So I received my dumpster dive box today. In total it had 13 different items. The biggest disappointment was that it had a DC DC converter that weighed nearly half a pound.

If the dumpster dives were only $10 or $20 like they used to be it wouldn’t be a bad deal. I probably won’t do it again at this price point of $40.

So my box contained three items: a T-shirt, an XLR microphone cable, and two Spectacle boards (one Motion, one Light). Since I don't do anything with audio, I'll end up donating the cable to my church. And I will say that all of these pieces were in pristine condition (visually) - I'm surprised they were headed for the recycle bin!

While the Spectacle boards are interesting when I get a project needing either of them, I'll have to purchase a Spectacle Director Board to make either work. They are usually $25, but now (Jan 2021) they are $9 - that discount makes me suspect they are being discontinued, so if I don't find a project soon the other two Spectacle boards will be worthless (I assume).

Still, I knew it was a grab-bag and it was fun to receive a surprise gift. In a perfect world, it would be nice if the boxes could be matched up with past purchases so I'd receive compatible pieces, but that would take a lot of extra manpower to make happen.

But better than any other vendor I've worked with - usually the landfill gets more usable but "blemished" items or you have to "know someone on the inside" to get the pieces.

Most of my 1lb box was a hugh XLR cable. Reading other comments I would have been happy with a t-shirt.

Opening the box IS like Christmas morning and was very exciting. Sadly, this year, I got socks. Or rather little that is usable. Strips of surface mount components with no visible markings. Tiny little circuit boards of unknown purpose. A battery that I think is for wearable electronics. I will find use for the baggie of capacitors and the t-shirt was nice. I'm not complaining because I got some fun stuff in years past and I will gamble again next time.

I received some working boards that I have never used before. They are out of productions, but I think I can find a use for them. I also got a set of metric Allen(Hex) wrenches. The wrenches are probably $10 - $15 any where you get them. The boards were all between $10 -$20 each and I recieved 4 of them plus a connecting cable. Overall a really good deal.

I got a Arduino development breadboard with built in Arduino and power. Great idea. Also some LED drivers. And other stuff. Overall a fun idea. I love the Sparkfun is such a playful company. I sometimes wish I worked there. Keep it up!

Also, just want to say for those who are expecting to get exactly what you want in the Dumpster Dive, I think you are missing the point. This is supposed to be a surprise and not a guarantee of perfection. Please be more flexible and tolerant. It will make the world a better place.

And it works! Maybe the rest of it was kinda meh but that more than made up for it!

This was my second time getting in to the Dumpster, the last go around was a little disappointing, but still gave me some fun stuff to play with (the STEMterra is in use everyday). This go around I picked up a lot of development boards, hardware, switches, jumper wires, and a few bluetooth boards to explore. Also got a FreeSoC2 dev board in perfect shape. Just about everything this go around was in new condition, still sealed in bags, value vs what I paid was fantastic this time. Can't wait for the next go around.

I didn't know what to expect from what is ostensibly a box of trash, but boy was I floored when I opened this box and discovered the goodies inside. Lots of microcontrollers and accessories were in there, in various states of disrepair. Some of the boards work like new, several have most of their functionality, and there's even some goodies that I would never have considered using on my own but present exciting project opportunities for me and my family.

And the "broken" boards have already increased my electronics-fu as I've worked through diagnosing and repairs. Probably some of the best money I've spent at Sparkfun.

Winner of the Fear Of Missing Out Award!

I got an email asking me "how the dumpster dive 1 lb was working out". It's right over there in the corner with a lot of other flotsam.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but ultimately I paid to take care of some of SparkFun's electronic recycling. I do appreciate the usb cords, never seem to have enough of them.

Some fun and interesting parts- It was fun to see what came, but I was rather dismayed at finding a piece of kit with a LiPoly battery that was damaged and on the verge of bursting. No indication on the box that LiPos were inside. It was a week or so later that I opened the device to find the "balloon" of a battery.

I'll not order dumpster dive again...

Alot of my stuff was micro:bit based, I have just started getting into this nifty system, so thanks for the add ons

Thanks for all the great surprises! Walabot Developer, MakeyMakey, big LEDs, Edge2 Looking forward to sharing these with students at the University of Colorado, Boulder, when we have face-to-face classes again... :-(

Meanwhile, the Walabot Developer is providing an opportunity to think of creative applications of this: "Walabot is a programmable 3D sensor that looks into objects using radio frequency technology that breaks through known barriers, bringing highly sophisticated sensing capabilities to your finger tips. Walabot uses an antenna array to illuminate the area in front of it, and sense the returning signals. "

Was hoping for something useful but got a shirt and miscellaneous cables.

It was worth the cost of the box just to see what was in it. Add to that the fun of thinking about the projects I could make with what I found. I will definitely try to get another one next year!

Disappointing. Better than a pound of rocks I guess.

... and it's only a medium! Would rather have more electronic stuff to mess with than a ill-fitting t-shirt.

I understand the idea behind the dumpster dive. But literally, I got a heavy three pronged power cord, a remote with batteries in it for something I have no idea what it is and that's it. Those two items made up my 1 lb. Yeah, I might try again next year, but I got severely screwed. Thanks for nothing.

Was sent a Standard Allen set, a couple blank PCBs and three 8" end pieces of SMD reels. I was hoping for something at least partially useful and at least worth $20 retail.. - not really worth it.

This was like diving into a dumpster behind a supermarket filled with nothing but spoiled meats and rotten vegetables. I have literally climbed into dumpsters my entire life to retrieve useful wood scraps or any kind of thing that I could repurpose to build fun and useful projects. I have been an electronics technician & hobbyist for more than half a century and built parts aboard the Curiosity rover on Mars.

Other than a few miscellaneous parts that will find their way into my junkboxes that MAY eventually find a use, most everything seems absolutely useless. I fully expected the majority of things to be relatively unexciting, but figured that there would be one or two really good finds. The circuit boards that were in there inspired some curiosity that they might be fun to play with until I went to the Sparkfun website only to find they are discontinued with absolutely zero useful information. Had I found ONE THING that I could have experimented with like a sensor board (WITH DOCUMENTATION AVAILABLE) I would have been satisfied. Had you charged me only for the shipping, I'd have no complaints, as the stuff really is dumpster food. In this case the value of everything in that box was worth about 50 cents. The small women's t-shirt will be a good rag to wash my car with since I don't know anybody that wants it.

Was the total value of the stuff inside the box worth more than what I paid? Yes. Is any of the stuff useful to me? No. So, for me, it was not worth the money.

I received a lot of electronc parts, raspberry pi pico, sensors. Thanks Sparkfun.

This was my third or fourth one over a few years. They always make sure you get way more in value than you paid for the box. Of course the contents are random but it’s fun to brainstorm on what you will build from it. If you enjoy taking apart discarded inkjet printers to see what parts you can scavenge, you’ll enjoy these boxes.

Nice selection of mostly recently retired products

The perfect personal present! Items I never considered getting but now am working out how to use (the clothing heating pad and switch are very exciting)!

The first few Dumpster Dive boxes I purchased were real treasures, with about 60% useful stuff, and some real odd pieces, which were entertaining to look at and figure out their purpose. The last two DD boxes I purchased have been real disappointments. A lot of odd stuff that serves little or no purpose for me. Maybe 1 item out of each one I could possibly find a use for, if I really tried. A lot of it looked like vendor samples that were laying around on someone's desk, and they decided to get rid of it. Most of it will go into my "No-use-for-this" box of parts, which seems to get larger each year. Anyway, this is probably the last time I will spend good money on mostly useless stuff. Rick

I wanted one of these for years but they always sold out while I was still at work. Finally in 2023 I got one on a Saturday. I got more in Jan 2024 for me and daughter and brother as soon as I saw they were available. They are still available, the temptation is high, but so is the shipping. There are items that repeat across boxes which defeats uniqueness. The kids have micro:bits so we have extra wins there. I am quite satisfied with getting stuff I wouldn't otherwise get for myself. The Christmas morning factor is very real.

BOX 1 - 2023 - (about $300 retail)

PIMORONI Pirate Audio 3W amp, 5m strip of 12V non-addressable RGB led, FLIRC pi zero case, TFMini Lidar range sensor, gator:bit, gator:starter, gator:particle, SEN-17373 PIR, SEN-17375 PIR, SEN-21999 PIR, SEN-22000 PIR, DEV-10275 FTDI, BOB-14003 1/4TRS line driver, 2x KIT-16464 RFID tag ICs, TRRS right angle M2M 1m, RFID eval shield, Arduino joystick shield unpopulated, photon protoshield, 2x bag of leds, 4x 20 piece 1M resistors, 12 MHz crystal, Random 2 pole connector, some little wireless antenna, Bluetooth 2.0 dongle (lol), Camera servo mount

BOX 2 - 2024 - Mine

RoundyFi (ESP-12E), Argon one m.2 case for Pi4 (except I don't have a pi4), spectacle director, wire cutters, gator:bit, gator:starter, SEN-17374 qwiic PIR sensor, SEN-21999 PIR sensor, 4x 8*15 holes protoshields, BBM Pi adapter, Bluetooth 2.0 dongle, alligator to spade wires

BOX 3 - 2024 - daughters box

8bitdoSN30 pro controller, DEV-18721 RP2040 mikroBUS board, spectacle director, FLIRC pi zero case, Beagle bone case, Loomia flex? sensor, gator:bit, gator:starter, DEV-10275 FTDI, DEV_13626 photon battery shield, SEN-22000 PIR, pack of leds, 2x ozone sensors, 8*15 holes protoshield, alligator to spade wires

I used to think these were fun but the last one was basically some plastic cases for products that are discontinued .., a few neat things that might have 15$ in value and a bunch of stuff I consider e-waste. I get it’s probably easier to dump these on customers than pay for the e-waste yourself but it was a bit much this time around.

Would have like to ordered a second one.

Not a great deal, but a good deal. I was hoping for more Non-working finished products. I like trying to fix them. But I did get 5 items i was really happy with (my favorite, a geared motor). A strip of resistors (2X), not so much. SO will i do it again, yes, it's a fun (not financially smart) prize in the mail.

Love the items in the Dumpster Dive Box. Now I just have to figure where the products fit into my plans or maybe they will create new plans.

Several very useful project pieces- total well over the cost. All in good condition and giving me some inspiration!

My recent purchase of a Dumpster Dive box from SparkFun turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable experience. While the concept of buying a box of random electronics might seem unconventional, it delivered this time in terms of both intrigue and value. The assortment I received was eclectic and provided some new boards that will make for some fun new projects. The Dumpster Dive is a gamble worth taking. The potential for discovering hidden gems make this a fun and enjoyable experience for anyone.

In my red box I got a fancy display board that was worth the price all by itself. I also got a few other things that I liked. And of course several items that you can just file into the junk box for "some day". The ordering, waiting, and opening is all kind of fun too.

Absolutely worth the price of admission!

Fooled me once....

I probably should deduct one point for the worry I experienced waiting for the Dumpster Dive box to arrive. I had said to myself, "If I just get a decent MCU development kit, I'll be happy." I am happy.

My box included:

1x Renesas EK-RA6M3 development board, with an ARM M4 processor, 3x USB ports, 1x Ethernet, 2x Grove I2C ports, full set of Arduino Uno compatible headers, mikroBUS connector, 2x PMOD connectors (includes SPI and GPIO pins), and headers exposing all of the MCU's pins. The kit is not the one which includes a TFT display. The board is beyond my expertise, but I hope that will change. [Board appears functional.]

2x Bluetooth modem breakout boards

2x Triple Axis Accelerometer breakout boards

2x 1/8" jack stereo M-M cables

1x breadboard (MB102)

35x RGB Diffused LED (10mm) [I think]

1x ELastoLite INV133 (which includes a rechargeable battery)

Overall, I am very happy.

Second dumpster dive. You will receive a box of items that, when items were available, add up to a lot more than the $30 paid. There was a reason why the product was discontinued. Nobody wanted the product. So you probably won't get much value out of the items. My box had, a vacuum pump, FreeSoC2, MultiStar, micro servo, and misc cables.

I could not find anything useful in the Dumpster Dive box. There is no spec for the 3.5" LCD and the wires came with the box is pretty much useless to me. I also find that the two circuit boards that I still could not find spec for it. They are presently useless to me. The is one item looked like a capacitor, and I don't think that I can find any use of it. Overall, I think that I probably wasted my money.

Naturally you get a small pile of LEDs and a few cables (qwic/stemma/i2c, I can use these) but the rest of the stuff was kind of weird. A bluetooth modem? Sure, I guess I can throw it away for them. Shipping was also ~1/5th of the cost.

Going through the contents of the Dumpster Dive box was like opening a Christmas present back when I was a kid back in the mid 1960s.

There were a few "retired" items, some stuff that was apparently "over-stock" (some were parts that aren't available separately in the store but are components used in things that are in the store), some things that are clearly "engineering samples" that SparkFun obtained either as potential components for their products or that SF considered selling themselves, but either chose a different supplier or decided not to carry -- one item in this class was still in the DigiKey packaging! I really lucked out on one item, as I suspect that there would be only a couple of buyers of the Dumpster Dive boxes who would find that item useful!

Financially, I guesstimate the contents to be worth several times the price of the box. I'm delighted with the contents, even though I haven't had time to test everything in the box, I expect many items to be useful over the coming months.

I probably should mention that I've done Dumpster Dive boxes before, and at least once got one that I only found one or two items useful to me, so was a bit hesitant about it. However, the 2022 box more than made up for the earlier disappointments!

This was my first Dumpster Dive, and while everything was as advertised, my box-of-mystique contained basically two fairly similar and fairly-complete beginner-level kits; although these are undoubtedly preferable to disjointed components and things with missing parts, it also meant that pawing through the haul was rather short on surprises. I'm probably just being ungrateful (and weird), but I would happily trade one of the kits for a scoopful of tiny parts and dust bunnies from the warehouse floor.

I do have one concrete complaint: the nice round $30 price tag doesn't mention the nearly $15 added for shipping. Ouch.

Many of the boards are wearables for which there is no support or the main boards are not available in market.

As well all know, the content of your Dumpster Dive is random and there is no guarantee that it won't be anything but garbage - caveat emptor! However, the box I scored would have been worth it even without the big-ticket item: Laying innocently in the bottom of the box containing magnetic PCB holder, antenna, rubber wheels was an anti-static bag labeled "PureThermal Mini Pro JST-SR (with FLIR Lepton 3.5)". I expected to find a used napkin in the anti-static bag but lo! It contained exactly what the label said. And it worked! No doubt the luckiest Dumpster Dive this year. In addition, there was a motor driver board, RED-V Thing Plus (powers on but no USB programming), LoRa transceiver module, two 16x2 LCD (new) along with other assorted "junk". Thank you all!

@sparkfun - In case you missed it, I left a Thank You video on Twitter! https://twitter.com/insurgent/status/1578971985698521088

80% of what I received in this box was cases for different things. Nothing I could really even use. There were 2 good items in the box. My hope is the next box I receive does not contain any cases.

I did this a couple of years ago and got some pretty cool stuff. This year truly was a "dumpster" dive, absolute useless junk, minus a single old raspi screen. I know it's a dice roll but this will be my last time rolling.

Mine had a variety of components in it - some of them completely new and still in the original manufacturer's packaging. There's a tape of red/green indicator LEDs, a dual output meanwell power supply, some wearable electronics components, a couple of USB cables, as well as other components. There are some duds as well - a short tape of a tiny SMT connector without the mating half, a couple of unpopulated circuit boards, and an elastolite inverter without the panel. Overall, I'm quite pleased with my purchase. I've been trying to get in on the dumpster dive for years, but it's usually wiped out within an hour or so. Would happily do it again.

This is my first dumpster dive purchase, and it was fantastic.

Everything I tested so far has been working fine. Not only did I get some nice sensors, and microcontrollers (stuff like the Artemis dev kit, PIR sensors, GPS module), but also some enclosure stuff, RPi things, and something that gave me an idea for my next project: an Arducam pan/tilt platform. I've had a Pi4 sitting around for a while now collecting dust, but now I'm putting it into action with a new idea that seems to keep growing exponentially.

With the pan/tilt platform, I want to get my Pi working with python openCV and object tracking. Then the Pi will control the Pan/Tilt platform to follow the object. I will combine this with an array of ~$5 ESP32-Cams to create a low cost, decently robust home-security system, where the Pi will act as the network host to the ESP32's, and will also connect to the home network through an added USB wifi dongle. From there, I will use python flask to create the browser interface. The Pi will be placed near the front door, ESP32-Cams at the chicken-coop, bee hives, etc.

Now inspired, I thought, let's really put some time and effort into this project and give the general public the ability to build their own <$100 security system that requires no subscription, and ensure their data privacy.

So now I plan to create a github repo, and really put some effort into the code by adding support for: sensors, different system configurations, perhaps 'home-assistant' integration, the ability for the Pi to flash the ESP32s (wired at first, then OTA), etc.

Might as well add a BOM(Parts list), wiring diagrams, enclosure .stl's for 3d printing, and even a custom Pi OS image. We could also branch into different use-cases for object tracking Pis (like one that just looks at the sky and tracks moving stuff... especially UFOs).

Sorry for the long tangent. I guess what I'm trying to say is, this new project(s) that I am super excited about -- I likely wouldn't have gotten the idea if I didn't purchase the dumpster dive box, because I wouldn't have had to think hard about applications for a Pi cam pan/tilt platform.

To me, the box doesn't only contain cool electronics and hardware -- it potentially contains new ideas for new projects to have fun with. It's a mixed bag, but could be a catalyst for your next big project idea.

No fault of Sparkfun. I got what I paid for. Just not sure it was all I expected. I never win at the lottery either.

I got a bunch of stuff that I will use in the future. Even though I have nothing that is compatible but it is going to be fun getting acquainted with these pieces, I definitely got my money worth with everything that was in here!!! Cannot wait until next years

A decent assortment of stuff, with original retail value totalling well over $40. It was as advertised - no guarantees on what you get, compatibility, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of the contents are not useful for me, and some required additional purchases/adapters in order to be useful. That being said, I was warned up front that that was likely. Would be good for a batch of people to each buy one, and then do a swap meet to trade for useful parts.

Would I buy again? Maybe?

nothing i need or will use but no regrets thanks

Being pretty new to building like this... I have no idea what most of the things are that I got. Or what to do with them. or how to do it. I thought the dumpster dive is a great concept - I just don't know what to do now. :)