GTA/Toronto area electronics surplus?

September 18, 2008 11:00 AM

Any Toronto/GTA area electronic surplus stores?

Is there a store in Toronto or the GTA (or Hamilton ideally, but I'm not holding out a lot for that) that is sort of like the US Bay Area's Weird Stuff or Chicago's American Science and Surplus? I need to get my hands on a power adapter for a random bit of electronics.

posted by the dief to shopping (8 comments total)

Active Surplus in downtown Toronto may be able to help you, though it's been awhile since I've actually been there and there are apparently disagreements about whether their address is 347 or 345 Queen St.
posted by kanuck at 11:13 AM on September 18, 2008

Yeah, Active Surplus has what you want. And then some.
posted by GuyZero at 11:23 AM on September 18, 2008

There's also this place; better organized but not as much lovely crap:
Above All Electronics Surplus Ltd‎
602 Bloor Street West

See also:
http://www.repairfaq.org/ELE/F_surplus_ca.html

(Just being completist. Active Surplus will have what you want.)
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:28 PM on September 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Does Active Surplus still have that guy standing out on the street repeating "Active Surplus, you never know what you'll find" over and over and over again? I saw him every day in the winter a few years ago. When the weather warmed up, I was shocked to discover his sweet mullet. It's no giant purple gorilla, but it'll do.
posted by yellowbinder at 1:23 PM on September 18, 2008

Does Active Surplus still have that guy standing out on the street repeating "Active Surplus, you never know what you'll find" over and over and over again?

Yellowbinder: yes, that guy is still out there, calling the flock home.
posted by Beardman at 1:56 PM on September 18, 2008

Active Surplus Photos (third one is the best)
posted by thedaniel at 12:39 AM on September 19, 2008

Above All should be a little cheaper than Active, with a little less selection. If you want real selection you have to go north to Sayal. It isn't surplus, but for something like a power adapter you aren't really looking for surplus anyway.

Here is a good list of Toronto suppliers. I've been to surprisingly few of those, actually.. But then they don't list Solways, so we all have issues :P

That said, what power adapter are you looking for?
posted by Chuckles at 9:54 PM on September 22, 2008

Chuckles,

I bought a piece of electronics that came with a severely underpowered adapter -- something like 300 or 400 mA, which causes the thing to be all but unusable. Folks have reported that using a power adapter with 5-6v and 700mA to 1A fixes it nicely. So that's what I'm after.
posted by the dief at 11:28 AM on September 23, 2008