Canadian supplies for electronic bits and pieces?

[David]

I'm trying to buy various supplies - Kapton tape, thin electrical solder, LEDs, small gauge wire, etc.

 

I can find all of these things at supplies like trainaidsa and findtape, but the cost to ship just about anything (whether it's a single roll of tape or 3 Kato expansion sets) across the border is always about $20. When I order from MB Klein this is ok, as I put a lot of things together. But even buying extra I still end up with $16 worth of tape costing $20 to ship.

 

Are there any online or brick and motar stores in Canada (Toronto/GTA) that stock "electronic hobby" supplies? Places like Canadian Tire or Home Depot only have electrical tape and plumbing solder, and Radio Shack sells a very limited selection of 20 year old moldy stock for more then it would cost to ship from the states.

[bill937ca]

There is Active Surplus on Queen Street west, just west of the City TV building. Its in a second floor location on the south side of Queen Street. I took Jeff there a couple of years ago.

 

http://www.activesurplus.com/

 

http://www.activesurplus.com/eBay.shtml

[cteno4]

active surplus was fun! those kinds of stores are getting fewer and fewer these days! actually probably good we dont have one in DC area or i would be there all the time!

 

Dave you can get a few things from dealextreme.com like solder and such pretty cheap with free shipping worldwide. while most of it is cheaper chinese stuff, for some stuff its great like thin solder and solder paste in small quantities.

 

they have a kapton type heat tape pretty cheap

 

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/polyimide-heat-resistant-high-temperature-adhesive-tape-8mm-33m-260-c-21351

 

ebay is another source, you have to do a lot of searching and comparing to find decent deals with reasonable shipping though...

 

finding fine wire is tough one, trainaids is the best i have found so far. i have been tempted to tear open some old serial or parallel cables to see what could be got as they are usually 28-32awg. some you can split the cable really easily, others the outer insulation is sort of melted to the wires... if that works then one 100' $10 cable would get you like 2500' of wire and in several colors usually! i kicked myself for not grabbing a pile of scrap of this after a large install job where the wire guys had run hundreds of feet and has all sorts of scrap like 3'-30' long they tossed!

 

cheers

 

jeff