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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3717 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 3, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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The problem is that almost anything which would be widely useful can already be found for less than you would pay for the parts on aliexpress, and will likely offer better battery life and miniaturization. Especially the latter is a big deal for wearables -- while you can certainly use an ESP32, a EKG chip and some flash memory to build a two channel 24/7 Holter EKG, it will certainly not have the neat chest strap form factor but something much bulkier. Also, most of your students probably don't require an EKG in any case.

Home automation is one area where DIY can thrive, especially for cloud-skeptics like me who don't like to surrender control to Amazon or Google. Devices there can often be mains-powered and a bit larger. Commercial products often are not very great on generic interfaces and instead prefer for you to download the app and use their cloud.

All of the devices which I have build which ended up being useful are for very specific things in the lab. A tester to check if there are sixteen diodes connected to specific pins of a DSub25 connector is not exactly an item you require in every household.

I personally would not worry if student electronics projects end up in some drawer. It is the same with most smaller student software projects. Nobody would want to hang whatever pictures I was forced to draw in high school on their walls, and most student essays don't enter the canon either.

Regarding buying electronic components, I have found it really helpful to have the backing of a corporation or institution. Most of the electronics vendors like farnell, mouser, digikey, buerklin really don't like to do business with private individuals. This means that for plenty of chips there is not even a good way to buy them at all on your own. When purchasing through an institution, I can get the products from at least two of these vendors within a week or so. Of course, if you want really exotic sensors you might have to buy directly from the producer, but the palette they offer is rather large.

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