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.
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?”
Has there already grown a noteworthy Arduino/ESP Community on Lemmy?
There are quite a few but none are super active.
I would love to read about this $20 weather station! Do you maybe have a link?
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 boardAll 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.
Just an fyi bmp280 is not real temperature but an estimation based on air pressure.
Self-hosting apps / homelab
Getting used enterprise gear is not prohibitively expensive, but the electric bills balloon very quickly.
I currently bought an old desktop from a friend that I use as my Homeserver.
- I bought 3 HDDs for storage
- I rent a VPS
- I rented Proton to host mail for my domain, but switched to netcup groupware because that sucked.
- Some domains
- Electricity
Wow I thought it was way more.
One time costs: ~500€ Monthly costs: ~15€ Plus electricity, but I have solar. I assume it’s about 150€/year
But I’m a cheap selfhosted, but eventually, I will have a huge ass Enterprise Level Rack in my basement.
I bought myself a raspberry pi for my birthday a few years ago.
I now have thousands of dollars in hardware sitting in a server rack in my office. Whoops.
A single 1TB drive should be enough for my Plex server, I said.
123TB isn’t enough, I need more 18TB hard drives, I said.
Coffee.
I blame James Hoffman entirely.
Within a year I went from:
Drinking instant coffee at home, but really enjoying “proper coffee”
To
Buying a cafetiere (~£15) + preground coffee
To
Buying a Nespresso (~£60 on offer) + pods
To
Buying a budget espresso machine (~£120) + preground coffee
To
Wasting my money on a cheap manual coffee grinder (~£50) + beans
To
Immediately replacing it with an entry level Sage grinder (~£170)
To
Buying an entry Level “proper” espresso machine (~£700)
It took me a good 2-3 weeks of practicing and dialling in before pulling a good shot of coffee that I’d actually want to drink, but by that point it was also about learning a new skill, learning how different aspects of the process affect the end result and learning how to make all sorts of different espresso-based drinks.
My girlfriend thought I was nuts at first, but a year or so later even she agrees it was worth the investment. I still for the life of me can’t get the hang of latte art though.
The problem is now though that I’m a waaaay more critical of coffee from coffee shops, because I spent a long time making bad coffee whilst learning!
I can’t believe I answered “board games” to this before. Yes, espresso wins it over. I just got an espresso machine for my 10th anniversary (price too high for me to be willing to admit). And here I have a wishlist of $500+ in “devices” for it.
Like you, I’m about 3 weeks in and just now getting my burr grind just right for that perfect 26s shot. Luckily my vendor was giving out a free badass scale. It keeps telling me how bad my shot is.
I still for the life of me can’t get the hang of latte art though.
Ditto. I just got my first “correct emulsified foam” today. Usually I end up with hot milk with hot whipped milk on top.
Espresso is the line I won’t let myself cross (and I don’t have the counter space lol), but the $350 for the Kinu M47 was hard to swallow.
Plus side, it’s also a great espresso grinder if I do ever eventually head down that road.
Similar but different : tea! You go from cheap bagged tea to going down the rabbit hole of loose leaf variations, temp control kettles, brewing vessels and brewing styles.
Even low-grade Dragonwell is eyeopeningly expensive. And nothing tastes quite like it.
It tastes a ground up $20 bill soaked in hot water ;)
Mechanical keyboards. The next one is my endgame, I swear. Just one more groupbuy for those keycaps. It never truly ends.
mechanical keyboards go two ways, you start shelling out for way overpriced cncd metal or wacky boards or you become a pcb designer and make a board that could be used for camping
And then it turns out some horrendously ugly piece of plastic (like the Kinesis Advantage 360) is better for actually using.
I never got the appeal of mechanical keyboards. If you actually have to type all day, a proper flat keyboard like in the old MacBooks ('09-ish) is way nicer and costs much less.
Coffee. I’m in a coffee producing country. It could be as cheap as grabbing a bag from the coffee institute (really good and cheap), a cloth filter and call it a day. Instead, I’m on my second espresso machine, fourth grinder, second portafilter set, and have all the doodads to make it just how I like it.
So the other day my brother came visiting and brought with him a new portafilter for my run of the mill espresso machine. We messed around with setting the grinder, measuring the exact amount of coffee, and so on and we did get a decent cup of coffee. Thing is, I can live with my old bad coffee, my peasant taste buds don’t really tell the difference, so I’d rather spend my dough on the other 99 things that deplete the bank account. But to you, who make a passion out of brewing coffee, more power to you!
Oh I started that way too. I’m not as deep into the rabbithole as I could be, but I’ve gotten far enough I know how to make a good enough cup of joe (which by all accounts of people whom I’ve made coffee for, is pretty damn good). I’ve had to balance that hobby with my other hobbies, and well… It turned out to be my cheapest hobby, sadly.
Same with tea…Once you get to loose tea , the step to importing tea is not very far.
Oh the import tax and shipping :(Yup! Used to drink cheap black tea, went to the UK and bought Yorkshire gold. Ain’t no way I’m going back to the cheap stuff.
Spiffing Brit made me improve my tea game, curse his charismatic influencing!
Exactly! I was fine drinking Bigelow and Twinnings before!
This is not the first post where I feel it but I love it so much that we have a lot of people on Lemmy that can talk about things not related to computers!
Except the selfhost crowd here.
Growing cannabis (legal here in Canada)
…anyone can grow weed. Growing GOOD weed is an art.
I unintentionally grow weed because I made some tincture for grandma.
Now it just grows on my garden and I can’t get rid of it.
One of it’s many nicknames is ditchweed for a reason. It’s a weed like any other. The US spends millions per year burning it out of ditches on the side of the road all around the country.
I’d be happy to burn it for them!
A little bit at a time!
2000 into my fully automated hydroponic weed factory. Another 500 to make my nutrient solutions from scratch. Mind you that 500 dollars when making from scratch likely last 20 years of crops. It does make a good 1.5 pounds of dry weed every 3 to 4 months with the for legal plants allowed in Canada. I barely smoke so give nearly all away.
Three year prior, harvested a crop down right before going to Mexico for three month trip. Was still some shoots barely growing so for shits and giggles I turn the lights back to 22 hours per day to see if they would go back to the veg state. Have camera so can watch it remotely. Shit starts fully growing like a new plant. Anyhow COVID puts a wrinkle in my return. Ended up in Mexico for 18 months. Over that time, thing kept growing like nuts. Automation on water replacement and nutrient injection along with pH monitoring. Became sort of a how long can this thing go with near zero human intervention. Had only to send my brother in law in three times to cut it down and refill my nutrient injectors from solutions I made before leaving.
In Germany we will be allowed to grow some for private use come next year. I have no idea what to get yet, but I will just plant it in a planter in the garden and hope that it works I guess :D
I hope you’ll be able to get seeds and strains imported from the US and Canada. I smoked weed in Germany while I was living there in 2015 a few times and it was the worst weed I’ve ever smoked. It tasted weird, smelled bad, and didn’t even get me high. When I asked someone about it they were just like “weed isn’t as strong here as it is in the U.S.”
I think that’s still up for debate. Let’s see. But I haven’t been smoking for quite some time, so maybe my first batch is fine being on the weak side
Have you smoked outside of Germany? I only ever smoked in Germany so I don’t know how it is anywhere else in Europe so maybe my experience is the problem, but I have friends who have come to the US and said weed is way stronger here.
No, only ever smoked in Germany. That would explain how it is shown in american media
Board games. Things get expensive once you start collecting
Knitting. Super cheap to start, you can pick up a set of needles and some acrylic yarn for under $20. But when you start getting into nice yarns and bigger pieces, you are spending hundreds of dollars on yarn alone for a blanket or a sweater. And you want nice needles in all sizes as well as all types (double pointed, regular and circular)… more hundreds of dollars.
Moral of the story is if a friend knits you something with nice yarn, please appreciate it. Lots of effort and thought went into it.
Just started crocheting, and I’m just holding myself back from buying all the yarn, it’s gonna get bad
My mom knits and she spends way more time unraveling thrift store finds to salvage the yarn than she does actually knitting stuff.
Cycling.
You can certainly do it on an 300€ bike, but who would want that if you can pay 300€ for the helmet alone.
For me it is maybe camping.
I just tested my new sleeping bag - under 0.5kg rated to -5°C. And realised that I bought/ replaced lots of gear to higher quality gear over few years.
trying to get a motocamping setup going. Spent over $200 at REI last weekend just for a tarp shelter and accoutrements and I still have 75% of the list to go which is only NECESSARY items…
Camp stoves and fuel! I can buy a lot of bic lighters and cheap metal camping mugs for the cost of a dang Jetboil stove and fuel.
Traditional painting and illustration! While I now know that I never needed to spend more than $250 for professional-grade tools, I’ve spent about $18,000. As for sales in 3.5 years, they don’t account for more than $800. For that I mostly blame Instagram where it’s not possible to grow anymore organically and get an audience & potential customers. So I moved to the federated open source PixelFed now, if anyone’s interested in my book-style illustration: https://pixelfed.social/EugeniaLoli
Also, as a word of advice for anyone who wants to also do illustration and don’t want to do the same mistakes that I did. All you need is:
- The Lukas 24 watercolor palette of student grade ($18). It’s good enough and these days most paintings are scanned, so even if not all colors are lightfast, it’s not a big deal. Few people only buy originals, most go for prints. If you’re going to go selling originals, consider the Daniel Smith primaries set of 6 colors for $40.
- A set of brushes of different sizes, including a flat brush and round brushes including a long thin one to do details, $15
- Pencil, eraser, sharpener, $15
- A set of gouache. Best bang for the buck for professional quality is DaVinci brand ($10 per large tube), or if you want to go cheap, the Himi Miya set for $25. If you go for the cheaper stuff, it’s still advised to get a better quality white tube, so it’s truly opaque (the cheap stuff aren’t opaque enough). So go for Holbein or DaVinci white for $10-$15.
- Soft core colored pencils, set of 48+. $15 (you will mostly need the muted colors to enhance the painting with harder edges)
- Grey, sepia, black ink pens, and manga ink brush pens (for some types of paintings only), $40
- 100% cotton paper for watercolor $25, or any watercolor paper for gouache $10 (gouache works on any, watercolor is more nuanced).
- Brush watercolor markers, e.g. Tombows or Ecoline – in case you want to do such type of illustration too, $30 for a few muted colors.
- Masking fluid for watercolors, $10
- White gel pen and white Posca pen (0.7mm) for white highlights, $15
- Faber Castell white pencil soft pastel, $4
- Caran d’ache Luminance white colored pencil, $4 (the cheaper colored pencils above again don’t include a strong white)
- Caran d’ache Neocolor II white crayon, $4
- A ruler, to help you sketch.
I included various mediums above in white color because highlights are king in illustration, and each provides a different look and feel, depending on the painting. Happy painting!
Gardening.
Containers are surprisingly expensive. And you need a lot of soil to fill them, which gets expensive too. Then it’s impossible to only buy the seeds you need, when there are so many cool varieties…
Houseplants.
It started with a little green in the living room and suddenly turned into a full grown, humid, highly poisonous indoor jungle that’s thirsty as fuck. And it turns out that exotic plants, fancy pots, growing lights, different types of soil for different species, fertilizers, and dozens of liters of water every day are somehow expensive…
Edit: yes, I love it
