Surplus stores

[Rodgre]

We may have a lot of cool things in the New England area, but surplus Electronics stores ain't one of them, apparently.

Here in Worcester, we have Stark Electronics, but it's pretty slim over there lately.

I used to love going to Toronto and going to (I think it was called ) Active Surplus on Queen Street.

Does anyone know of any cool surplus stores in the New England/Boston area? You Do It is a decent, if overpriced electronics store, but I'm looking for the dingy place that has all sorts of cheap surplus stuff.

Roger

[Mark Hammer]

Active Surplus is still there in the same spot with the same greasy floorboards and unsold Coleco Adam and Atari 2600 software and is still fun, but not nearly as much fun as it was 15-20 years ago, and certainly a far cry from how much of a bargain you could score there in 1976.  These days it seems like it is frequented by set-builders from movie sets looking for knobs and things to complement science fiction movie props, or by U of T robotics people.  It is rare I find a semiconductor that I want there (though Steve Daniels and I managed to clean them out of MN3007's about 4 years ago), and I haven't seen a roll of #42 wire since before most of the people here were born.  The prices on pots and caps and wacko switches seem to have steadily drifted upwards from the days are gone when you could bring a breadpan (the "shopping cart" of choice) full of stuff to the counter, dump it out, and have the guy pronounce "Five bucks" after eyeing it over for a minute or two.  Moreover, much like taverns, it is has ceased to be a haven for males.  You used to see girlfriends and wives waiting impatiently outside on a Saturday morning, while guys puttered inside and pawed over merchandise, mumbling stuff to each other in the process.  Nothing against the fairer sex (I'm a big fan of the female form and personality), but women have hairdressing salons and other "gurl"-only venues, and desegregating a decent hardware store seems, well, a tragic loss of gender-specific space.....but that's another story, and maybe one which only pertains to select generations.

I still go there whenever I'm in town, just for old time's sake, but I walk out of there with less and less.....although that may be as much a reflection of my hurry and paranoia over the increasingly predatory practices of Toronto parking police as it is a reflection of their stock and prices.

If you look through old issues of Popular Electronics, it seems like there were a lot of surplus houses in the greater Boston area.  Wonder what happened to them.

[marc]

in montreal there's addison electronique. very cheap, i have found everything there except for stompswitches .  they have a pdf catalogue on the web, i'd check before going there for ic's.
btw- very diverse clientelle, m and f working behind the counter...(Mark, it's 2003!)

[sirreg]

Does anyone know if any surplus stores in the Philly region?

Reg :idea:

[Mark Hammer]

Aw, I was just kidding.  :twisted:  I'm glad things opened up.  Even my kids don't mind coming inside with me.  Still, for people of a certain age, there is a nostalgia for places where only people of your own sex hang out, where they can indulge in the things they find interesting without getting a glare from the opposite sex.  Ever since barbers went unisex and brasseries became "bistros", seems the only places like that anymore have smooth-chested go-go dancers in them and, uh, that's not one of the things I'm interested in. :roll:

We have an Addison-affiliated outlet in town, and for me it has been a great source of NOS germanium transistors, speakers, 1590BB boxes and even wah inductors.  Whereabouts in the Montreal outlet?  Mike Irwin and I are supposed to make a daytrip into Montreal soon to get together with Gilles Caron, and a trip there would definitely be on the list, along with a visit to the Silonex HQ.

[smallbearelec]

If you look through old issues of Popular Electronics, it seems like there were a lot of surplus houses in the greater Boston area.  Wonder what happened to them.

The same thing that happened to the ones that used to dot Manhattan: Done in by rising rents and/or sales of family-owned buildings, new construction (to accommodate hordes of twenty-something twerp-faced yuppies such as I at one time), smaller population of DIYers because of the explosion of cheep electronix, or combinations of these factors. Call it a disease of large, cosmopolitan cities. I'm glad that Toronto's surplus outlets haven't succumbed yet, but don't be too shocked if they eventually go away.

[ErikMiller]

This thread is too good to keep to one region!

Here on the East side of San Francisco Bay, we have Mike Quinn Electronics, just South of Oakland International Airport.

They're very much into the practice of sizing up your baggie of miscellaneous parts (which would total $10-15 at Radio Slack) and pronouncing it worth "$1." Or whatever. It's always much lower than you'd pay anywhere else.

Also they have that pre-tinned #24 hook-up wire that I love.

Downside is that I usually can't find every part I need for a project, so the first visit is to Quinn's, then Radio Schlock, then if anything remains, Lasher's or Fry's.

[The Tone God]

Ah yes good old Active. It is still there although the floors sqeak more then stick now. I understand that whole "male enviroment" idea. The place has a gorilla in front of it, how much more of a "Males Only" sign do you need ? I knew the place was going when in the area where the women used wait appeared shiny telephones and hair irons. Ugh. I've seen a few bands getting interviewed there (Radiohead, Travis, etc.) too.

Their prices have been creeping up. That was one of the things that made them worth going to. Why would I pay more then full price for old stuff when I can get new parts cheaper just furthur up the street ? The selection of neat stuff is gone too. The last great deal I got there was a bunch of Eddystone boxes equivilant to 1590BBs and 1590Ds for $5 CDN. I bought out the whole stock.

Atleast now I know what names to yell when I'm cursing about the BBDs being gone.

Andrew

[Mark Hammer]

So YOU'RE the s.o.b. that bought up the rest of those 1590BBs?  Why I oughta.....

They have some nice little computer speaker boards these days with a TDA7360 on board.  You can bridge those things easily for 22W.  Nice little board for $5 or thereabouts.  They're in the aisle where the switches are, but facing the switches, and closer to the store-counter end of the aisle than the transformer end of it.

[Rodgre]

all of you Toronto-ites are making me crave for BUTTER TARTS!!!!!

I picked up a bunch of Eddystone boxes from Active back in 97 or 98. I remember walking down Queen street with bags full of them (heavy bastards!) making metal clanging noises everywhere I went.

I want to go to Toronto now!  I love that city.

Roger

[jrc4558]

So many people go to Active surplus it's no fun there's nothing left there.
However I found over a 100 AC128 trannies there.
They seem to be the only ones in TO carrying a very decent stock on 2SB... germanium line. And of course the #42 copper wire. I almost fainted when I saw it. A 4 pound spool for $7.
Are all of you guys from Toronto?

[mike darling]

Does anyone know if any surplus stores in the Philly region?

Reg :idea:

I don't know of any good ones. I'd like to know if there are any hiding out there as well.

Edmund Scientific is still around though they go by the name Anchor Optical Surplus. They're in Barrington, NJ which isn't far if you've got a car in the city. Not really a true electronics surplus shop but you never know what you'll find there. I cleaned out their $0.25 potentiometer bin (got lots of sealed allen bradely pots and some 20 turn bourns) a while back. Lots of other neat stuff there and now that they've moved their retail 'catalog' sales to NY the whole shop is surplus stuff.

Ever since the Active store in Marlton, NJ closed I've been trying to find a good supplier in the area. It's nice to be able to pick up a gallon of etchant or some other esoteric component (even if it's just a line card item) locally.

[ExpAnonColin]

I don't have a surplus shop within an hour and a half of me... so it's all ebay and online surplus for me

-Colin

[Rick]

Yeah I've been to Active Surplus on Queen St several times on a 6mth work stint I had there. Lots of obscure stuff, always picked up a couple of things but I agree the component prices and selection aren't what you all remember them to be. There's another little shop I think just east of it on Queen near Beverley St. called Supremetronic Inc. They had a good selection of pots linear and analog as well as some Chinese DPDT stompswitches for cheap (for sure not robust switches but mine are still holding up under light use). Anyone visited this shop ?

[Mark Hammer]

Supremetronic is where I do the brunt of my component shopping these days; one or two "pilgrimages" a year.  Reasonably good selection of Japanese components, decent price on "X-wing" stompswitches and copper board, nice choice of hookup wire, caps, Alpha pots, resistors, and transformers, as well as intermittently decent availability of BBD chips, exotic op-amps, OTAs.  They also provide 10% discounts for students and larger orders.

If I want to live on the wild side and want the "What the hell IS that?" factor, I check my parking meter, and stroll over to Active, making sure not to step on the assorted fashionable beggar (of which Queen Street has many, often with facial jewellery that rivals my mortgage payments), and not to accidentally get interviewed by Ed the Sock on Muchmusic.  As much as I like Supremetronic, though, the parking in that area is enough of a nuisance (and the tickets plentiful enough!) that I really wish they were located out in the suburbs, or at least on College Street.

For those of a certain age in the Toronto area, I miss Arkon, Dominion Radio, and Gladstone Radio.

For those on the other side of the border, is it just me, or does Ohio have a similarly disproportionate share of the surplus store population?

[Deep Blue]

I live near Orlando, and we have a joint called Skycraft.  It's incredible.  They have everything.  A wall covered with capacitors, a wall covered with resistors, racks of transisors, project boxes, soldering stuff, *everything*.  Even a few IC chips, although they rarely have ones I need.  The place is huge, and damn near impossible to navigate.

They don't have very standardized project boxes, would be my main complaint.  A lot of the boxes are plastic, and most of them are huge and flimsy.  I did pick up one the other day, however.  It's black, says "reciever" on it, and has a little bunny image.  I think it housed a radio reciever or something of the like.  It's awesome - probably going to put a Scrambler in it.  Or maybe a Tycobrahe Octavia.  Not totally sure yet.

I could swear I saw another DIYer mention Skycraft around here at some point.

The problem is, they are about 45 minutes from my house, which is a huge pain.

[The Tone God]

Queen near Beverley St. called Supremetronic Inc... Anyone visited this shop ?

Yep. Thats the store I was alluding to when I said "I can get new parts cheaper just furthur up the street". Mark summed up the store pretty well. They also have some good 1/4 plugs. The store is nicely laid out as well so you can find parts easily even though it maybe a bit small. The salespeople are good too, friendly.

Parking has always been a pain in T.O. although you could park in the world's largest parking lot, the QEW and walk from there. If you don't mind walking there is a parking lot a few blocks from there that usually has space and you can pay for a few hours so you don't have to worry about checking the meter. It also is one of the last places the parking cops check.

Now if you guys lived or could make the trip out to Mississuaga you could go to what could be heaven for electronic geeks although its not as good as it was a few years ago.

To get alittle more on topic, just for a moment though , check out your local ham/amature radio clubs and publications. Hams are cheap and will know where to get parts locally.

Andrew

[jrc4558]

Hey Torontonians and suburbians! Shouldn't we meet sometime? Even at that same old Active surplus? See the faces, share the ideas?
What about that?

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I think that "bunny box" might be part of a short range TV transmitter (so you can watch the VCR in another room).
Not much surplus in Australia! Rockby in Melb, Oatley in Sydney.

[The Tone God]

Hey Torontonians and suburbians! Shouldn't we meet sometime? Even at that same old Active surplus? See the faces, share the ideas?
What about that?

I don't know how many Ontarioians are here and how many would be willing to make the trip.

Andrew