Bored With Hobbies

[Overclocked]

Has Anyone else gotten bored with Hobbies?

I have picked up model engineering as a hobby now as well. Ive built a few small engines to run on air, and would like for them to run on steam, but this requires a great expense (Copper is expensive!). I find myself bored with Electronics, even though there’s things I *should* do. For example, I wanted to build a whole house energy monitor. Ive worked out all the details in my head, and Im pretty confident it will work. I have some of the physical hardware ready, and have done measurements with out using any type of Micro Controller. Im also sure the code will work, but yet I havent done the actual work. Its almost as if the design process is what I like to do, but the actual physical hardware is "meh". This might be because of my career; I build industrial hot stamp machinery and it requires me to engineer something and program it using ladder logic.

Its the Same with Model Engineering. Ive build 3 engines, they all work quite nicely, but at the present moment I feel bored (granted, my goal in that hobby was to build a steam electrical generator-Again, Im sure it will work). Sometimes I look at all the arduino projects (Im a PIC user!) and think to myself "Oh I can build that!". I think about the code and in 5 minutes its done in my head.

Has anyone else felt this way and How did you get out of it?

 

[NorthGuy]

Looks like it's time to pick up golf.

 

[4pyros]

New and more exciting projects, I must challenge yourself to get a feeling of satisfaction out of it.

 

[geko]

Has anyone else felt this way and How did you get out of it?

Yes, just like that. Buying exciting new stuff - hasn't helped; Giving it a rest for a while and going back to it - hasn't helped; Getting into a new hobby - worse - got bored with that too.

I look at the stuff, I sit in my workshop and think about stuff, I read forums like ETO, appreciate and am inspired by what others are doing but for the last 24 months or so I just can't do - it's frustrating and depressing.

If you figure it out please share

 

[atferrari]

Yes, just like that. Buying exciting new stuff - hasn't helped; Giving it a rest for a while and going back to it - hasn't helped; Getting into a new hobby - worse - got bored with that too.

I look at the stuff, I sit in my workshop and think about stuff, I read forums like ETO, appreciate and am inspired by what others are doing but for the last 24 months or so I just can't do - it's frustrating and depressing.

If you figure it out please share

Maybe you are taking your hobby as an obligation. Had that feeling many years ago. I stopped for some time (hectic work helped on that) and then I restarted with renewd interest.

True is that the amount of uncompleted `projects has increased at a higher rate.

 

[alec_t]

Boredom is nature's way of telling you that you need a new challenge; either physical or intellectual. What grabs your fancy?

 

[tvtech]

Boredom is nature's way of telling you that you need a new challenge; either physical or intellectual. What grabs your fancy?

LOL. So true alec

Regards,
tvtech

 

[DerStrom8]

I'm with Alec on this one. When you're bored it means you need to switch up your routine a bit. I used to do all hardware. Then I started getting a little bored of it and I picked up C programming. Now every time I get bored with a language I move on to learn another one. So far I have worked with C, Assembly, VHDL, C++, Java, Javascript/JQuery, HTML/CSS, and some SQL and XML. There's always new things to try and learn. Try picking up something you wouldn't normally try, and I can almost guarantee it will cure your boredom

Regards,
Matt

 

[tronitech]

Flower arranging?

 

[tcmtech]

I tend to do the hobby switch up every now and then as well. I find it to be a healthy way to cross train myself in different disciplines.

Electrical and electronics.
Hydraulics and Pneumatics.
Welding and metal fabrication.
Repair of antique equipment.
Home design and construction.
Earth moving.
Scuba diving.
Collecting old junk.
Wind and other AE power/fuel research.
and my personal favorite just being a PITA know it all online!

 

[Overclocked]

New and more exciting projects, I must challenge yourself to get a feeling of satisfaction out of it.

This is true. Maybe instead of "thinking" its "done", I should actually do it

Maybe you are taking your hobby as an obligation. Had that feeling many years ago. I stopped for some time (hectic work helped on that) and then I restarted with renewd interest.

True is that the amount of uncompleted `projects has increased at a higher rate.

This is also true. But Ive completed a number of projects, but sometimes you hit the inevitable mental road block. For example: Code Wont work. Why? After many iterations of just messing around, it still wont work. Mentally this is defeating. This has happened with a Custom Charger board I tried to make to Charge LiFePO4 batteries (There was a thread on getting the ADC to work in C-Which was interesting and fun!). It still doesnt work correctly and I dont know why. the source code should make sense, but doesn't.

Boredom is nature's way of telling you that you need a new challenge; either physical or intellectual. What grabs your fancy?

Solar. Or Anything Renewable. Its just cool Stuff. I have all these 3x6 Solar Cells I bought, and I have enough for 2 Huge Panels. However Ive come to realise that my original dream of Powering my House off of home build ones (even for emergency power) Is probably nil. They would need to be UL certified and such in order to be used for such a purpose. I could cut them down to smaller ones. I would ideally like to use them for a solar powered Data node or for Home Brew LED lights. This also ties into my model engineering fancy as well.

There are other engines I would like to build, but some of them require the use of a Milling Machine, which will be a very expensive purchase (The one I want is $1300!).

Power also grabs my fancy, ie designing boost, or buck converters. High Power LED's as well. I made a 800 Lumen Flashlight that combined both my metal working skills and Electronics. It turned out well but eats batteries like Crazy. I would like to do a rechargeable version, but I hate the fact that a flashlight is something you wont use every day. After a while the batteries would lose capacity just from sitting.

I tend to do the hobby switch up every now and then as well. I find it to be a healthy way to cross train myself in different disciplines.

Electrical and electronics.
Hydraulics and Pneumatics.
Welding and metal fabrication.
Repair of antique equipment.
Home design and construction.
Earth moving.
Scuba diving.
Collecting old junk.
Wind and other AE power/fuel research.
and my personal favorite just being a PITA know it all online!

Maybe I should get into Metal Casting, since I own my own house now. Ive always wanted to do it, but the issue around here is sourcing scrap Aluminum. Many people like to sell scrap to the yards for money, and most people dont throw away junk anymore. If they do, someone picks it up quickly.

The odd thing is too, even gaming gets boring. The same old games over and over gets dull. Usually I try and look on steam for something thats not too expensive.

 

[tcmtech]

For all the scrap metal you want just stop by the local salvage yard and ask to buy some. They are generally not a one way dealer.

Granted they make a bit of profit off of you though. Around here figure a 30 - 50% markup on what they would buy it from you for depending on the type and quality of the metal you want.

Still pretty cheap though.

 

[NorthGuy]

For example: Code Wont work. Why? After many iterations of just messing around, it still wont work. Mentally this is defeating. This has happened with a Custom Charger board I tried to make to Charge LiFePO4 batteries (There was a thread on getting the ADC to work in C-Which was interesting and fun!). It still doesnt work correctly and I dont know why. the source code should make sense, but doesn't.

This stems from the way you have been thought in school. They give you an exercise, you try to find the right answer and if you find what you were expected to find, you get rewarded. If you apply this approach towards computer programming, it might be very harsh on you. You do everything right, and you don't get rewarded. How come? You try hard to find a place where you wrote it wrong. You go over your code and everything is right, nothing is wrong. Your eyes are sore, it's hard to see the lines, cofee doesn't help any more, but still you cannot find this damn wrong place in your code. How come you did all the right things, but didn't get the reward? I guess it is mentally defeating.

Programming doesn't work that way. There's no teacher on the other way to tell you right from wrong. There is no right or wrong neither. Program simply does what you told it to do.

You break your program into pieces and observe what they're doing and see if what you get from the execution is what you wanted to get. If you don't, you correct or re-write. You keep doing that over and over again until it works, or until you find a design flaw which forces you to rewrite everything. With today's debuggers and simulators shouldn't be very hard.

 

[prprog]

Has Anyone else gotten bored with Hobbies?

I have picked up model engineering as a hobby now as well. Ive built a few small engines to run on air, and would like for them to run on steam, but this requires a great expense (Copper is expensive!). I find myself bored with Electronics, even though there’s things I *should* do. For example, I wanted to build a whole house energy monitor. Ive worked out all the details in my head, and Im pretty confident it will work. I have some of the physical hardware ready, and have done measurements with out using any type of Micro Controller. Im also sure the code will work, but yet I havent done the actual work. Its almost as if the design process is what I like to do, but the actual physical hardware is "meh"..........

Has anyone else felt this way and How did you get out of it?

Yes, many times. But for me is more than I get overwhelmed by the actual construction. Design goes well (at least on paper and breadboarding). But when it comes to actually built whatever I design , it might be to much for me to resolved. I recognize that I am not to much into precision measurements and work, therefore mistakes will surface when I built. This weekend I almost finished my latest project: a synthetizer/melodica controller and the construction of the housing/box was a nightmare.
Many projects are unfinished because of this.

 

[Overclocked]

For all the scrap metal you want just stop by the local salvage yard and ask to buy some. They are generally not a one way dealer.

Granted they make a bit of profit off of you though. Around here figure a 30 - 50% markup on what they would buy it from you for depending on the type and quality of the metal you want.

Still pretty cheap though.

Ive actually done this. I got a Huge piece of brass really cheapily! But I was reading that you have to be careful of what type you get, some brass's have beryllium in them, which is quite toxic! I was told to watch out for anything that is "red".

You break your program into pieces and observe what they're doing and see if what you get from the execution is what you wanted to get. If you don't, you correct or re-write. You keep doing that over and over again until it works, or until you find a design flaw which forces you to rewrite everything. With today's debuggers and simulators shouldn't be very hard.

The odd thing is, this is how I approach my work. If a machine doesnt work, I go line by line, test inputs, test outputs, push buttons, add/remove/rework code until it works. I guess theres more to lose at work than at home. Usually once I get it to work, I try to test against every possible scenario that could happen (ie E-Stop, Door open, Product not in place, etc) and try and Break my code on purpose. I'll try applying this principle to my hobbies.

Yes, many times. But for me is more than I get overwhelmed by the actual construction. Design goes well (at least on paper and breadboarding). But when it comes to actually built whatever I design , it might be to much for me to resolved. I recognize that I am not to much into precision measurements and work, therefore mistakes will surface when I built. This weekend I almost finished my latest project: a synthetizer/melodica controller and the construction of the housing/box was a nightmare.
Many projects are unfinished because of this.

Boxes are a issue. I always try to think of the final packaging even more Ive built something, and many are just "floating" around because of that. Most of the time I feel that I dont need a box (Like a battery charger).

My Girlfriend made a suggestion: Try and find others that might enjoy the same thing. This is true as Ive thought of joining the local hackerspace. However, there is one thing that I dont like, the $50 a mo membership fee. They usually do have open house nights, but the other issue is most people there probably use Arduino, and as I PIC user Im going to be a minority.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

If you keep getting 'bored' then tell whoever is drilling holes in your head to stop that! (he he)

Seriously though, if you find you are getting bored it could be because you are bored with creating projects you dont really *NEED*. Try to think about something that you really *need* in life that can fill a gap in whatever you do on a daily basis. You'll then be able to create something very useful for yourself and maybe others too, and it wont be boring because it will make your life nicer or even easier.
You dont really own *everything* a human can possibly want, do you? This could be something for the home, yard, car, etc.

Another point is that very often things that you can already buy on the market (like on the web or at a store) do not work the exact way you would like them to work, so you can mod them to fit your more exact needs. I find products like this a lot these days. When you get them home they dont work the way you thought they would or *should* work. You can mod them to the way they should work and maybe others will be interested in doing the same thing too.

 

[throbscottle]

Take up gardening. Always useful, always productive, always something to do, always something to learn, it doesn't care if you don't do it (well, you just have more to do when you DO get round to it), other people genuinely appreciate the results (TBH, no matter how clever the electronics you design, how many lay-persons really appreciate it if it's not for home entertainment?) and it's good for the soul, helps you think, clears the head, makes you nice and calm, and if the weathers bad, it really makes you appreciate the nice cosy indoors. You get to nurture living things, shape them according to your hearts desire, you get that nice lovely earthy smell on your fingers, watch the spiders, play with beetles, enjoy the birds, have nice sunshine, feel satisfyingly knackered if you put in a hard day at it. OK so those are the major benefits. The more boring ones are: If you do lots of it, it can help keep you fit, also, you can grow things you can eat. Oh and you get to dig. Digging's great

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

That reminds me how much i miss the big garden we used to have when i was much younger. We had rows of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, you name it we had it. Lots of work though, every night out there pulling weeds, watering. The home grown tomatoes cant be beat though.

 

[tvtech]

Take up gardening. Always useful, always productive, always something to do, always something to learn, it doesn't care if you don't do it (well, you just have more to do when you DO get round to it), other people genuinely appreciate the results (TBH, no matter how clever the electronics you design, how many lay-persons really appreciate it if it's not for home entertainment?) and it's good for the soul, helps you think, clears the head, makes you nice and calm, and if the weathers bad, it really makes you appreciate the nice cosy indoors. You get to nurture living things, shape them according to your hearts desire, you get that nice lovely earthy smell on your fingers, watch the spiders, play with beetles, enjoy the birds, have nice sunshine, feel satisfyingly knackered if you put in a hard day at it. OK so those are the major benefits. The more boring ones are: If you do lots of it, it can help keep you fit, also, you can grow things you can eat. Oh and you get to dig. Digging's great

Just hit me...I am bored when not working. No garden here...just a cement slab around my place.
No grass to water/cut. No flowers to attend to. No place to grow anything. Just frigging cement everywhere.

I think you have a point throb.

I need a place where I can feel alive again and experience a bit of nature. Thank You for your post

Regards,
tvtech

 

[Mickster]

I'm currently in the midst of what throbscottle has suggested.
The following items have been planted, some have been lost to the wind, some are thriving and others are seemingly slow to start:
Onions - red and yellow.
Cauliflower.
Broccoli.
Lettuce.
Carrots.
Red, yellow & green bell peppers.
Jalapeno, cayenne & habanero hot peppers
Peas.
Cucumbers.
Corn.
Cherry tomatoes & Big Boy hybrid tomatoes, which suggest 1lb fruit size as being normal.
Various herbs.

It's been quite a lot of work turning the ground over, starting seedlings, transplanting them and watching them grow, supporting them and trying to protect them as much as possible, disappointing finding some of them twisted and broken due to strong winds in the night or when at work, weeding and re-planting what has been lost, regular watering etc.

The reward will come when the food goes on the plate though, it should be well worth the effort to eat something which hasn't had loads of chemicals dumped on it.

EDIT:
I'm currently rearing 3 chickens too, which should start laying in the next 4 to 5 weeks.