After visiting Los Angeles for the weekend, I spent the next couple days in San Diego. I had a chance to visit some old San Diego landmarks as well as one newcomer to the surplus electronics scene.

Surplus Depot, San Diego, CA

Surplus Depot used to be located around the corner from their present location, back when they were called Industrial Liquidators. The store has shrunk a bit but still has some good deals and interesting parts.

More pics!

SD Electronic Supply, San Diego, CA

SD Electronic Supply opened last year(?) and recently moved to a new location just down the street from where Gateway Electronics used to be. I think a lot of the inventory is from the old Gateway store. The owner is friendly and there are a LOT of components available.

More pics!

California Electronic and Industrial Supply, El Cajon, CA

California Electronic Supply has been around for years and is still selling components and surplus stuff. I usually stop by on the way to Murphy’s, below.

More pics!

Murphy’s Surplus Warehouse, El Cajon, CA

Murphy’s has also been an El Cajon landmark for many years. They specialize in surplus military radios but have piles of test equipment, motors, switches, and other stuff. I came here at least once a month when I lived in San Diego.

More pics!

Fun fact: Jerry Mouser of Mouser Electronics started Mouser while he was teaching high school physics in El Cajon! Apparently Murphy was one of his students.

As I mentioned in my last post, these and many more surplus electronics stores are listed on the Surplus Electronics wiki page. If you know of a surplus store in your area, please add it to the list and let’s help keep electronics surplus alive!

(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.

All of the surplus stores mentioned here are listed on the Surplus Electronics wiki page, which is continually being updated and expanded. (Do you know of a place to find surplus electronics in your area? Add it to the wiki!)

If you want to see more scenes from Surplus Summit 2012, there are lots more photos from my trip on flickr.

Here are a few highlights from our tour:

C&H Surplus, Duarte, CA

C&H is the best surplus electronics store I have visited since The Black Hole in Los Alamos. Test equipment, weird scientific stuff, motors, gears, components, the works. The owner, Rick, is a nice guy with a good sense of humor. This place is awesome and a well worth a visit.

(Note: C&H is only open Thursday-Saturday.)

More pics!

W6TRW Swap Meet, Redondo Beach, CA

This swap meet has been around forever is held on the last Saturday of every month, rain or shine, even if that Saturday falls on Christmas, etc. Get there early, the swap was hopping by 8AM.

This is an amateur radio swap meet but there is lots of computer stuff (too much!) and general electronics.

More pics!

All Electronics, Van Nuys, CA

Not that many people realize that All Electronics has an actual retail store in Van Nuys. It’s small but fun to visit. Not everything in the catalog is out on the shelves, but there are also some big things that probably won’t ever make it in the catalog.

More pics!

APEX Electronics, Sun Valley, CA

I visited Apex in 2009. Lots of stuff, much of it junk, but there a few interesting odds and ends. I hear that these guys supply the film industry with a lot of props.

More pics!

That’s it for LA. Stay tuned for Surplus Summit Part Two: San Diego next week!

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:

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

AVR microcontrollers! Forrest Mims books!

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

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

Aluminum by the pound!

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

Need a random computer-related printed circuit board?

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”.

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.

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!

I’ve been making some changes and additions to the MightyOhm Wiki over the past few days.

To complement the awesome list of surplus electronics shops, I started creating wiki pages for the various projects I have previously documented on the blog.

Last night I added a list of cheap PID controllers to the wiki page for my DIY PID-controlled Soldering Hotplate.  (Backstory: the PID controller on my hotplate quit working this week and I’ve been shopping for a replacement!)

I have also  been adding more information to the PCB resources page, including where to order cheap solder paste stencils and resources for making test fixtures.

More to come…

Mitch and I are in the process of compiling a list of places to buy electronics parts and tools for a book we are writing about getting started with AVR microcontrollers.

Where do you go to buy electronic parts, tools, and other supplies?  Do you have a walk-in store in your area, or do you shop online?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from readers outside of the United States.  If you live in South America, where do you buy soldering irons, solder, resistors, capacitors, and other odds and ends?  Do you buy locally or online?  What about Europe?  Asia?  Africa?

If you do have a favorite place to shop for electronics goodies, leave a comment here or consider adding it to the MightyOhm Wiki!

The past few weeks have seen a lot of activity on the MightyOhm Wiki!

Since it was mentioned on the Make: blog last week, helpful readers have been making significant contributions every day.

One highlight of the wiki is the Surplus Electronics Resources page, which I first posted about in February.  It has more than quadrupled in size since then and now includes surplus shops in the United Kingdom and Canada in addition to dozens in the United States.  If you haven’t seen this page yet, you should definitely check it out.

If you don’t see your favorite electronics surplus store on the list, please add it!  Several of these “junk shops” close every year due to rising rents and competition online.   Anything we can do to keep them in business will benefit the maker community.  One way to do this is by making sure that folks know that these resources exist, and this is where I hope the wiki will help.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has been contributing to the wiki.  In particular, thanks for making it one of the best directories of electronics surplus stores on the web!

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.

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.