Found a Fresh Roast plus 8 for $5 bucks at a thrift store and roasted my first batch
Before reading this please excuse my excitement and lack of knowledge. I am as green as the coffee I'm roasting at this.
Stumbled onto what seemed like a really good deal for dipping my toes in at an entry level. Whoever used it last kept it in good condition so with some light cleaning it was ready to go again. Came with a full write up from Sweet Maria's from 2006 on how to get decent results from that specific roaster. I do not think the thrift store employees even went through the box since there was shipping manifests with personal info on it (which is how I know what year they bought it).
I picked up a pound of Uganda Bugisu from happy mug since the tasting notes sounded great for the price, ran it for six minutes, and got probably the best cup of coffee I've brewed yet despite how limited the parameters are on the machine. Got first crack somewhere around 20-30 seconds before it finished which was within where happy mug recommended roasting these beans. Been a really enjoyable first experience with the hobby.
I know it's a really limited machine and probably extremely unevenly roasting the beans, but man that was so much fun and the results were far beyond my expectations. I'm excited to mess with more varieties and experiment.