Is there any other people than me who is using Arduinos in Bkk?
At least I have seen few Arduino boards on electronic super malls here.
Have a look at freeduino.de. The site admin lives in Bangkok and organized a hackerspace somewhere in Bangkok.
I wish we had "electronic super malls" here in the States; sometimes you just want "hands-on" and go out browsing electronics - the closest thing we have are "Fry's Electronics", but that's not the same as what you are talking about.
Maybe one of these days I'll become rich with a private jet (or at least first-class), then I can easily travel over there and oogle & purchase to my heart's content.
For now, though, I have the internet...
@cr0sh
on my recent visit to san antonio, TX, I went to an electronics warehouse called intertex and it was the first place I've ever gone that wasn't really a cell phone store with a few wires and ICs (coughradioshackcough). It was absolutely full of all sorts of motors, fans, hundreds of kinds of capacitors, ICs, piezo stuff, soldering tips and irons, multimeters (nice ones), LEDs, regulators, and that was only in the browsable area. They have a whole other section full of boxed stuff that you can only look at online. It was SO much more fun that shopping online, plus the prices were AWESOME on some things. They had lm7805 voltage regulators at 35 cents apiece ($1.25 on sparkfun, plus shipping). Plus, they have these HUGE audio capacitors that probably would have welded themselves to whatever I shorted them out on. So maybe you just have to look in the right places, I never would have found this warehouse unless I happened to drive by it.
Actually, we have a place here in Phoenix called "Apache Reclamation and Electronics" that is THE electronics graveyard; I've been going there for almost 20 years, and I think they've been around for at least double that. Its one of those places that isn't very well lit, where you're as apt to find spiders as you are parts, and sometimes, if you look carefully, you can find stuff that could almost be declared hazardous.
I found my Altair there, for instance.
They have an amazing back-room cache of vacuum tubes that no one ever seems to purchase; most is NOS-in-box (new-old stock). Sometimes you can pick up things for scrap value; I once bought a co-mingled box of various parts for $80.00 (scrap price) that if I wanted to, I could probably turn around and resell for five time that.
They have a 25 watt CO2 laser the size of refrigerator just sitting, waiting for somebody fool enough to take it home.
At one time they had an entire back open-yard area just filled to the brim with crazy stuff (large and scary crazy stuff); they moved that yard to a new location on lower Buckeye road, IIRC.
I once had a chance to buy a nice lab-grade industrial robot for $200.00, but I passed it up because I didn't have the money; I shoulda bought it in hindsight.
Even so; I would love to have a place I could go where there were stalls upon stalls of vendors (akin to the fashion district in LA - but more like an indoor mall) selling new and bulk electronics goods of today's vintage, with some colorful other junk thrown in, and maybe food vendors and such; a geek's paradise mall, if you will.
These places in the far-east Asian countries are just like that, from what I have read, heard, and seen online; we have nothing like that here in the States, and likely never will. Its something I think that is part of the culture, and our culture here unfortunately doesn't value this kind of stuff, but rather stuff that geeks don't generally identify with (fashion, fads, popular culture, etc). I don't see this changing any time soon.
Oh well...
BTW - found the online site: http://www.intertexelectronics.com/
I could really use a 25 watt CO2 LOL I imagine that might be hot with somebody else on laser pointer forums XD One guy I know on the internet has an amazing rework station (probably worth at least a few thousand) that he can use to mine all sorts of parts from 5-layer motherboards and stuff. I doubt he ever pays for electronic stuff, he just mines "trash" ;D
I imagine that might be hot with somebody else on laser pointer forums
Well, they would need a truck and forklift just to move the thing, not to mention they would probably need to help "clear a path" to the loading doors. The thing's been sitting there for as long as I have been going; I doubt it is ever going anywhere. Likely it was something used for cutting steel. If I had the room and three phase power it requires, I would probably buy it myself (I can just imagine the look my wife would give me, though!).
;D
I know at least one user at LPF has a three phase power generator that requires FAA permission every time they start it up LOL
I'm sure at least one person has the resources to use it.
I am certain there is, too - even here in Phoenix.
;D
I have seen people walk out of that place with some mighty curious items before; things that would only be useful to either an artist, an engineer, or a mad scientist - and most of these people seemed to be the latter, and not the former (though things blur here in the desert, so who really knows!).
I really wonder sometimes what people truely do in their garages - its amazing that we don't hear of houses being blown up more often.
^lol
mad scientists are fun people