MightyOhm

Last May, my brother and I went on a week-long roadtrip across the US.  Ambling down the highway in a very large moving truck, we travelled from California to Texas by way of  Tuscon, Socorro, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and quite a few rest stops, gas stations, and fast food restaurants in between.

Intoxicated by the chile verde, we spent considerable time in New Mexico, a state that neither of us had visited before.  One of the highlights of our visit to the Land of Enchantment was a side trip to Los Alamos, birthplace of the atomic bomb and home of two major attractions for any electronics geek:

Los Alamos National Labs

Sadly, armed guards prevented us from taking a close look at the Los Alamos National Labs.  Actually, the museum is pretty decent, and includes scale models of Fat Man and Little Boy, some exhibits about radioactivity and nuclear weapons, and a short film about the history of the labs.

The Black Hole

The Los Alamos Sales Company, aka The Black Hole, is a surplus store started in 1951 by the late ‘Atomic’ Ed Grothus, a former LANL machinist turned peace activist.

I have never seen a more fascinating collection of electronic test equipment, laboratory glassware, chunks of machined aluminum, LN2 dewars, bell jars, dusty old databooks, and just plain weird stuff.   Good news: most of it is for sale, although there are very few price tags around and some items are probably in the “if you have to ask…” category.

A controversial Los Alamos institution, it has even been the subject of a documentary, although I haven’t managed to track down a copy (yet).

Here are some photos to give you a taste of what it’s like to wander around The Black Hole:

A geiger counter near the front door clicks away in response to some radioactive source nearby.

One of several aisles of surplus test equipment. You name it, it’s here.

Mmm…  Organic Plutonium!

Anadex CF-300R Timer with gorgeous nixie display.

Racks of vintage test equipment.  Scopes, counters, power supplies, etc.

Period datasheet for the Fairchild uA741 operational amplifier.

Pan Am hard hat.

Oscilloscope with permanently attached scope camera.  This is the same setup you see in the pictures of atomic bomb test shacks in books such as How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb, by Peter Kuran.

Honestly, the pictures capture only 1% of what you’ll find here – you have to actually visit to appreciate this place. Oh, and budget an hour or two minimum.  If you enjoy looking at dual trace oscilloscopes and dusty cold war relics as much as I do, you’ll need an afternoon to really do it justice.  If you want to see more, check out my Bradbury Science Museum and The Black Hole albums on Flickr.

By the way, The Black Hole is listed on the Surplus Electronics page of the MightyOhm Wiki.  Is there a surplus electronics store in your city?  Add it to the wiki!

I am pleased to announce that the MightyOhm Wiki is now online and open to the public.

While there isn’t a ton of content yet, my hope is that the wiki will become a useful means to share information and resources relevant to the site.  At the moment, there are pages for electronics vendors, hardware/software tools, and PCB manufacturers.

Another page I have been working on for a while is the surplus directory, which lists surplus electronics stores around the country.  If you have a favorite surplus goldmine in your area, please create an account and add it to the wiki!

MightyOhm Has a Wiki.  Check it out.

I just got an e-mail from HSC Electronic Supply announcing their 45th Anniversary Sale (aka Sidewalk Sale), which takes place this Saturday, Sept. 26th.  If you are in Silicon Valley this weekend, this is definitely worth checking out.  If you want to get an idea of what this event is like, check out my photos from last year’s “Warehouse Clearance Sale.”  (It seems like they change the name of this event every year now!)

45th Anniversary Celebration
Local Customer? Come on in and celebrate with us and save
10%-60% on everything in our stores. One day only!
Out of the Area? For our online customers, from September
23rd to 27th, HSC will offer *FREE shipping plus an additional 10%
off any order over $50.00. Just mention “Anniversary Special” in
the shopping cart order notes and we’ll take care of your discount.
The 6,000 items listed online are just a sample of our extensive store inventory.
Don’t see what you need? Please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-800-442-5833.

HSC is having some online specials too, although if you shop online you are missing out on 90% of the fun, such as sifting through crates of miscellaneous electronics parts!

Every project I work on usually involves at least one trip down to the South Bay to visit HSC, and I usually find at least a few interesting odds and ends at their annual clearance sales.  And while you’re in the area, I highly recommend a side trip to Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale as well.

Last month I spent a weekend in LA visiting Tony, who is building an awesome wood veneered enclosure for my Wifi Radio project.

While I was there we spent a day checking out various electronics surplus shops in the area, several of which Tony had never visited before.

Here are the highlights of our tour:

All Electronics (Van Nuys, CA)

Most people know (or should know) of All Electronics as a catalog store with a long history in electronics and a decent website.  It turns out (I was surprised by this) that you can visit their retail store at 14928 Oxnard Street in Van Nuys.

The store doubles as a makeshift electronics museum, with lots of vintage consumer and industrial equipment strewn around the room.

Stuff to look for: power supplies, handfuls of LEDs, reels of SMT components.

Apex Electronics (Sun Valley, CA)

This is what surplus electronics is all about!  Absolute goldmine of bizarre electronics surplus equipment perched on the edge of civilization in Sun Valley.  Wire, motors, meters, huge capacitors, electronic components, antennas, hardware, strange military stuff, hydraulics, pneumatics, you name it.

This is probably the best place to find weird surplus electronics junk in all of California, now that most of the Silicon Valley greats are gone or closed to walk-in customers.

We budgeted an hour here and could have spent all day.  I would budget at least 2-3 hours or you won’t get to explore the whole store.

Need some decomissioned rocket launchers?  You’ll find them here.

More photos of Apex on flickr.

Their website has some awesome Quicktime VR panoramas and extreme wide angle photos, like this one:

Aisle after aisle of surplus equipment @ Apex Electronics

Last year I posted about how surplus electronics junk is getting harder and harder to find in Silicon Valley.  Apex Electronics reminds me of RA Enterprises circa 1995 – mountains of electronics equipment waiting for someone to take home and turn into something new.

We didn’t get a chance to visit all of the places we wanted to thanks to LA’s signature traffic jams.  Next time I’m back I hope to find some new surplus goldmines and report back.

Suggestions?

Do you know of a place to find cool electronics junk in your area?

I know that the number of stores like Apex and All Electronics are dwindling as eBay and Digi-key take over.

Post in the comments and together we can try to keep these rare stores alive!

Last week I stopped by HSC Electronics in Santa Clara to pick up a few parts for my PID Controlled Soldering Hotplate project.

Earlier this year, there was an announcement that HSC was moving because their landlord would not renew the lease on the building they have occupied for the past 15-20 years.  At the last minute they were able to negotiate a lease for half of their original space, forcing them to vacate what was previously the warehouse/mail order side of the building.

So far, the evidence of these changes to their customers has been very limited.  Maybe there were a few extra items at the annual sidewalk sale and some extra bins of parts on the showroom floor, but overall things looked pretty much the same – until my most recent visit.

Now there is a new HSC Clearance Annex open to the public in what was formerly the employees-only warehouse space:

I found some neat things inside: IEC line filters, variable inductors, an assortment of crystal oscillators, bags of PCB mount right angle RCA jacks.  Most items are $1-2 and many come in bags of 10-100 for that price.

They also had huge boxes of assorted hardware and electrolytic capacitors – you can create your own grab bag for $1.  Usually these are only available during the sidewalk sales and are a surprisingly popular attraction:

If you’re in the area, HSC might be worth a visit.  HSC is located at 3500 Ryder Street, Santa Clara, California 95051.

I also recommend a side trip to Weird Stuff and Fry’s Electronics, both are within a few miles of HSC.  Stop at all three and you are pretty much guaranteed to satisfy your appetite for electronics.