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

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!