I've often bought parts from aliexpress because they're available for <$2 with shipping, and can be somewhat vetted easily with an example arduino sketch that c

I've often bought parts from aliexpress because they're available for <$2 with shipping, and can be somewhat vetted easily with an example arduino sketch that comes with the library. (IMO, the goal in designing a board for your problem is getting someone to clone it and sell it for cheaper than you could hope to build it. Ideally, better too) Sparkfun and adafruit deserve commendation here, as their designs are open enough to even have low effort clones work reasonably well. (I'd buy a legit version if I was doing something professional, but prototyping for the sake of research is a different story) I'm a special case though, since deliveries from the local AVNET subsidiary to my employer are often comped due to volume/location.