Tag Archives: Surplus

HSC Santa Rosa closing on May 4th, Closeout Sale starts April 27

HSC Santa Rosa (actually Rohnert Park) is closing their doors on May 4th. They are having a closeout sale that begins next weekend (April 27th) and runs through the 1st week of May.

I visited this small but convenient Halted branch often while I worked in Santa Rosa, and I’m sad to hear this news. Fortunately, I’ll be in the area next week and will have one last chance to visit before the store closes. (Unfortunately, I’m traveling by air, so I won’t be able to bring too much surplus junk back home.)

HSC closed their Sacramento store in 2007. With Rohnert Park closing next month, the original Santa Clara location will be the only one remaining.

More details below.

Special Announcement

Attention HSC Customers:

After 27 years in the Santa Rosa area, HSC Electronic Supply of Rohnert Park is closing its doors for good on May 4, 2013. Halted Specialties Co. Inc. will continue to operate its main store, HSC Electronic Supply of Santa Clara.

Store Closing Sale!

Rohnert Park Location Only.

Storewide Liquidation!

20% to 80% Off Entire Stock.

Saturday, April 27th to Saturday, May 4th

Our shelves are spilling over in Santa Clara so we’d rather blow it out than truck it back to support on-going Santa Clara operations. Please stop by to check out this last opportunity for deals in Rohnert Park and stop by our Santa Clara store when visiting Silicon Valley. Don’t forget to visit us at www.halted.com as well.

Thank You,

HSC Management

via South County ACS

Surplus Summit 2012 Part One: Los Angeles

Testing 47GHz radios
(Photo: Tony KC6QHP testing out his 47GHz amateur radio. Remember this post? All that work paid off, the radio works!)

Last month I cashed in some airline miles and finally got to visit some old friends and spend some time in beautiful Southern California. Some long-time readers of the blog may remember the last time I did something like this in 2009.

While I was there I visited my good friend Tony in Los Angeles, and we went on a tour of surplus electronics and swap meets that we called Surplus Summit 2012.

Continue reading Surplus Summit 2012 Part One: Los Angeles

SurplusGizmos

SurplusGizmos

While I was visiting Portland last month, I made a quick stop at SurplusGizmos in Hillsboro.

SurplusGizmos is what an electronics store should be, and it’s the kind of place that I love to visit.  It’s also the kind of electronics store that is completely nonexistant in Austin (oh, my beloved HSC, how I miss you), but I digress…

You can usually tell a good surplus electronics store by the pile of junk outside the door (usually with a sign on it that says “Make Offer.”   I’m not kidding:

What is this stuff?

Inside SurplusGizmos, you’ll find aisles full of electronic components like resistors, capacitors, connectors, random semiconductors, fans, motors, and miscellaneous surplus stuff.  Paradise!

SurplusGizmos

AVR microcontrollers! Forrest Mims books!

SurplusGizmos

They have cabinets with drawers full of electrolytic capacitors!  Yes!  This is what a real electronics store is like!

SurplusGizmos

This way, resistors by the foot!!  This ain’t no Radio Shack!

SurplusGizmos

Aluminum by the pound!

SurplusGizmos

Interesting pieces of surplus equipment sold for pennies on the dollar!

SurplusGizmos

They have a huge selection of “solder samples”, printed circuit boards that are used to…

Actually, I’m sure what they are for.  I think they are used by the PCB manufacturer to test their process, but can someone comment about what solder samples are for, and why you always get one or two when you order a full panel of PCBs?

Anyway, there were LOTS of them.  Hundreds.  Looking at these panels reminded me of Dave Jones’ PCB Design for Manufacture video.  Lots of examples of v-scoring, tab-routing, fiducials, etc.

I picked up a few to use as coasters/wall art/whatever.

SurplusGizmos

Apparently SurplusGizmos has some deal with Oregon Scientific and gets customer returns of their weather monitoring equipment.   It seemed like if you spent the time to collect all the right parts, you could build a complete indoor/outdoor wireless weather station for a fraction of the new cost.

SurplusGizmos

I wish I could have spent more time there, but my time was limited and my luggage space was small.  Next time!

If you’re ever in the Portland area and want to see what a “real” electronics store is like – check this place out.

I took lots more photos, many of which are available on Flickr.

Oh, and SurplusGizmos is listed on the surplus electronics wiki.  If there’s a good electronics store in your area and it’s not on the wiki, add it!  Help keep these small, independently-owned electronics shops alive!

Ali’s Surplus Stuff

Over the holidays I had a chance to visit Ali’s Surplus Stuff in Sacramento, CA.

Ali's Surplus Stuff

This is my kind of place.  Surplus electronics piled from floor to ceiling.  Lots of oscilloscopes and useful stuff mixed in with bizarre industrial equipment.

Ali's Surplus Stuff

Lots of cool rack-mounted equipment here.  Lots of push-buttons too.

Ali's Surplus Stuff

Need a random computer-related printed circuit board?

Ali's Surplus Stuff

My recommendation for places like this is always to come to the counter with the biggest pile of stuff you can carry and haggle on a single price for everything.  You’ll end up paying a fair price for one or two big items and getting the rest thrown in “for free”.

Ali's Surplus Stuff

Here’s what I went home with: HP chart recorder, some IC sockets, webcam stand, random RF module, and some kind of monitor shutoff device from back when ‘green’ was just a color.  This is a remarkably small pile of stuff given what was available, but I knew I would have to pack all this into my checked luggage on the flight home.

Surplus finds

This was my first visit to Ali’s, and I came home really impressed.  I can’t think of a better place to find surplus electronics junk in the Sacramento area, especially now that HSC Electronics on Auburn Blvd. is gone.  I also feel that if you are looking for used industrial and test equipment, Ali’s has a better selection than Bay Area shops like Weird Stuff.  I will definitely be visiting Ali’s again the next time I’m Sacramento.

Ali’s Surplus Stuff is listed under Sacramento Area on the resources:surplus page of the MightyOhm Wiki.  Whew!