additional lense that comes with a holder for a phone so that I can view the slides on the phone's display and even record them!

My philosophy is that you should spend as little money as possible to enter a hobby.

Or in other words, don't buy tools to do a hobby. Do a hobby to buy the tools.

It's a good philosophy to have although I think the parent commenter was referring to microcontrollers specifically. You're better off getting a decently capable one for a little more than trying to make do with the cheapest version because the difference in cost is probably a few cents and the variance between resellers will be higher than that.

This won't be cheap in practice.

These are 10-cents to 70-cent SMT parts. See the link from the blogpost: https://www.lcsc.com/products/Microcontroller-Units-MCUs-MPU...

This means you need a hotair rework station and soldering iron. If you want to breadboard, you'll want a set of breakout boards to place these parts.

I suggest to beginners: work with DIP instead, so that it works on your breadboard without the need of more expensive tools. I remember back when I was in college, all I could afford was a breadboard and some chips (not even a soldering iron: too expensive for my cheap self back then).

Similarly, I expect today's cheap beginners to start on DIP + breadboards, and _maybe_ get a soldering iron, eventually. SMT parts are just outside of the reach for such cheap EEs, which is fine, DIP parts (though lower performance), still exist and still have a huge variety of important projects you can do. (OpAmps, Transistors like 2N2222 and 2N7000, voltage regulators, current regulators, references, even uCs like AVR64DD28)

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Spending $0.70 on parts you literally can't use is a waste of your time and money. Buying custom pcbs is like $100 for single runs. Buying breakout boards is +$3 each plus the additional tools (hot air rework) needed to work with them.

Spending $3 on a 28-DIP package (like AVR64DD28) is in fact, the cheapest way to enter this hobby. Or alternatively, find other DIP packages (maybe something else exists: I'm not very familiar with these cheaper Chinese parts), but not the parts discussed in this particular blogpost.

>Buying custom pcbs is like $100 for single runs.

You can easily get small custom PCBs for <$10, delivered.

There's a really good price comparison site at https://pcbshopper.com/

5 boards - 5cm x 5cm, 2 layer, delivered for US$9.90.

    Yes, the cheapest option will probably have more issues then the more
    expensive one. But that's actually good, because if I can't deal with them,
    I probably would give up with a more expensive one.

I don't see how that follows. A cheap electronic component is much more likely to be out of specification, requiring hacks or workarounds to deal with the fact that it's out of spec. A more expensive component is more likely to be within its advertised specifications, and thus Just Work™, when used in a design. It seems to me that using the cheapest, bottom of the barrel, dodgiest components is a recipe for more frustration, and thus more likely to lead to giving up than using components that are modestly more expensive, but actually work to the standards which are advertised.

I entertained the idea of using WLCSP in a PCB just because I like pain. If I can do WLCSP then I can do anything.

Sure but does your financial situation change if you pay 10¢ for your microprocessor versus paying $5 for your microprocessor?

Well.. yes? A relative of mine is a student and is into electronics. His monthly income (with various bonuses for good academic performance) is around $100 per month IIRC. $5 is a significant sum for someone like that.

Especially when developing something. I let out magic smoke from many a chip over the years (or partially destroyed one of the internal components, rendering the whole chip pretty much useless).

Right. Also $0.1 part you can easily get a few so you have spares at hand or for follow-on projects, with limited loss if it doesn't turn out great. Whereas dumping $50 on 10 of an expensive part is much more of a risk. Especially bad in places where getting parts means expensive international shipping each time: You want to order enough at a time to not pay shipping multiple times (and/or have long waits), but the parts need to be cheap for that to be viable.

Who's giving out two-digit monthly bonuses for academic performance? Parents? That's a weird way to describe allowance though.

Government in a country where $300 a month is considered to be decent salary.

One of those can be spun into a product, the other one can't.

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