Recommendations: Project inspiration w/ a budget

[bornofflame]

Howdy all. I haven't played around with building any circuits recently and so I'm pondering small projects that can be done for around 50 $US, though I'm willing to spend as much as 100 %US on parts. I have a soldering iron and experience using it and some familiarity with components (as well as a bin full of 'em). Most of what I can think of off the top of my head is biting off more than I can chew at this level in my education/knowledge.

Or if there's any Arduino, or Raspberry PI kits that you think would fit the bill that would work too as I've been wanting to play around those. I just haven't had the time during school

Thanks!

 

[Matthew Strasiotto]

My favourite microcontroller chipset is ESP8266 and/or ESP32 (Fancier) - Arduino programmable, but cheaper, with builtin WiFi connectivity (ESP32 also has BT).
Is there anything in particular you feel would improve your life? Or be helpful to you in some way?

 

[bornofflame]

My favourite microcontroller chipset is ESP8266 and/or ESP32 (Fancier) - Arduino programmable, but cheaper, with builtin WiFi connectivity (ESP32 also has BT).
Is there anything in particular you feel would improve your life? Or be helpful to you in some way?

The first thing that comes to mind is the gate to my parking structure. We bought a programmble controller that broke shortly thereafter. I've toyed with the idea of making one myself off and on. I could buy one, of course, but I find the idea of making one from scratch interesting.

A power supply that I could use for my bread board would be more useful.

I've started biking to school and was thinking about a light that is charged as I pedal using magnets to create current. I think that would be fun and useful.

 

[Stephenk53]

One thing you could do, is you can buy electronics to scrap for parts from goodwill or other thrift stores.

 

[jim hardy]

A power supply that I could use for my bread board would be more useful.

Thrift stores are a good place to start. They usually have a bin that's full of "Wall-Wart" plug in power supplies for cellphones, video games and computers,

Have you considered amateur speaker building ?
Try a search on "Thiele parameters"

I built one of these stereo amplifier kits
http://www.kitsrus.com/pdf/k88.pdf

i can vouch it makes rich clean sound.
I powered it with a junkshop 18 volt wall supply
plugged it into my office computer's headphone jack
mounted inexpensive 5 inch mail order speakers in enclosures made from 5 inch PVC pipe fittings, of correct volume per an online Thiele calculator,
and astonished everybody with the quality sound.

i turned the heatsink to point the other way so the amp would fit in a sardine can.

One fellow said it sounded better than his $400 system.

have fun

old jim

 

[anorlunda]

One fellow said it sounded better than his $400 system.

Cease and desist! You'll collapse the global economy.

 

[jim hardy]

PS

here's an introduction to Thiele parameters

https://www.eminence.com/support/understanding-loudspeaker-data/

 

[Averagesupernova]

Cease and desist! You'll collapse the global economy.

Bring it! If more people were like Jim Hardy, and myself on some things, our world economy would be much different than it is. I would welcome more people being able to stuff on the cheap. And with better results in a lot of cases.