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.

  • jaschen@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    3D printing. Purchased a cheap 3D printer to save money printing things instead of buying things. 5 printer print farm later, no idea why I’m doing this to myself.

  • Luxsidus@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Mechanical keyboards. The next one is my endgame, I swear. Just one more groupbuy for those keycaps. It never truly ends.

    • r1veRRR@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      And then it turns out some horrendously ugly piece of plastic (like the Kinesis Advantage 360) is better for actually using.

  • EveningPancakes@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Photography.

    I started to really get into it back in 2015 with a Sony A6000 and a kit lens. Then you buy more, higher quality lenses. Then you buy better camera bodies with full frame sensor, then lenses that are full frame compatible. Then the various odds and end accessories. Then trips around the world to take pictures of things.

    I have taken a break from photography recently, on account that having a kid doesn’t allow me a lot of opportunity to edit my photos anymore. They say the best camera you have is the one that is on you. That has proven to be true while I try to be as present as possible around my daughter. I can quickly take out my phone, capture the moment and it will take care of most of the post processing edits that I can share with family later.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Photography ended up becoming a really expensive hobby for me. I started with a phone, and then realized I enjoyed doing wildlife photography, and you need a real camera with a decent zoom lens for that.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    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?”

    • choss@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      I would love to read about this $20 weather station! Do you maybe have a link?

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        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 board
        

        All 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.

        • gregoryw3@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Just an fyi bmp280 is not real temperature but an estimation based on air pressure.

  • TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • droans@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • Moonguide@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Self-hosting apps / homelab

    Getting used enterprise gear is not prohibitively expensive, but the electric bills balloon very quickly.

    • PlexSheep@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • ickplant@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Hepco@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Just started crocheting, and I’m just holding myself back from buying all the yarn, it’s gonna get bad

    • Zippy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • plactagonic@sopuli.xyzOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • DrMango@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Running.

    Was supposed to be the cheapest way to get exercise. You can do it right from your front door, no gym subscriptions, no specialized equipment (some people will tell you you don’t even need shoes), and it’s far and away the best time-value exercise I’ve ever found. You can get away with like 20 minutes 3-4 times a week and be doing great.

    Well, turns out I love running and I love distance running so I’m now putting up enough miles to need new shoes 2-3 times a year, a nice Garmin smart watch and heart rate monitor to track my progress, sign-ups for several long-distance races each year, shorts, socks, you get the picture.

    Could I do it cheaper? Yeah. But at the end of the day it’s a hobby and I like it

    • geekworking@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      I was running for a couple of years , and my knee started to give me problems.

      I went to an orthopedic Dr, and his advice was to take up swimming and if I wanted to keep running that I should hold on to his business card because someone needed to pay for his kids’ college.

      I stopped running soon after and avoided surgery for a decade, but it still caught up with me. Knees are definitely cheap with for-profit healthcare.

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      You realize it’s an addiction when you intend to do 5k. Realize after that Strava didn’t work properly on your watch and then you end up doing a second 5k because the first 5k didn’t count.

      • DrMango@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Finish marathon

        Legs on fire

        Garmin says you only ran 25.6 miles

        Have to run another half mile at race pace (so you don’t ruin your stats) to make sure you get credit for a marathon

  • Osprey@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    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…