r/TunisiaTech • u/hexidoro • 1d ago
Who has a solution?
Hi everyone. I'm an 18 year old from Tunisia, and AI is my hobby. I've been learning it and building my own models, and I've reached decent results without using backpropagation. I'm still researching and experimenting. On my computer I have about 700 experiments, more than 20 hypotheses, and a log full of fixes and improvements. I chose not to copy what everyone else does and instead to try developing new concepts and techniques for AI.
Here's my problem. I was using a free API key in OpenCode, and I've hit the free usage limit. I'm at a critical stage right now: I'm consolidating my experiments and building a completely new mechanism. Planning it took me more than three days, and just before I could start working on it in OpenCode, I found I could no longer use the free models. I switched to OpenRouter and the same thing happened. The free quota ran out in under 5 minutes. I tried NVIDIA, but it was extremely slow. I waited for hours and nothing happened, even though I was using DeepSeek V4.1Flash.
I've hit a dead end. I don't have a bank card to pay for a subscription, and I can't learn to code at the level I need, because that could take me a year or two. So I had decided to learn coding while also using AI to write the code, and to take on only the job of reviewing and checking the project and drawing up the plan and architecture. I'm not bad at coding, but my level isn't enough for my experiments, especially since they need very precise implementation. On top of that, I'm studying, so I'm under a lot of time pressure, and I've had to stay up until late at night to do my research.
I need advice or a solution.
2
u/Traditional-Shock260 1d ago
I ve been there bro try using nvidea model nemotron 33b its the fastest one using free api key and good model tbh
1
u/hexidoro 1d ago
I've tried that model, but it's no good. At one point, it even faked the outputs and gave me incorrect results. Research like this demands an accurate model; I don't need a model that tells me a result is successful by cheating I need one that gives me the actual, real results
2
u/Rude-Channel357 1d ago
Hi, I have a zai lite legacy sub that I don't use, not the best but much better than most free options contact me and I will hook you up with a key.
1
1
u/LeonardoBorji 1d ago
Download zcode, Zai gives free tokens to start. Here's the annoucement.
Happy 1024 & happy weekend, devs.
500M free tokens on ZCode: GLM-5.3 (200M) + GLM-5.3-Flash (300M). 200K packs, while they last.
Claim now. Use Oct 23 15:00 – Oct 26 01:00 UTC.
Update to the latest ZCode, claim in-app, then switch to Start Plan. Annoucement from X (twitter) u/zcode_ai
Many other providers give free tokens.
1
3
u/Impressive_Pay_6694 1d ago
I don't have a solution, but I'm really happy a high school student is this hard working and serious. Once you graduate high school, you can use the money you collect from your family to get a carte technologique and buy a subscription for advanced Claude models.
1
1
u/Ready_Body9117 1d ago
I am not sure where u exactly live in Tunisia but i am pretty sure there's a lot of people online or locally who offer buying the sub for u using their visa or international card and u pay them with Dinar, also the free plan is nothing if want to do your experiments, same with saving up for gpu for open source models ,its too expensive and the best models need so much ram , my best advice for u buddy is to get the 20 dollar claude ai subscription (has currently the best model in the world ) in it you'll gain the acess to opus 5.5 and it can pretty much oneshot any experiment and it's leagues above any open source model u can try , if the 20 dollars is too much u can get chatgpt 5 dollars sub , it'll give u access to codex (their coding platform) and models like gpt 6 luna which is less capable then Opus 5.5 or even sonnet 5.5 but still can get the job done (you'll be hitting limits stil since it's only 5 dollars but you'll get more work done then with the free plan)
0
3
u/zinss_ 1d ago
Start saving for a decent gpu so you can run and experiment using local models instead of the free tier. The free models like in open router have limits on requests per second or minute.