Like to buy development board

[Datom]

Does anyone like to buy development boards like me?
Many of these development boards I just run led examples, and then I don't use them anymore.
But next time I see a good development board, I still want to buy it.Confusing.
The following shows only some of my development boards.

[brucehoult]

I also have a Nucleo, still in the packaging. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

[mblinov]

I have a tendency to use Arduino Unos (and devkits in general) as swiss army knives in projects. Has uart bridge, 3.3 + 5 volts, and its an MCU too, so you can use it to generate test signals for the device youre developing. The Arduino IDE is really perfect for this, you can just write some code, flash the Uno, and you don't have to setup a project or anything - takes 3 seconds. I don't even bother saving the sketches. Opening and setting up a "real" IDE for say the STM32 platform is only 15 seconds, but when you only want to fiddle a bit in a loop it gets repetitive fast. I usually have one of these dev kits sitting connected to each project in progress doing some debugging or driving some signals, and when I start a new project I just buy another since they're so cheap. Got about 4 Unos now...

Elegoo used to sell knockoff Unos for £5.99 on Amazon, but I just checked and they now go for £14.99, so i'm not sure that its really very efficient anymore.

[pcprogrammer]

I had this problem too  but with today's prices it is no fun any more.

Have loads of different STM32 boards lying around, also some Arduino clones of the nano and mini and a Maixduino still in the box waiting to be played with. These Arduino boards are indeed very handy in combination with the Arduino IDE to test something. Lots of test sketches available on the net. For more serious work I do not like the IDE though. Rather do bare metal programming in my trusted old Netbeans 8.2 environment.

Also bought several FPGA board before the prices went up. Now I have enough toys to play with for quite a while 

[woofy]

Nah, No-one else has that problem. 

[hans]

I think I've like 5 Nucleos, several DIY PIC32/STM32 eval boards, several ESP32 boards and some FPGA boards laying around...
Some I genuinely still want to come back to, when I have the time..

Others will be used once I get a project started (eval board with already some peripherals for that project), when I have the time..

Anyhow, for cheap devboards like Nucleo's I don't really care. They are only 20-30 euro, and if it helps me evaluate even just 1 peripheral before a PCB layout then that's satisfactory usage for me.

[gamalot]

Here are some dev/eval boards in my drawer, and 5 Raspberry Pi 3B/4B if they count as dev boards. I also have some old ST Discovery, TI MSP430, and Microchips boards I don't remember where they are ...

[Siwastaja]

I do the opposite, I avoid development boards because it usually wastes time, instead I go directly for a PCB design. So I can write code for the "actual" HW platform from day 1, which I need to do anyway, and don't need to waste time soldering some temporary kludges, wiring harnesses etc. around a devboard.

Yet I sometimes still get a devboard. My development boards so far:
ATSTK200 from 1999 (my first devboard for Atmel AVR, came with the parallel port programmer)
STM32H7-DISCOVERY (because customer had a prototype on this board, so I got one, too, and developed the custom PCB as an extension module for the devkit)
Nordic Semi nRF52840-DK + Fanstel EV-BC833 boards, because fast jump into software development due to almost IO-less design and thus, no need to start by ordering custom PCBs

That's really all I can think of.

[rsjsouza]

This is one of the most interesting behaviours after development kits became dirt cheap. In a distant past, a development kit was so expensive that you did careful consideration before pulling the trigger to buy one.

And yes, I also have this problem... 

[Datom]

I saw the sign of "WCH". I guess the microcontroller must be ch32v307.

[woofy]

I saw the sign of "WCH". I guess the microcontroller must be ch32v307.

Yes, I'm currently trying to get tcp/ip working.
Its very hard without documentation though.

[Siwastaja]

This is one of the most interesting behaviours after development kits became dirt cheap. In a distant past, a development kit was so expensive that you did careful consideration before pulling the trigger to buy one.

Yeah, price isn't the problem anymore. I just want to avoid buying stuff I don't actually end up using, because even if cheap, it all adds up, also wasting space and mental resources trying to find something among the piles of crap.

That being said, unused devboards (not my own, but found in labs I have worked in) have saved the day a few times, working as component donors. Last time I needed an SMD 32768Hz crystal and lo and behold, a random wild donor devboard appeared. And because no one actually uses those devboards after they ended up in drawers, no one cares if it misses a few parts.

[themadhippy]

Elegoo used to sell knockoff Unos for £5.99 on Amazon, but I just checked and they now go for £14.99, so i'm not sure that its really very efficient anymore.

might be worth a look at the pi pico. Not only are they dirt cheap with plenty of io options you can get the buggers to talk basic.

[pcprogrammer]

might be worth a look at the pi pico. Not only are they dirt cheap with plenty of io options you can get the buggers to talk basic.

Having a MCU talk basic is no biggy. There are open source C variants of basic around. Modded one to work on a STM32F103 or STM32F303.

[luiHS]

 
I only buy it if I plan to do a design with a microcontroller, I buy the evaluation board first for testing, and then I make my own PCB. I have many evaluation boards from NXP for i.MX RTxx series microcontrollers, and from ST for STM32H7xx.

[rstofer]

I also have a Nucleo, still in the packaging. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Don't they all!  I have a four pack of Pi Picos that seemed like a good deal at the time.  I actually bought them to play with microPython.  Interesting...

PSOC 6 is fun, the mbed LPC1768 is one of my favorites, I also have several STM32Fx boards and I need them all.  They're all mine and I'm going to keep them!

I do get them out of the wrappers!

[rstofer]

What about the more exotic boards like the Google Coral or NVIDIA Jetson Nano?  They are interesting boards for a certain class of project.  I have a couple of each...  The Jetbot is an interesting platform for computer vision projects.

[dorkshoei]

If you find yourself unable to continue to self-justify your microprocessor eval board addiction there is always FPGA boards.  If that then becomes a problem, I'd suggest moving onto PMODs.  I've not figured out the next "treatment" stage ... yet.

[SiliconWizard]

I only buy it if I plan to do a design with a microcontroller, I buy the evaluation board first for testing, and then I make my own PCB. I have many evaluation boards from NXP for i.MX RTxx series microcontrollers, and from ST for STM32H7xx.

Ditto, but of course we all occasionally buy boards that we end up not using. For instance, I have a Nucleo board for the STM32L496 that I've never used. I had used the L476 in some project and wanted something with more RAM and the DMA2D controller the 496 has sounded great. But I picked another MCU and the board is in a drawer.
Or, we buy more than needed. As I guess a number of us here, I bought a few RPi Pico boards (some original, some third-party boards with RP2040), and have only used one so far. =)
And yes, I also have a few SBCs around, most of them getting no use so far.

[tellurium]

At some point I was entertaining an idea of a cloud service where people could connect to and "lend" their unused boards to the customers for the hardware tests, i.e. continuous integration of the firmware builds on a real dev boards. Those who "lend" their boards, might get paid if the service attracts paying users. That way, those hoards of unused boards might actually get used and even repay their price.

That would be too complex to implement though, and probably would not have much demand. I haven't seen many people and companies doing a hardware CI tests.

[brucehoult]

I also have a Nucleo, still in the packaging. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Don't they all!  I have a four pack of Pi Picos that seemed like a good deal at the time.  I actually bought them to play with microPython.  Interesting...

I haven't got a Pi Pico yet. I'm sure I will. They look pretty nice, and it's really great to see that the price they sell for is a real price, and if you want to buy a lot you get a discount, as compared to the Pi Zero where the price isn't real and you're banned from buying a lot.

Sometimes you just need to have things on the shelf so that there are THERE when you have inspiration at 11 PM.

It's one thing when you live somewhere that Amazon can get almost anything to you by 9 AM next day, but it's very different when you live in a more remote part of the world where getting anything interesting and unusual takes from a week to a couple of months.

I was living in San Francisco before COVID and when I decided to return to New Zealand I had a bit of a shopping spree on Amazon before I left. The STM32F446RE Nucleo was part of that, as was a Blue Pill and ST-Link, a Maixduino, a couple of extra Elegoo Unos and Megas, a bunch of bare DIP ATTiny85s, an MSP430 board, a 65C02 and 65C22.

Everything together probably came to about the same as it costs to fill my car now.

[pcprogrammer]

Sometimes you just need to have things on the shelf so that there are THERE when you have inspiration at 11 PM.

It's one thing when you live somewhere that Amazon can get almost anything to you by 9 AM next day, but it's very different when you live in a more remote part of the world where getting anything interesting and unusual takes from a week to a couple of months.

I was living in San Francisco before COVID and when I decided to return to New Zealand I had a bit of a shopping spree on Amazon before I left. The STM32F446RE Nucleo was part of that, as was a Blue Pill and ST-Link, a Maixduino, a couple of extra Elegoo Unos and Megas, a bunch of bare DIP ATTiny85s, an MSP430 board, a 65C02 and 65C22.

Everything together probably came to about the same as it costs to fill my car now.

An excellent point to justify having loads of these small board lying on a shelf Living in a somewhat remote location in France the postal services take their time No next day early morning delivery unless you pay premium.

With today's petrol prices you were able to buy a lot of these kind of dev boards when they were still available and priced decently.

Just on the verge of the shortage problems I ordered 8 STM32F303 boards from RobotDyn via Aliexpress for a still reasonable price of a couple a Euro a piece but they never came. At first they gave a silly reason about the chip not being good, and later that they were out of stock.

After that I bought a couple of Lichee nano F1C100s boards, some FPGA dev boards and a bunch of peripheral modules like displays, touch panels, ethernet interfaces, etc., but with the added VAT, paying for shipping and increasing prices the addiction came to a halt.

Edit: Almost then, just ordered two pico clones
Reasonable deal here: https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005003708090298.html Follow the store and order the limited to two and buy two. Shipping to France Euro 7,48 total including VAT.

[OZ1LQB]

Hi all..
Nice to se that i am not alone 
I have more than 100 STM32 boards not counting arduinos,msp430

[Datom]

Hi all..
Nice to se that i am not alone 
I have more than 100 STM32 boards not counting arduinos,msp430

100??So much, are you kidding？

[pcprogrammer]

Hi all..
Nice to se that i am not alone 
I have more than 100 STM32 boards not counting arduinos,msp430

Wow that is quite a lot. My STM32 count is just shy of 40 varying between F103, F303, F407, F411 and H743, not counting the 6 ST-link clones.