Where Canadians can buy Electronics parts

As an attempt to provide a service for fellow Canucks (residents of Canada, not the hockey team), I present this—surely incomplete—list of electronics component, kit and finished board suppliers. If you find someone missing...let me know! 

Selected US/international vendors that serve Canada.

Presented in no particular order:

1. Digi-Key. Canada-specific home page 
   •The best service. A very complete parts line-up.
2. Mouser. Canada-specific home page 
   •Good service. A very complete line-up, probably not as many as Digi-Key, but close.
3. Allied. Canada-specific home page 
   •No recent ordering history with them...
4. Arrow. The North American division 
   •I recently ordered one of their own products. Surprise extra charges from Fedex came a week later.
5. Newark (Element 14). Canada-specific home page .
   •I ordered from Newark in the last year or so. Sometimes it is the only source for a product. I got good service (the parts had to come from England) but now I receive emails from them 2 or 3 times a week...
6. Sparkfun .
   •Strangely, I have not ordered from them. Several Canadian suppliers distribute SparkFun items. Digi-Key now also carry many Sparkfun items.
7. Adafruit .
   •Be warned: ordering from Adafruit can cause unexpected UPS invoices. To avoid this, several Canadian suppliers distribute Adafruit items, and Digi-Key carry much of their stock as well.

Canadian sources.

Presented in no particular order (the numbers exist only for reference), I've tried to condense all the important information into a couple of lines. I certainly have not ordered from all of them! As well, any notes about what is carried may not have been checked all that recently: follow the links to see current information. Some of my opinions/comments my be outdated: if you see something wrong let me know.

1. dipmicro , Niagara Falls, ON.
   •Web-based initially, then, in mid 2014 a retail store was opened in Niagara Falls, then it closed in late 2015. No phone orders. They sell new components and some boards, e.g. Chinese Arduino clones.
   •They do a good job of showing the availability of items by showing their stocking level and whether more can be ordered. This however is NOT the case with the Siglent scopes which they started selling in August 2014, I was totally blind-sided when I ordered an SDS1102CML scope, only to find that there was a 30 day delivery delay on it!
2. Spikenzie , Montreal, PQ.
   •Sell new components and many boards: AdaFruit, SparkFun and others. A few ICs only.
3. Electrosonic .
   •One of the best things about taking EE at the University of Toronto when I did was being able to walk over to Electro Sonic at lunch! Alas they moved long ago, and they no longer list any semi companies on their linecard. Still OK for passives, tools, instruments and Hammond cases. Despite their stock being maintained in the US I still think of them as Canadian.
4. Active 
   •Retail stores in Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Vancouver. Edmonton and Calgary. A more or less full product line.
5. Sayal , Toronto, ON.
   •Several retail outlets in Southern Ontario. Largely surplus stock. Terrible web site with almost no prices!
6. Cana Kit , Vancouver, BC.
   •Sell kits and boards: their own designs as well as SparkFun and others. No components.
7. RP Electronics , Vancouver, BC.
   •Retail location in Vancouver. Failrly full line from books to components, to test equipment.
8. Lee's Electronics , Vancouver, BC.
   •Retail location on Main in Vancouver. Wide variety of items, including some Hammond boxes. Recently (noted: Apr-2015) improved web site.
9. Creatron , Toronto, ON.
   •Retail store on College. Wide range of parts and assemblies up to modern boards such as the Lilypad series and Raspberry Pi.
10. Proto Advantage , Hamilton, ON.
    •Mostly breadboarding package adapters, but Arduinos also carried, especially the Netduino.
11. RobotCraft , London, ON.
    •No retail store. Components and boards related to robotics mostly.
12. A-One Counterparts , London, ON.
    •Retail store. Components and boards, including Sparkfun and Adafruit. (Poor site with broken links in menu.)
13. RobotShop , Mirabel, PQ.
    •No retail store. Components and boards related to robotics mostly.
14. Solarbotics , Calgary, AB.
    •No retail outlet. From BEAM robotics to solar to Arduinos...
15. B&E Electronics , Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon.
    •Retail outlets in all three cities. Slanted towards industrial electronics. Refreshingly they only ship to Canadian addresses.
16. Canada Robotix  Markham, ON.
    •Retail outlet. Roombas to Arduinos...
17. ABRA Electronics , Montreal, PQ.
    •Montreal retail location. Quite a wide range of parts and boards.
18. A1 Electronic Parts , Toronto, ON.
    •Retail store near the bottom of Hwy 427. Stock is a mix of surplus parts up to modern boards such as Raspberry pi.
19. Interior Electronics, Kelowna & Burnaby plus Queale Electronics , Victoria, BC.
    •More oriented towards repair and maintenace of equipment, these stores are still sources for passive components and test equipment.
20. BC Robotics , Nanaimo BC.
    •Arduino; R-Pi; Beagle; Adafruit; a bit of Spikenzie. Strange that one learns about a (the only?) local electronics supplier from somebody at a bus stop in another city! It did help that I was on the way to the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire...
21. Mikronauts , Lower Mainland, BC.
    •A supplier of boards and kits of their own design. Aimed largely at the education market, their microcontrollers are heavily Propeller based.
22. Voltatek Electronics , Montreal, PQ.
    •No storefront. Arduino, Raspberry pi, Beaglebone as well as general parts and prototyping supplies.
23. Main Electronic Supplies , Vancouver, BC.
    •Inventory is up for sale!
    •Arduino clones, good selection of power supplies and some other test equipment, NTE TV service components.
24. Meistertech Solutions , Southern Ontario (Aylmer).
    •Seems to be gone!
    •An interesting collection. Mostly discrete parts aimed at repair and refurbishment. A good place to look for a replacement bulb or an audio grade capacitor.
25. Netty Electronics , Northern Ontario (Ellliot Lake).
    •A mix of new and surplus. A tip came into the contact page about this one!
26. Component Electronics , Mississauga, ON. Storefront will be checked out soon.
    •Mostly seems to be a re-seller, but they do state that they are an authorized distro for Hammond. One of those annoying onlline stores which post NO prices. OK, they do post prices now (noted August 2017)...prices seem high though.
27. Just Radios , Toronto, ON.
    •A very comprehensive listing of capacitors and resistors for vintage electronics repair.
28. The Tube Store , Hamilton, ON.
    •A good selection of tubes and other parts related to tube-based equipment. Aimed more at amplifier repair than towards vintage radio repair.
29. Tip Top Electronic Supply , Winnipeg, MB.
    •Not sure I understand the relationship with Active (see #4): this was reported to me as a “former Active Tech Electronics store [which is] still affiliated but changed their name” however the same address is listed on the Active site as their Winnipeg store.
    •They sell Adafruit, Sparkfun and Seeed Studio items. As far as I can tell, Active also sells these lines, with the exception of Adafruit.
30. Elmwood Electronics , Toronto, ON.
    •Adafruit, Arduino, Micro:bit, Raspberry pi,Sparkfun and Spikenzie and more. A good selection: they suggest that they are targeteted to Makers and this certainly seems true.
    •local pickup on Bloor Street West at the MakeWorks offices.
31. BuyaPi.ca/ , Kanata, ON.
    •Online ordering only.
    •Rasp-Pi (of course!), Adafruit, Arduino, littlebits, some SparkFun, even Printrbot 3D printers and a whack of parts. Menu seems to have been outgrown, though.
32. Diigiit Robotics , Montreal PQ.
    •Seems to be a fairly complete line-up. Looking at just one type of device, they seem to carry most all of the ultrasonic range finders you would ever need for a robot.
    •No retail store.
33. Consumer Parts Source Inc , Brampton ON.
    •Mostly seems to be service parts. Trying to drill down to their listings the site says 6,681 entries under semiconductors, yet the only categorization that exists is that there are 43 voltage regulators. First item in that list is an op amp! Hmmm, needs work!
    •no clue on the site as to whether the address I was given is a storefront. No pictures, except of credit cards, on the site at all!
34. Q kits , Kingston, ON.
    •Another entry from my contact form. Another distributor of both Arduino and Raspberry pi boards, etc. etc.
35. A2D Electronics , Ottawa, ON.
    •Yet another entry from my contact form. Starting up, summer 2017. Carry what seem to be mostly typical Chineese products that you might see on ebay. Good prices. Local pickup can be arranged.
36. Electronic Surplus , Toronto ON.
    •Another entry from my contact form, this one came in twice from two different sources.
    •With a nicely boiled-down set of categories (Breadboards | Buttons & Switches | LEDs | Resistors & Capacitors | Sensors | Servo Motors | Wires & Power Supplies) and with fewer than 10 items in most categories, this outfit is just starting up. To be fair, e.g. even though there is only one entry for resistors, that expands to a fair number of values on the specific order page.
    •Many of the items are those cheap single function boards that come in those bags of "37 in 1 module board set kit for Arduino" that you can get from many Chinese sources.
    •Despite the name I saw no surplus parts.
37. Universal Solder , Yorkton Saskatchewan.
    • This just came in, again via the contact form (May 2018).
    • Looks like a good mix of self-designed and resale items. The owner pointed out that he sells a WWVB receiver module. I expect I will purchase one of these soon since the original, obsolete, C-Max module is no longer working in my WWVB clock  it seems.
    • No storefront, web orders only.
    
38. SMI Prospecting and Electronics , Langley BC.
    • This came in, again via the contact form, in June 2018:
    • An interesting store with a different focus: prospecting, as in the Detectorists !
    • An understandably eclectic mix of electronic components, though. Items such as Anderson power pole connectors through to Arduino clones and Raspberry pi boards.
    • Might be a bit hard to find some of their stuff, though: for example the “diodes-rectifiers & transistors” page lists 138 items with no further breakdown.
    • If you are in the lower mainland of BC they do have a storefront.
    
39. CanHobby.ca , Medicine Hat AB.
    • This came in via the contact form, in October 2018:
    • Apparently another online vendor just starting up.
    • Specializing in Orange Pi boards plus hobby necessities.
    • Free shipping on $20 and up, Canada only.
    
40. Simcoe DIY , Barrie ON.
    • Discovered via an eBay search, 2021:
    • Free shipping on $120 and up.
    • Apparently no local pickup(?).
    • Good prices!
    • And a good, wide selection.
    
41. Pacific T.V. , Victoria, BC.
    •Vacuum tubes and accessories only.
    •Very interesting photo gallery if you like old radios!
    
42. phillipjFry , Sarnia ON.
    • Found on eBay 2023.
    • Another re-seller of Chinese products.
    • Free shipping on $75 and over.
    • Local pickup.
    

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