Where did HE go?!

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

I'm in need of 11 or 12 capacitors of various capacitance so I tried to find the 'phone number of a fine chap in Ramsgate who trades under the name CTS electronics.

I used to go there yonks ago to buy the odd resistor, switch, plug etc., and often stopped outside his shop to look at all the bits and pieces in the window before going to the town.

Anyway, he's only gone and buggered off! The shop's all shut up with no indication of an alternative! I wonder if it was anything to do with the paragraph above? :o) Oops.

Si

[Tony Williams]

If in trouble, try Chris Tredwell at

He's a one man band doing electronic components. Inexpensive and an excellent service.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There used to be half a dozen such shops within reasonable distance of here. Now only Maplin. I can only assume electronics as a hobby ain't what it once was.

[John]

Too many punters just buying the odd item and not enough buying items of equipment that generate the profits to enable them to stay in business. Can't survive on selling the odd resistor, etc even if there is a 50% profit margin.

[Tony Bryer]

Oh yes, there was one in Hibernia Road, Hounslow run by an older man that was a real treasure house. G.W.Smith had some rather shabby shops in Soho that sold all sorts of interesting stuff. And when I first had a car I would go down to Electrocomponents (?) at Englefield Green.

But no more. I guess it is just economics - as a child I would give my father a few pence from my pocket money to go and buy another couple of Meccano pieces - he worked just doors from a model shop. You can't it happening now: one stripped gear on our photocopier = a complete fuser assembly for £££.

[Bob Eager]

He's been gone a long time. At least two years...my son goes to school opposite!

I don't know of anywhere in East Kent now...Maplin's in Chatham, but then someone was recently murdered just a few yards away from there. And Maplins is pretty useless anyway.

I use CPC now, but a bit overkill for a few small bits.

If you hear of anywhere, I'd love to know.

[Adrian]

Hmm...does anyone remember Saunders in Canterbury near the Kings School shop? And for several years Cursons just down the road from there (which I think later became Canterbury Homebrew Centre)?

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

So did I.

The chap suggested by Tony seems cheap. I've emailed him because two of the caps I want are an unusual (I think) voltage - 385v 100uF.

Si

[Ron Lowe]

No, but in Edinburgh we had a vast emporium of all things electronic, stretching back into the mists of time. It was called Browns, on the Bridges. It was a bit like something out of DiagonAlley in the HP movies. You never quite knew what you'd come accross in there. Valves for transmitters, x-ray tubes, odd chassis out of something no-one-quite-knew-what, strange looking components on dust-covered shelves. Hardly an inch of floor space amidst the clutter of oddities. Closed some years ago, shame.

[Bob Eager]

How many years ago? I don't remember either of those....

I think the homebrew centre is the one that moved to become the licensed florist in Herne village...

[Ron Lowe]

My Bad: On 'George IV bridge', not 'The Bridges' ( N. Bridge / S. Bridge ).

[Gordon Henderson]

Browns. What a place. I remember it well!!! You just don't get shops like that these days... Early microprocessor kit next to valves. Kids of today... etc.

Gordon

[Tony Williams]

I've just replaced the £25 exit roller on the fuser assembly of an HP6P laserjet printer. It was only worth it because I have a stock of expensive toner cartridges. A complete fuser unit assembly is £150, which is definitely not worth it.

[Sylvain VAN DER WALDE]

You could try Cricklewood Electronics, in NW London. An old estabished shop.

Sylvain.

[manatbandq]

by an older man

Electrovalue. They also had a shop in manchester and only closed their doors in 2005.

Electrocomponents is RS.

MBQ

[robgraham]

Edinburgh we had a vast emporium of all things electronic,

Ron - your 'some' has a very wide brief; it was a ..lot.. of years ago. I'm not even sure that when I was a student at the Heriot Watt in the late 60's it was still there, but then actually it wasn't as a good as an emporium as the breaker's yard down in Leith (somewhere near the bottom of Ferry Road) which I used to visit as a schoolboy because he had all sorts of ex WD electronic bits.

And then, while we are wallowing in nostalgia, do you remember the rope shop in Victoria Street that was still extant in the 60's and was mentioned in Scott's 'Heart of Midlothian', and also the wonderful metal suppliers in Blair Street, just behind the Tron Kirk?

Ahh .. getting bits for electronic or metalworking DIY (it was called a 'hobby'' in those days!!) was so easy then.

Rob

[Ron Lowe]

I was at Edin Uni 82 - 86, and it was there most, if not all, of that time. It closed either the year I graduated ( 86 ) or shortly therafter.

The only other Electronics parts store I can remember was the rather sterile Omni Electronics which popped up at the bottom of Dalkieth Road.

Sorry, I don't remember any of those other things you mention: I was only born in 64, and I was not a native Edinburgian, I was only there for 4 years, but I can imagine...

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Mungo \"Two Sheds\" Toadfoot" saying something like:

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Ron Lowe" saying something like:

There was Surplus Supplies down at the bottom of Saltmarket in Glasgow. A total goldmine of small components in trays formed the main counter and the shelves from floor to ceiling were crammed with ex-MoD stuff and wonderful assortments of assemblies which could be stripped for parts.

As a boy I could afford to build various things from circuits in the mags, thanks to SS and the like supplying the comps at pocket money prices. I doubt if there'd be a living in it now.

[Bob Eager]

Anyone remember a place in Brighton, in North Road? Lots of surplus stuff (bought a 19 set carcass there and got it working). Can't remember the name (Ransom's?).

There was also Technical Trading, based in Brighton. I had a Saturday/holiday job with them. They sold valves (page 3 of some magazine, i.e. the one facing you as you opened it; can't remember the magazine but might have been Wireless World). One of my jobs was to test and re-print thousands of bought-in used valves, using the old Mullard valve tester. Anyway, they had a massive underground warehouse with 3ft high valves in crates, and a lot of stuff I never even unpacked... TT had a few other shops and I worked at 10 Tottenham Court Road for a couple of weeks..think it's a very dubious shop now....