This shenzhen maker map has been around for a few years. It is still very useful to a lot of people.

I will try to improve on it, by explaining which buildings to go to first. This is my first post, and if there is interest, I will write a second post explaining more buildings, and taking pictures. The next post will mainly focus on the the mobile phone markets.

Step 1. Getting there

Go to Huaqiang Road Metro station. Exit at Exit A. You are now standing on Huaqiang Road. On your left is (6) Huaqiang Market. We’ll skip this building for now and walk straight to (9) SEG Building.

Step 2. SEG Building

SEG is the best place to see what is available, without getting too overwhelmed.

The building is layed out at a from-the-ground-up fashion. What this means is that loose components are on the first floor, while finished computers are at the top.

Floor 1: loose components (led’s, buttons, resistors, wires) and tools for assembly (soldering irons, wire cutters).

Floor 2: prototyping platforms (arduino clones, Raspberry Pi clones, drone platforms).

Floor 3: CPU’s and graphic cards

Floor 4–8: finished consumer electronics.

Step 3: HuaQiang Market (6)

Head back towards the metro stop, and go inside Huaqiang Market.

The first floor of the 3 buildings has an unlimmited supply of loose components.

The second and third floors sell mainly CPU/GPU/ HDD’s.

The second floor of building 3 sells good enclosures for HDD’s.

These buildings are also great places to get quotes for custom PCBA’s.

Step 4: LED City (5)

Walk through Huaqiang Market building 1,2 and 3. Now enter the LED market. The interesting part is the south-side of the building. The north-side has a commercial market for finished electronic goods for the chinese market and is aimed at end-consumers.

Floor 1 is where you find the best prices for bags of LED’s. LED’s normally come in bags of 1000 pieces, so ask for prices for that.

Floor 2–4 are less interesting, as they have random finished consumer electronics.

Floor 5 and 6 are the best for “finished” led products.