Wow that thread blew up. A lot of good point of views and insight here
Thanks all for your replies. I was afraid of being called cheap, but I am happy to see that I am not the only one seeing that trend.
A few thoughts :
- It is true that connections helps a lot. That's how I got my free stuff before, and now I am deprived of this, having relocated (which resets ALL your social network, pretty brutal). By the way if you have free gear let me know
![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif.pagespeed.ce._hfWAz_QHO.gif)
- It is also possible that the "trade in" policies of some equipment companies are removing older gear from the market. Before, companies would "throw away" older gear and buy new. Now they send the old gear to a manufacturer for destruction in exchange of a virtual price reduction. But I do not know if that effect is significant.
- I also believe that it seems like more and more people are in the hobby, which is good. When I started almost 2 decades ago, all I could see what hobbyists using their soundcards as oscilloscopes and a LM317 as a power supply. Now everyone has a DSO and expects to have one, which possibly drives up demand
- Information about specialty pieces of equipment is more accessible. Time nuts, volt nuts mailling lists make everyone want to play with a
3458A or a
Rubidium atomic clock (a freakin atomic clock !!!! at home !).
- Similarly, there are now many repair videos, from Dave EEVblog, but also Shahriar from The Signal Path and many others, which have driven up interest even for broken gear. Broken gear selling for hundreds is new to me.
- It is possible this is also related to a more global trend in the economy of inflated asset prices and too much money in the market, but that's probably out of topic for EEVblog
![Smiley :)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xsmiley.gif.pagespeed.ic.R8GFI-pF6f.png)
- There is an emulation with people showing off their labs, and all these vloggers (including Dave, no offense) who have an over abundance of gear (who seriously needs 5 scopes and 10 power supplies and ...). It makes it seem like this is normal.
- There is also that new trend of comparing instruments with each other. I recently saw a video of someone having multiple atomic clocks on a bench. At home. I don't think anything like this would have been possible 20 years ago, but I might be wrong.
- Maker spaces / fablabs are a possible solution but it does not replace a home lab for that late night hacking with all your stuff in the same place. Plus, they are not exactly cheap !
On the upside, we have awesome cheap instruments available now. I am thinking about :
-
NanoVNA v2 Plus 4-
Rigol DS-1054Z which is the benchmark for the cheap oscilloscope for hobbyists (sadly I need a bit more now, I've grown up in my game)
- Cheap power supplies from China such as the
RD6018 (but in my opinion, they are not great due to the switching noise, people really need a linear lab supply)
- And in general, the software processing power we have in todays instruments which gives a lot of new capabilities and automatic measurements.
Funny someone mentioned the DMM6500, I am seriously thinking of getting one. A multimeter with a 1MS/s sample rate and memory ? It is almost an oscilloscope ! No way I am going to get an overpriced 30 years ago DMM with rotting capacitors...