Great Surplus Stores?

An old friend of mine, Todd San Martin, passed on a link to me of a great surplus place in Orlando that has lots of old nasa gear and more, and it made me think that it's probably time to talk about great surplus shops again. Not just the aforementioned skycraft or the well known Weird Stuff , although feel free to dicuss those too, but I thought it would make a cool post as a jumping off point for people to talk about their favorite shops especially those near aerospace facilities, both online and off.

Active Surplus in Toronto!

[checkyoulater]

This place has everything an electronics nut could want. And more.

Not sure if they have an online presence. It wouldn't matter. Most of the fun is going there and scouring through the thousands of bins full of assorted electronic components. Whenever I've needed parts for any electronic project I have never failed to find the parts at Active Surplus.

In Austin TX

[PD]

Goodwill Computerworks has great stuff. No website though.

AxMan

[Golias]

In the Twin Cities, there are several AxMan stores that are just awesome. I had a Traynor bass guitar amplifier that had these massive vacuum tubes in it that needed replacing. Nobody else in town could help me, but rather than resort to mail-order, I went to AxMan, who had a wide selection of russian-made tubes, including the exact type I needed.

They are the first place I look for mechanical or electronic parts, speaker wire, or just to browse through bizarre military surplus.

If they don't know what something is, they'll just make something up and sell it off cheap. A very fun surplus store. I strongly reccomend it if you are in the area.

Mendelson's Electronic Surplus, Dayton OH

[thenerdgod]

http://www.meci.com/

You want a generator? They got that. You want a Xerox Star? They've had 'em. You want an AT&T unix workstation from god knows when? They got 'em. Need 10Kv capacitors? Sure! Need a freezer? No, no, I mean a WALK IN FREEZER! They GOT THAT? Mannequin parts? THAT TOO!

halted specialties

[mauztek]

for those in Silicon Valley, halted specialties co (HSC) http://www.halted.com is a great place. It beats buying fans online where shipping is outrageous, and you can buy resistors individually.

Surplus is excellent

[buffer-overflowed]

Disclaimer: I did not RTFA.

Around where I live the state holds an auction every week. You can get some great hardware if you're a geek there. Older AIX mainframes, SPARC-III's, etc.

I bought 12 Pentium-2's there for $50 total (no monitors). Also bought a bunch of Cisco 2501s on the cheap there as well (I think they went for 1/pop, no one else bid on them).

Basic procedure was:
Show up, see equipment, submit a sealed bid, get contacted within a day, go pay, go pick up your hardware.

If you live in a state capitol here in the US of A, check to see if they have auctions. If they do, go there, greatest thing next to sliced bread.

Science junk and more...

[singularity]

If you are near Chicago or Milwalkee, check out American Science & Surplus [sciplus.com] for all of your unneeded science surplus stuff.

I have been to the Chicago store and wandered around for a good couple of hours. I need to get to the smaller store near Fermilab (although I have heard it is not as big)

Vetco in Bellevue, WA

[John Miles]

... is about the only electronics surplus outfit in the Seattle area, as far as I'm aware.

In fact, Vetco [vetcoelectronics.com] is about the only decent electronic-component reseller of any kind around here, now that Future-Active Electronics [activestores.com] has wisely decided that only Canadians are interested in buying electronic parts.

The last time I was in Vetco, they were planning to expand their overall component inventory greatly to pick up some of the slack from the former Active Electronics store just up the road. Go buy some stuff from them now so they don't vanish too!

In Seattle, Washington

[SexyTr0llGal]

Go to Computer Surplus Science (not positive about the last word), located in the industrial district.

They have literally thousands of computers of all types..from old Commodores to 1.5 GHz machines, all at 40% or less of retail price. I got the Dell Inspiron 8100 that I am using right now for a mere $800, and this was when 8100s were top of the line. Believe me, they're niiiice.

Boeing Surplus

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing surplus in Kent, Washington.

You can get anything from an outdated computer to slightly used machine tools to airline seats to chunks of titanium.

http://www.boeing.com/assocproducts/surplus/reta il /

Halted

[rabidcow]

I think HSC Electronic Supply [halted.com] is fairly well known around here, they mostly sell electronic components, but they have a lot of other stuff too.

I always check there first when I need a new computer power supply or keyboard, or if I want a card that doesn't need to be the newest. I dunno if it'd be worth it if I had to go through mail-order tho.

Boeing Surplus in Kent, WA

[SnakeStu]

This is a great place to find all sorts of strange stuff. I took my kids (10 and under) there not too long ago. They dreaded it before they got there. Oh no, another strange place that Dad is dragging us to. When they got there, they just about freaked. We spent much more time there than I'd planned, and they didn't really want to leave. It's not that there were any toys or other kid things there, but the wide variety of "junk" to look at and fiddle with really captured their attention and imagination.

Furniture, computers, magazines, video tapes (all blanked, I think, with some funny labels), tools, miscellaneous electronics that I couldn't identify, bulk materials... Fun browsing.

Check out various universities

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a somewhat well known sculptor and when asked to do lectures at various schools across the country I request to see there surplus facilities.

Just recently in fact I found to my surprise that one university had a large closet filled with steel balls that NASA deemed not suitable for there testing purposes.

Needless to say I spent my whole paycheck there.

Re:AxMan

[jarnies]

got to give props to the axman reference. great store. for those in the twin cities area, take 94 to snelling, exit north and turn west on university ave. axman is on the north side after a few blocks.

Minnesota

[shirameroix]

Here in the Minneapolis/St Paul area, there are a few cool surplus places around. My favorite happens to be Ax-Man. They have a lot of total crap, but they also manage to have a lot of neat electrical stuff too. A lot of that is also crap, but there is enough cool stuff floating around to make an EE major like me think up some cool ideas :)

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

[shepd]

U of W surplus sale, on certain Wednesdays at lunch. You'll need to call up and find out more. All kinds of strange, used, and broken, university stuff, especially computers and furniture.

KW Surplus
666 Victoria St.
Awesome selection of, well, surplus stuff. Computers, electronics, audio, hardware, all sorts of... stuff.

Sayal Electronics
Philip St.
Some old used telco and other hard to find test equipment. Mostly overpriced. All sorts of regular electronics, though, and really cheap.

Horizon Electronics.
Victoria St.
Used to have piles of strange electronics parts. Now mostly computers, but electronics may still be there (ask the salesguy).

Princess Auto
Victoria St.
All sorts of hardware and a selection of strange electronic stuff. They have CC terminals for sale for some reason...

Overall, this is a really strange thread. It seems like we're just asking for trolls...

In LA...

[Anonymous Coward]

C & H Sales in Pasadena on Colorado

Apex in the Valley (Sunland?)

But there's also the TRW swapmeet in the TRW parkinglot in Manhattan Beach last Saturday of the month.

There used to be the General Dynamics swapmeet in San Bernardino, IIRC first saturday of the month.

The Black Hole

[bitchbat]

If you are in northern New Mexico the classic is Ed Grothus' Black Hole, aka Los Alamos Sales Co which is overflowing with surplus crap from Los Alamos National Lab. Links and pics here:
http://www.wps.com/about-WPS/personal/black -hole/
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.04/ew ord.html ?pg=5

and LANL itself has a great surplus sale once a month on the third thursday, or it was at least when I worked there.

Re:AxMan - LINK

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ax-man.com/

Ax-Man rocks. And all thier little signs on this are funny.

Re:Active Surplus in Toronto!

[Nutter9182]

Actually, I find that if you go in there with a specific list of components, parts, etc that you need, you'll be lucky to find even half of the 'common' components. They have a lot of stuff, but are missing even more.

You're completely right about just going in there to browse, rummage, and scour their bins - it's my favourite store in Toronto for that very reason; you never know what you're going to find. Last time I was there, I came out with a massager and a squeaky rubber duck.. :)
For electronic components (transistors, ICs, etc) though, they're not much good.

College surplus

[jjeffers]

Big colleges generally have pretty good surplus sales. At Iowa State University [iastate.edu] we have weekly Surplus Sales [iastate.edu]. University related departments and organizations get first dibs, but then the public and the students have free reign.

Some prices are good, but other prices are ridiculous. I picked up an old HP Netserver this afternoon for $30, and they are currently selling on eBay for a few hundred dollars. By the same token, they had SGI O2's for $500 which can be had cheaper from other places. If you were big time into reselling surplus stuff you could take advantages of palents of DEC Alphas for $50!

Re:Active Surplus in Toronto!

[GraZZ]

Their site is here [activesurplus.com], but it's less a web presence than it is their store hours and contact info.

I'm working on my 2nd year ENGSCI design project (as a U of T engineering student) and have been going to Active and nearby Supremetronic a few times a day for the past week :P

Active has an excellent assortment of odd motors (stepper/AC/DC/etc), keypads, odd electronic components scavaged from old stereos and computers, and they have all kinds of cheap, odd sized pieces of plastic. It's the kind of place that an electronics hobbiest can just walk into, wander around and be inspired by :)

Favorite things spotted at skycraft

[zollman]

From memory, when I was 16... close to 10 years ago:

- capacitors the size of pint glasses
- a wall of "building block" chips, like you'd play with in 1000-level electronics classes.. at really cheap rates
- mini-switches by the handful
- random keypads, with or without protruding cable
- a wall of magnets, ranging from magnetized-paperclip strength to "do not operate near pacemakers"
- Oscilloscopes clearly designed for use by squid or other multi-tentacled beasts
and racks and racks of things which, to this day, I don't think I could identify. My brother and I spent hours there dreaming up the things we wanted to build. Which, I suppose, is the sign of a good geek.

Anyone know of a place like this in the DC area?

Northern California

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

My two favorites are Surplus Stuff in Sacramento and Mike Quinn's in San Leandro. I've been trading at Mike Quinn's since 1972. It is an icon of East Bay electronics. Mike Quinn passed away about 20 years ago, but the torch has been carried by his daughter and Jay. About a month ago Jay sold me a 1hp 3-phase motor, brand new, for my lathe. Cost - $10. Retail price - $288.00.

Re:Mendelson's Electronic Surplus, Dayton OH

[swg101]

Here [mendelsons.com] is the site for the actual Mendelson's store.
And you are so right. I love that place. I had heard about it, and just was able to go there last Saturday. Great fun!! everything from restaraunt equipment to the individual electronic components I needed (and plenty of stuff that I didn't know I needed until I was there)

The Black Hole

[jeffmock]

I haven't been there in about four years and at the time Ed Groethus, the owner, didn't seem to be in such great health, but I think the place is still there.

The Black Whole [pupman.com] near Los Alamos, NM is quite a site. Most of the surplus stuff is from the nearby national lab. The place has been there maybe 40 years and is filled with crazy nuclear related stuff. Ed Groethus, the guy that owns the place seems to be very fond of much of his junk, so it can be tricky to get him to part with the good stuff.

Everyone calls the place "The Black Hole", but I think the real name is something more boring like "Los Alamos Salvage". It's definitely worth the trip if you're within 500 miles and are mesmerized by bits of shiny metal.

jeff

skycraft, at I-4 and 426

[zatz]

SkyCrap is indeed a fun place. They always have what looks like a row of ancient disk cabinets lined up out front, and a huge bin of useless popcorn boards just inside the door. Their capacitor aisle is really scary, I'm sure it would be useful for those backyard railgun projects. I mostly find myself there when I need some weird connector or a length of cable cut. Ony my last visit I picked up some case fans, and considerably cheaper than I could have any place that sells them as PC hardware.

Collins Surplus in Cedar Rapids IA

[Doctor Memory]

Back in the day, I used to go to Collins Surplus in Cedar Rapids. This is the Collins that makes aircraft avionics and a bunch of radio-related products. I remember they had stacks of HP o-scopes from floor to ceiling, and you could always find some oddwad prototype (or pieces thereof) in the parts bins.

Skycraft Kicks Ass

[sfe_software]

I moved from Kissimmee, FL to Alpharetta, GA a little over a hear ago, and the one thing I miss the most -- being an electronics geek as well as a computer geek -- is Skycraft (linked in the summary). That place kicks butt.

I found many things there that I haven't been able to find anywhere since. RF transistors, various ICs, and even neat little LCD displays (50 cents each!) that I used in a couple MP3-player projects (via parallel port)...

I so miss that place. The poor guy at the Kissimmee Radio Shack who told me about that place doesn't understand the amount of business he lost from me ;)

Re:Mendelson's Electronic Surplus, Dayton OH

[Badguru]

I live 5 minutes down the street and not only is Mendelson's cool but within it is another cool store partsexpress at partsexpress.com. If Mendelson's doesn't have a part I need PE will. Mendelson's is an amazing place inside, it used to be more interesting but has multiple floors the size of a large walmart with aisles and aisles of things you would not believe. Geek heaven.

Also Above All at Bloor and Bathurst

[Edmund]

Active Surplus is great for motors and random electronics bits and pieces, but their computer-related product selection leaves a bit to be desired. If you're looking for computer stuff, you might want to check Above All Electronics at Bloor and Bathurst (on Bloor, north side, slightly west of Honest Ed's). A lot more computer-related stuff there. They had a pile of gutted 486-era laptops and laptop displays the last time I checked - great fun! :)

- Ed.

Bay Area & WA State (Puget Sound) Listings

[KC7GR]

At the risk of blowing one's own horn, I have listings of Bay Area (California) and Puget Sound region surplus stores and swap meets at this link. [bluefeathertech.com] There's also links to other resources.

Enjoy!

Surplus in Vancouver

[dstone]

anything even REMOTELY similar in Vancouver?

One place comes to mind... Cal's Computer Warehouse on the north side of Grandview Highway west of Costco and east of Superstore. Open late 7 days per week. Wacky place. Some new product but mostly surplus and used. Hardware and software by the scoopful. NICs, audio cards, cables, adaptors, and monitors galore. I picked up a bunch of Wyse 60s there once (they dozens to sift through) for a team of programmers' serial debug terminals. Prices are so-so, but they've been willing to haggle. There's also an old microcomputer museum in the back with some treasures that aren't for sale. Check it out.

SFU used to have science & tech equipment auctions once in a while. UBC might also.

Re:AxMan Surplus- best job ever!

[teamhasnoi]

I used to run the Fridley store, then the Bloomington store. Many of the hilarious signs were made by me. (and many of the not funny ones too.) I still have a few good ones made by other employees...

Alas, the Bloomington store is no more - I went there recently and there was just a hole in the ground. I guess my evil Teddy Ruxpin automaton finally took over the store, drilled a hole in space-time and destroyed it.

You can see some of my (admittedly crummy :) handiwork at the St. Paul or Fridley store - just look for the display with the dozen car speakers attached to a metal screen.

The nice thing about Ax-man surplus is that you can find other things there too; marbles, wooden blocks, plastic bits, nuts and bolts, baby doll heads, stepper motors, flat files, chrome trash cans, prom dresses, tons of laboratory glassware, aluminum stock, rollerblade wheels, nylon washers and blocks, remote control car starters, 500 gallon tanks, and really nice employees who are always full of suggestions for your project/halloween costume/plans for world domination.

I worked there for 2 plus years, and have yet to have a job that challenged my brain and body like Ax-man. It's like a museum where the gift shop is all around you. If you are in the cities, it's a must see! Say hi to David and Bill :)

Forget ELI in Cambridge

[drwho]

Forget www.eli.com, in Cambridge, MA (Boston) -- while it was good when I was a kid and went ther ein 1982, it sucks now. I live in the area and let me tell you, what they charge for their overage sparc 20s and old crap just isn't worth it. Not even close. I know they do a lot of business mail order these days, maybe that explains the horrible attitude. When ever you try to get someone there to ask a question it is like pulling teeth. On top of that, they sell stuff as new that doesn't work. These guys are cheeseballs, I don't know how they stay in business sell Sparcstation 10s for $120. Twenty years ago, this was the tech mecca of mass, but now they suck, and not just a little bit. I hope they go out of business.

London

[Usquebaugh]

Distel [distel.co.uk] was always the place to go. About twice a year I'd trudge over to them and see what they had. Mind you that was 15+ years ago and they're still going strong.

also in Austin, TX

[Anonymous Coward]

MC Howard Electronics. web site [mchoward.com]

All kinds of random computer and electronics gear there, last I checked. It's been there forever, too -- since 1980. And Mr. Howard generally knows what he's doing and is pretty helpful. The prices vary, but you can find some worthwhile stuff. If you need a funky connector or cable or if you need to make an old PC work, he might be able to help. They've programmed EEPROMs for me, helped me rewire an external disk enclosure for SCSI, etc.

Re:Active Surplus in Toronto!

[UU7]

There is another nice surplus store in Toronto.
Above All Electronic Surplus Ltd 590 Bloor St W
Its just west of bathurst, north side. I usually go there if I can't find something at active.

Really obscure one for you...

[getAttr]

It's called the Country Boy Store. In the Kentucky countryside off of I-24 between Paducah KY and Clarksville TN. 40mm antiaircraft gun out front. Their facility is essentially three old barns and the remains of a real old country store, all kind of nailed together. Inside, lots of old military surplus, shirts, hats, BDU's, etc. Plus an enormous stockpile of guns and ammo. I've seen Uzi's, AR-15's, every conceiveable pistol, Lugers, etc. Old grizzled characters in overalls run the place. Lately they've come up with a lot of old surplus furniture and computer gear (Fort Campbell army post is just down the road). If you've ever wondered what a KY army surplus store should be like, this is the place.

Bay Area Surplus places

[evilxyzzy]

There are quite a few surplus places in the SF Bay area, some better then others. Weirdstuff and HSC are not my favorites. Both are rather overpriced and really tend to cherrypick equipment. I'd highly recommend Mike Quinn's Electronics in San Leandro. Find stories about the creation of the IMSAI 8080 and you'll find Quinn's mentioned. Have to dig to find the treasures of course. Sharon Industries in San Jose is decent if he's open. Excess Solutions leans more towards components but really who know what you'll find. There are a couple swapmeets. The Foothill College one is the best for electronics. When I last went to the Livermore one it had a high concentration of fleamarket crap. Check out This Link [kce.com] for links to more surplus places in the Bay Area and also links to other surplus lists.

Akihabara - Tokyo

[Anonymous Coward]

for anything computer related you could dream off, from silicon graphics mainframes to CRO's.

Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia, try oatley electronis; www.oatleyelectronics.com

here's some in LA area

[helix_r]

Pasadena:
Marvac electronics: www.marvac.com
CandH Surplus: aaaim.com/CandH/index.htm

Van Nuys:
www.allcorp.com

All three have good paper catalogs too.

Re:AxMan - MPC computer surplus

[Kilm_O]

For computer surplus check out MPC [materialsprocessing.com] in Eagan. Some hard to find adapters and cables. I got a 5 and a 3 wire bnc component monitor cable there. They also have 3c905 NICs for only $5, plus tons of other hardware from Mac printers to IBM laptop floppy drives.

Re:Surplus is excellent

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Older AIX mainframes

AIX has not and shall probably never run on a mainframe. They DO call the racks that hold the servers frames. But then I did know what you meant! :) I would not mind finding a older workstation to mess around with. Also, I do believe that the AIX license is tied to the hardware so if they don' t have the disk with it you can probably call IBM and work out a deal for AIX 5.1 if the hardware handles it. Most anything that's beein out in the last few years will run 5.1 fine. Failing that, I think there is a PPC Linux distro that runs on these. They also have PCI slots in most of the ones since Micro Channel was ditched. If you find enough, you may even be able to setup a cluster with HA (if you can swing the cost of the license) or just run Beowulf or one of the Linux solutions on it. IBM has excellent hardware. Especially their RS/6000 boxes.

Ahh....my favorite time a year is here.....Dayton Hamvention starts soon and you usually can visit Mendelson's tent as well as procure many types of older hardware. I saw some GRID pen based computers there a couple years ago (running Pen Windows I think.....) and one year they had a COMPLETE AS/400 system w/OS, external DASD, and a 5250 dumb terminal. I even think they had a copy of Linux for the AS/400 also? I don't know. Then another year they had stacks of Sparc 2's and some Sparc 5's. The only thing about some of those....they had no hard drive and since they probably don't sell a SCSI drive you can use you were kind of screwed....unless you had one with a good HD and it needed a MB! :) But Hamvention and other hamfests you can find all sorts of neat crap. I am going to try my luck at finding a laptop battery there and for my major purchase (not surplus but still cool) a triband (2m, 70 cm and 6 m) handheld. Either the Yaesu or the Icom (or maybe Kenwood's Data HT....). I also am going to have the most tricked out Kampsite at the KOA! Laptop, cellphone's, Ham Gear, a PDA and a PS/one eith portable display and a AC/DC inverter ot power it all(just not at the same time). To some, it is crap but to us it's wonderful!

DoD Surplus Sales

[stress4dad]

Check out http://www.drms.dla.mil/newsales/ for information on US Dept of Defense surplus sales. In my former life in the military, I used to go to the surplus warehouse regularly to look for electronics. You could get a pallet of ~3 year old PCs for under $100 sometimes, and if you open these babies up, sometimes you will find some nice upgrade parts in them (large, newer harddrives, memory, etc...). One time I bid on a sale lot of office equipment ( I wanted a couple of filing cabinets). I won the bid for under $150...but then I realized I needed a full sized UHaul to move all the stuff. Had to have my own surplus sale after I got all that stuff (mostly desks and cabinets) to my house.

Re:Active Surplus in Toronto!

[mikegi]

I used to visit Active Surplus regularly when I was a teenage geek (80s). Now I only visit Toronto once or twice in two years so I try to make the pilgrimage when in town at least to see what stuff is still their from the 80s, 5 years ago, and what's new and interesting.

In the early 90s an aquaintance told me that Active started out in the 70s buying old computers in order to recuperate the gold plating from Connectors, Components, PC boards.

Some of the neat things that I actually remember buying from there:

• Ultrasonic motion detector boards, $1 or $2 CDN a piece
• 9" Phillips Green screen monitor $40 CDN (so other could watch TV while used my CoCo 3)
• 8088 Baby AT Motherboard (without ram) $5 CDN (when I finally decided to retire my CoCo and CoCo 3 and join the BORG^h^h^h^hDOS world in 1990.)
• TouchTone(tm) keypads
• pump and nozzle (from battery powered UZI Water pistols that were common in the mid 80s)
• Medical Forceps and Clamps
• 80 Track Single Sided Double Density 5.25" floppy drives ($5 a piece) for use as a drive 2 and 3 with my Coco 3
• $10 Switching power supply for the above drives

Some other worthwile places in Toronto:

Toronto Surplus and Scientific [torontosurplus.com] (Near Electrosonic on Gordon Baker Rd. in Willowdale)

A good selection of electronic instruments (scopes, hi-pot testers, signal generators, frequency counters, spectrum analyzers), some military stuff (radio sets, gyros, weird stuff)

Computer Party. (I don't know if it is still in business) Brimley Road in Scarborough, opposite Scarborough town center, just north of Ellesmere.

In the 90s, I bought a Tandy Model 200 for 40 Bucks. Lots of older x86 stuff, some computers from the 80s, There was at least 1 old Electron Microscope there too though I never saw it powered up.

Sayal Electronics [sayal.com] , Victoria park, just south of Gordon Baker on the Scarberian side of VP.

Some surplus components, used test equipment, power supplies, transformers, batteries.

1946 M44 Soviet rifles? Dime-a-dozen...

[front]

1946 M44 Soviet rifles? They are a dime-a-dozen. Either N.I.W. (gun speak for New In Wrap) or used. Honestly. I've spotted slightly used models for $49.95 at local gun shows.

Bolt action surplus rifles tend not to be priced too high on the "desirable" lists. Of course you can see rare Mausers and such going for the occasional mega-buck but the Military bolt action rifles of the past two World Wars were manufactured in their millions. It takes a lot more than just N.I.W condition to command higher prices (unsual stampings/markings, rare modifications etc).

cheers

front

Re:Science junk and more...

[unclepedro]

Go to their website [sciplus.com], they have a monthly catalog [sciplus.com] with basically their whole inventory in it. And they ship nationwide. Amsci really is an awesome place. I actually just live a couple miles down Foster so I drive by it all the time.

AxeMan in St. Paul, MN

[Eusebo]

Dunno where they get their stuff from but they've been there for 20+ years and have some very cool (and odd) stuff.

Ettiquette for Active Surplus in Toronto

[mykepredko]

Actually, they're pretty good for components - the problem is you have to saddle up to the front counter and ask. They're also very good about looking up equivalents for you and suggesting stores that will have what you are looking for.

I have been going there for over thirty years and I've noted a few things that people new to the store should be aware of to make their experience a positive one:

• Go there often - at least once a month. Make sure the guys behind the counter know your face by asking not stupid questions. A "not stupid" question is "Where can I find geared motors?", not "what does a resistor do?". They don't expect their customers to know everything, but there is a certain basic level of knowledge and intelligence expected before somebody can walk in the doors.
  
• As part of the previous point, accept that everything there is "ASIS" unless they tell you otherwise. Asking what "ASIS" means will get an explanation geared for somebody with an IQ less than 50 that is delivered at a LOUD volume with questions afterward to make sure you understand what you have been told. Nothing pisses them off more than somebody bringing back an old cassette drive transport, demanding their money back because a pinion gear is missing inside it. They'll generally let (and help) you test stuff if it's reasonable to do and there isn't a huge lineup at the counter.
  
• Don't ask complex questions between 11:30 AM and 2:00 PM. A "complex" question is anything that requires an answer longer than "Aisle 2". This is their busiest time and if they're answering your questions they're not taking in money and that pisses them off.
  
• If you're buying something and you have people behind you, have your money/cards ready. Watching you fumble with your wallet pisses them off.
  
• If you are looking for something and they don't seem to have it, ask when they'll have it in. There's always a good chance that it's upstairs or they're expecting a shipment sometime in the future.
  
• Despite what they tell you, they're always getting in new stock. If you see something you like, but the only ones they have are incomplete or apparently damaged DON'T BUY IT! - they'll probably have more in stock in a few weeks or they'll pull more down from upstairs when the current stock is sold.
  
• Learn Polish, Ukrainian or Russian. At the very least it's entertaining to listen to what they think about their customers (I caught them saying that they wished a certain customer, who was no better than a misbegotten dog (literal Ukrainian translation), and all their descendents would be hit by a bright bolt of lighting. This is a mighty powerful curse.)
  

The simple rule is, don't piss them off.

myke

C&H Sales, Pasadena

[angst_ridden_hipster]

When I was growing up, this was The Place.

They're still around -- http://aaaim.com/CandH/

I live a ways away now, so I haven't been for a long time. But back when we were assembling computers by hand (S100 type stuff, and tricking out our TRS-80s), you could get great stuff there. Then in college, when I needed stepper motors, they were there for me.

Re:Also Above All at Bloor and Bathurst

[Lev13than]

The guys at Active Surplus are also pretty friendly.

A big reason to like them is that they are one of the only places that stocks Mac parts. The suppply is a bit variable, but every now and then they'll have shelves full of Mac Pluses for $10 or bins full of Mac parts.

silicon valley surplus shops

[Anonymous Coward]

There used to be so many. Unfortunately, in the past 10 years, quite a few have closed. Here's a list...

Open:

Excess Solutions [excess-solutions.com] Lots of parts. Off 101 at Brokaw.

WeirdStuff Warehouse [weirdstuff.com] Lots of Sparcs.

Halted / HSC [halted.com] Good components, lasers, motors, some new parts.

Alltronics [alltronics.com] Used to be retail on Zanker, with jackelope, but it looks like they're just mail order now.

Closed:

Haltek off Shoreline in Mountain View.

J&M Surplus in San Carlos.

RA Enterprises, the best source of motors

Alltronics (retail)

And here are a few non-SV places with websites:

MECI, Inc. [meci.com]

All Electronics [allcorp.com]

Herbach and Rademan [herbach.com]

C&H Sales [candhsales.com]

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