Apex Electronics

I like the store, i like that its a treasure chest of interesting objects. I am an artist. I dont have a recording studio at home, i dont build machines, and i am no electrician. I like coming to this store to find various materials to make «art» with. My problem with this store is that prices change, probably because what i wanted didnt have a set price written on it? So frustrating. A few weeks back i bought something for one price, come in today and its a higher price. That really sucks for someone like me who is just trying to make something out of nothing and have fun. I bought 5 of the items instead of the 25+ items i would have bought if the price made sense. *The man at the counter did take $ 1 off each of the items i wanted but the price with that discount is still too high for what i was buying. Especially when i got it cheaper a few weeks back. Should have saved the receipt.

An amazing place for electronic components, metal, used computers and more. So much more wire than I’ve ever seen. Some things are expensive; metal by weight. Other things are cheap. Some aisles are treacherous. So be careful. I don’t know how they do inventory. A fun place but I left there wanting to wash my hands.

I come here to find odds and ends so far for every project from cars to home brewing. I am always surprised at the useful stuff I end up buying

Super cool electronic component salvage shop. Dont bring kids. But the range and breadth of items for sale would make any hobbyist excited.
Ok yes its kinda hard to discern where some stuff is in piles of similar stuff. But its like a radioshack and a goodwill had a baby.

This place is great! I’m going back, like tomorrow. Thanks for making my avant garde piece truly unique Ace.

This place is badass! I love visiting every time I am around LA. The size of the warehouse is impressive; we do have surplus joints around the Silicon Valley but Apex is simply much bigger.
Spending an hour at «the yard» is a must; I don’t forecast needing a rocket engine from an old cloud busting weather rocket but it’s good to know where to get one if I need it in the future.
Their prices are more than reasonable. Often there is no tag and the guy at check out would politely ask… how about two bucks? I think the owner is often around working the check out register. Good work Apex!

Apex is fantastic! I’m a sculptor always looking for random parts. You can’t find a place like this anywhere else in LA. Sad to leave Apex behind when I move to the east coast.

This is exactly the place where mad scientists go to get parts.

Welcome to Apex… I have been a customer of over 5 years now and Ill have to say its the best place hands down for every geek, nerd, cosmonaut, engineer, electronics guru, or the casual tinkerer and a wealth of supplies for the DIY. To sum this place up in a few words would not begin to describe the treasures you can find here. Now that I have your attention its an amazing place for people who love to build electronics or cant find a switch or a fuse or a specific electric motor when shopping at your local hardware store. Apex has isle after isle 10 – 15 feet high of mostly organized and unorganized for the treasure hunters. I can easily spend hours looking around and I rarely leave with less then 50 bucks out of my pocket… which in lamens terms usually double the amount of loot for half or even a third the price you find any where else.
As a Prop Master I highly recommend this place for a visit if you are in the need for hard to find parts or you need to rent out airplane gack…
AWESOME!!!

NOTE: BELOW IS THE ORIGINAL REVIEW. PLEASE READ BELOW FOR MY FOLLOW UP REVIEW/​COMMENT
There was a day when, if you were working on a high tech film prop, you could walk into Apex, go out in back where the salvage items were, and collect a ton of stuff for your project. Sometimes it would get a little pricey but still, you would get what you needed.
Those days are gone, my friend. In recent times, I’ve gone it to get salvaged parts and have been quoted prices so outrageously high, it wasn’t logical to purchase the parts. And I’m not saying the stuff was sold by salvage rate either. The price wasn’t based on weight but seemingly an arbitrary (high) number set by the guy behind the counter. Back in the day, there was a bit of bartering too. Not anymore.
But my latest visit made me decide it is worthless to go there. The back salvage area, which was always a pile, has been rendered so completely useless for scavenging. It is literally so full crap that you can’t find anything! The small parts have all but disappeared, covered up by boxes of God knows what, rolled up banners, and large bulk items. It is worthless if you are looking for specific parts as they are now buried.
Instead of charging so high a price no one purchases, perhaps it’s time to start pricing the salvage items so they move out the door, to clear out the back a little so people can actually find stuff?
If you need hard to find electronic gadgets, it’s still the place to go, but if you are a prop maker, it’s no longer the one-​shop place it used to be.
Really a shame this place has gone downhill. Used to be an awesome resource.
SEPT. 2014: ADDENDUM
Due to an emergency sci-​fi prop I had to build, despite my not wanting to, I had to go to Apex. The first thing I noticed is that the back has been reorganized and is far better than when I put in the original review. I had no problem finding things that the last visit, I couldn’t find at all.
Upon paying, the rather burly gentleman behind the counter recognized my name and asked if I was the one that left the rather harsh review on Unilocal.My first instinct was to say no as I A: Didn’t want to get charged enormously for what I was buying, and B: Didn’t want the crap beat out of me, should he decide to. But I manned up and said «Yes, I am the one that left the review.»
This man could have been a real prick. He could have over charged me. He could have gotten aggressive. He could had done a number of unsavory things. Instead, he explained to me the situation in regards to the business. I learned quite a bit. The main thing being that back in the day when I bought stuff, the world was plentiful with surplus parts. Nowadays, that isn’t the case. Each piece is rare and hard to find. Hence, a lot of stuff is only rentable and stuff that is purchased is more expensive.
He did admit some stuff is high priced, and he acknowledged my frustration in not being able to buy the cool stuff (when I build props for tv, I have to buy as the company like to keep their props) but his explaining the situation went far in helping me understand the business I knew nothing about. It also realized I based my review on my purchasing back in the 80’s and 90’s.
Apex is doing what they need to do to continue to exist. In that regard, they are doing the right thing. While they are still expensive and it is still frustrating I can’t buy parts I’d like to, the fact is, they are the only company in LA offering what they offer.
If anything, I need to start working on projects that pay more instead of the low budget crap I’ve worked on for years so I can easier afford the items at Apex.
I will continue to shop at Apex, because they have stuff I can’t get anywhere in LA. But perhaps more so that the gentleman behind the counter gained my respect. He’s a stand up guy and that’s hard to find in this city today.

This place is really hard to rate. They have electronics parts like crazy.
The staff is definitely helpful. I bought some plugs and some wire and needed them crimped together. The guy had the crimpers in his car, went out, got them and did the crimping. No Charge! Business was slow at the time so that no doubt made it easy for them to help me so much. I paid 3 or 4 dollars and was set. The place is not wonderfully organized, but if you have some patience you may find that thing you need. And they have so much stuff you may be able to figure out another way to solve your problem.
Need a transformer? This is the place to go.
Need entertainment? It is fun to go to Apex look around and ask yourself «what the heck is this for?»

This is why people order online and from China. Searching online it appeared the only place online to get this part was from a Chinese company but I really wanted to keep my business in the U.S. (nothing against the Chinese, but I want to keep my business at home when I can).
After failing to find anything online in the U.S. I started calling local and wound up on the phone with Apex. The guy I talked to at Apex curtly answered my first question then hung up on me in the middle of my asking the second question. The company in China had it in stock and ordering was hassle free.
There is a reason business is going to China and the guy at Apex is part of it. Rude, acting as if bringing my business to his store was a privilege he was granting me, this guy displays the sense of entitlement that is becoming more and more prevalent in much of American small business. The other part of the equation is availability. One can’t «buy American» if Americans don’t keep it in stock.

If your looking for scrap steel for metal sculpting projects. Look else where! Their scrap prices are ridiculous! Charging $ 3 per/​lb for stainless steel witch is crazy compared to its $ 0.62 per/​lb market price.

It IS a unique experience. Absolutely critical to have for us hobbyists and designers in electronics. Vintage is a specialty (old switches, panels, parts) but also great for cheap parts in quantity when designing or building something new. I’ve taken many non-​tech people there who just LOVE the sights. Cables for miles, nose cones for rockets, computer panels from the ‘50s. Many things are cheap here, small parts — but many are pricey, as they know their business — and much of it is well-​funded film and television studios. They won’t sell you come cool SciFi panel for $ 10 when they can get $ 100 from a prop master later… Not much service, BUT if you are nice and polite, they often will help you to a degree, showing you the general area of what you need. They will NOT usually take you around and find you one little part to match what you want. They will test and check things at the desk for you — does it work, is it good? Go AT LEAST once just to see this Disneyland of electronics from the past.
They also BUY scrap metal and electronics for good prices! Don’t throw away that heavy machine or transformer just yet!!! You don’t have to be anyone special to sell to them, I’ve made hundreds just taking them old broken gear…

This is a rad place. For tinkerers and gadgeteers and mechanically minded folks, this is nirvana.
At first glance it looks like a chaotic mess that has been accruing for decades. But over the decade or so that I’ve been coming here, I’ve noticed that there is actually quite a lot of turnover. So sure, there’s a big pile of AC autotransformers in one area, but the next time you come, there will be a different big pile AC autotransformers in the same spot. The point is — if you see something you think you might want, buy it right then. Because when you come back 6 months later, when you absolutely have to have it, it won’t be there.
Pricing is kinda arbitrary, which is why I’m dinging it one star.

Ive been coming to Apex for as long as I’ve been alive.
Hands down my favorite place to spend hours perusing the aisles for that perfect piece of hardware or whatever… robots, vehicles, space ships, etc…
Apex is the industry standard when it comes to all things analog.

Hands down the cure to my addiction. Todd is incredibly helpful and also straight forward. If you are looking to get a stainless steel sink for 5 bucks, keep dreaming and go somewhere else, but if you are looking for a really good deal on basically everything you could imagine then this is the place. Everyone who works here is very helpful if you are helpful, don’t expect the world for 2 bucks just because you don’t want to spend the time on craigslist. In that same vein I would go so far as to say APEX is like retail craigslist and I love it. Keep it up!

This place is pretty much the Mythbusters’ warehouse on amphetamines. I fear Jamie Hyneman — despite his inability to throw anything away — might have a heart attack if his workshop looked like this, however.
Boxes upon boxes of odds and ends stacked on shelves packed beyond capacity, with broken down machines and parts strewn through aisles that are sometimes too tight to get through.
For the most part, the inside is orderly (I say this while I’m attempting to not smirk at that statement). I mean, boxes and aisles have SOME form of arrangement. Nuts and bolts here. Switches and toggles there. Transistors here. Cables there. You get the picture. Each box’ll have one of the parts from it stuck on the front so you’ll know what’s in there.
Now that outdoor area — heavens to betsy! — This is the kind of yard you would see on «Hoarders» with the hosts going, «Well, we’re just going to have to bring in a few waste containers and get to work!» To which I, and all the other people who find this place wonderful, will protest, screaming that everything back there has the potential to be something great, beginning life as something new.
You never know when you’re going to need old missile and bombshells, discarded satellite dishes, rusted-​over knight’s armor, dusty old reactor panels with gauges, crashed airplanes, antique cash registers, and anything else back there. At the very least it was fun to poke around. You’re literally walking around and going, «Is that a torpedo?» or «Check out this cannibalized helicopter!»
EVERYTHING is available for harvesting for parts.
I was actually looking for a knife switch that could take at least a higher amperage than the ones I’ve been able to find. Radio Shack’s only go up to 0.5 amps, meant more for hobby train sets, and I need it to take at least 15. The only ones Apex seems to have are old movie props, but since we were on a bit of a time constraint, I’ll have to come by another time and see about picking up parts to build it.
Bonus for being a family business going strong for more than half a century!

It’s worth it just for the missles and bombs. Wear your «washing the car» clothing, because you’re very likely to trip over something, or get dirty or tear your clothing in tight quarters. Wear gloves too. Bring a pickup. Hide what you buy in the basement or garage before wifey/​girlfirend sees it (unless she’s an Artist, then you’ll visit here together).
You’ll see parts from every grade B Sci-​Fi movie from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. I’ve even heard they’ve gotten EOL gear from ILM, LucasFilm and other studios.
There is great INSPIRATION in this rusty, dusty JUNK. It’s VISIONARY.

I have been paying too much buying stuff from All Electronics and even Mcmaster Carr… I wish I would have come here sooner! This place is HUGE and much of it is a mess… but you cant beat the selection of mechanical surplus parts, aerospace, aeronautical, and simply endless rows of electronic and electrical components. I was there so long looking at stuff I got sunburned. I bought a 40 amp relay for $ 5 I paid Digikey about $ 75 for the same one!