Vancouver Hackspace (VHS) used to be a place where people could ask questions and get help with their projects while helping out others. Now new people asking questions, at best, get ignored and worst ridiculed. After 2015 the Vancouver Hackspace the board of directors ( names removed ) as well as a few other members ( names removed ) created a toxic environment that destroyed the existing community that took years to create.

Good, energetic, people will succeed anywhere. VHS is a handicap that prevents even good people from achieving success. Your projects will wither and die at VHS.

I used to have pride in being a VHS member, but now I am ashamed to have been a part of that group.

Links to others peoples similar posts.

This is a list of the alternatives to The Vancouver Hackspace (VHS) as well as a collection of resources. Pull requests greatly appreciated.

Vancouver

Physical spaces

Events

Vancouver Mini Maker Faire - One Giant show and tell for the Maker and Hacker community. One of my favorite events of the year. , ,

, , Open Hardware Summit - Not technically in Vancouver but close by in Portland. Annual event.

Pecha Kucha Vancouver - PechaKucha is a global series of live events held worldwide where people can meet, inspire and get inspired, based on a format that is fast-paced and fun. Twelve inspiring minds will be giving a unique insight into their latest work and ideas in 20 slides x 20 seconds. ,

Meetups

Accelerators/co-working spaces

Online

Communities

YouTube channels

General

Eletronics

Wood working

Matthias Wandel - The Youtube channel for woodgears.ca. One of my favorite videos of his is wooden marble machines.

Frank Howarth - Amazing wood worker with lots of tutorials style videos. Check out his series on building a CNC Router table.

Makers

Awesome people doing awesome things

Blogs

Suppliers

These suppliers are local to Vancouver area.

Eletronics conponents

Hobby and Radio Control

Metals

Extrusion

Bearings

Ringball: Mainly bearings, some linear slides and some acme screws and such. Good prices, but $30 minumum order

DealExtreme: Free shipping, probably knockoff bearings

Springs

McMaster Carr: Massive catalogue of engineering components. Not the cheapest, but the only source for many things. (Note: we have a paper copy of the 2019 catalogue floating around if you're looking for a good read

Misumi USA: Another massive catalog of engineering components

Foundries

Wood

Windsor Plywood - Great selection, lots of helpful staff. Better then Homedepo but still on the expensive side.

P.j. White Hardwoods Ltd - Great selection. The best prices but they don’t do onsite cuts. Does do deliveries. 1200 East Kent Ave S, Vancouver, BC V5X 2X8

Dicks Lumber - Burnaby

Platics

Screws, Fasteners

Pacific Fasteners - They stock a huge range of fasteners (nuts, bolts, screws, nails etc.). 3934 East 1st Ave

Fastenal - Huge selection. SE Marine Dr and Knight St, and many other locations.

HD Supply Brafasco: 443 Terminal Ave

Canadian Stainless Fasteners: 75 Clipper St, Coquitlam

McMaster Carr: Massive catalog of engineering components. Not the cheapest, but the only source for many things

Machining and Metalworking

Art/Craft supplies

Urban Source - All kinds of recycled craft materials - everything is cheap!. Main Street between 15th and 16th Ave.

Dressew - Sewing/fabric/knitting/etc. Huge selection, dirt cheap! 337 W Hastings St, near Cambie

- Sewing/fabric/knitting/etc. Huge selection, dirt cheap! 337 W Hastings St, near Cambie Yoko YaYa - Japanese dollar store with all kinds of neat stuff. Tinseltown Mall, 1st floor

- Japanese dollar store with all kinds of neat stuff. Tinseltown Mall, 1st floor Daiso - Same as Yoko Yaya, but about 5 times more stuff. Aberdeen Mall in Richmond

- Same as Yoko Yaya, but about 5 times more stuff. Aberdeen Mall in Richmond Opus Art Supplies: Cambie & Hastings downtown or Granville Island

[Michaels](http://canada.michaels.com/]: Alberni Street near Burrard Street and Broadway near Cambie. Has almost everything craft-related, but is expensive

[DeSerres](http://www.deserres.ca/]: Broadway near Granville

Maiwa Dyes and Textiles: 1310 Odlum Drive for workshop, Granville Island for full store - Natural dyes, printing supplies, natural fibres

Our Social Fabric: 270-1275 Venables Street - Non-profit that seeks to divert textiles and sewing supplies from landfills. Extremely cheap and huge selection, but only open a few times a month

Fabrictime Solutions: 1325 E. Pender st. (Please note this is a fabric wholesaler and there is a large minimum for cheap prices

Michaels: Alberni Street near Burrard Street and Broadway near Cambie. Has almost everything craft-related, but is expensive

DeSerres: Broadway near Granville

Thrift and Second-Hand Stores

Value Village East Van: 1820 E Hastings St - Large section of second-hand electronics

Miscellany: 1029 Commercial Drive OR 2615 E Hastings St - Lots of cool retro items for costumes or props, some old electronics

Little Miss Vintage: 931 Commercial Drive - Actual vintage items for decent price. Great for costumes

VGH Thrift Store: 2535 E Hastings St

St Vincent de Paul Thrift store: 1738 East Hastings Street @ Commercial Dr - clothing, furniture, electronics and misc

Still Fabulous: 1124 Commercial Dr - Well-curated fashion store with very cheap prices, not vintage

Union Gospel Mission Thrift: 671 E Hastings Street - clothing, furniture, household, etc

Online

Development boards and kits

Online retailers of components and dev boards.

Electronic components

Digikey - They’ve got pretty much anything, and they ship overnight from Canada. ,

, Mouser - Similar to Digikey, but ship from the US (taking an extra day usually). ,

, Newark element14 - Similar to Digikey and Mouser, but slower and more expensive shipping. ,

, Arrow Electronics - Similar to Digikey and Mouser. Arrow Electronics is a global provider of products, services, and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions. ,

, SparkFun: Awesome site with tutorials and lots of breakout boards and rad parts

Adafruit): Good starter kits, mostly revolve around Arduino

Seeed Studio: Similar to SparkFun, located in China. Offers services such as PCB manufacturing and laser cutting also

ITead Studio: Similar to Seeed Studio, and also located in China

General Materials

Inventables - Acrylic sheets, woods, and veneers, molding materials, etc. ,

, McMaster Carr - Massive catalog of engineering components. Not the cheapest, but the only source for many things. Used to be US-only, but ships (fast) to Canada now.

OpenBeam USA: An online retail store that sells mechanical bits and pieces for your projects

CableShop.ca: Ontario based seller of various cables

Manufacturing

MacroFab - MacroFab specializes in manufacturing and assembling PCBs and electronic devices. From PCB assembly to fulfillment. ,

, Elecrow - PCB printing, assembly and manufacting.

DirtyPCBs - PCB printing.

Machining and Metalworking

Travers Tool Co: Very large selection of machining parts, tooling, and accessories

Little Machine Shop: Specializing in smaller hobby and bench-top machines, parts, tooling, and accessories

Atlas Machinery: Located in Toronto. Wide variety of tools, machinery, and accessories

4GT: Located in Nanaimo. Sells ER20/ER32 collets and collet holders compatible with the Tormach Tooling System (not Tormach products however

Industrial Controls and Parts

Automation Direct: Huge selection of parts for automation, controls, and building machines

Surplus

Apex Jr: Surplus gear at good prices, lots of audio amplifier bits including toroids. Will ship a 4 lb bag for US$13

Electronic Goldmine: Surplus electronics parts, lots of unique stuff

Fabricators and Machine Shops

Industrial Laser Cutting: Laser cutting of mild and stainless steel, aluminium, acrylic, and wood for low/medium production runs and prototyping, and also have a CNC press brake. No 2 Road in Richmond

Costuming and Makeup FX

Fiber-tek: Boundary Rd at 1st Ave. Sell Worbla and casting supplies

HollyNorth Production Supply: 1st Ave at Boundary, kind of hard to find. Large range of makeup FX and production supplies

Studio F/X: Georgia St at Hornby St downtown. Enter via the side door, not via the Cathedral Place mall/lobby as it's locked outside regular business hours. Good selection of makeup FX products, but not as general a product range as HollyNorth

Thomas FX: North Vancouver, just over the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge. Large range of makeup FX and production supplies

Miscellaneous

AllWorld Packaging: 1023 Clark Drive - Tape, cardboard, bubble wrap, etc

Adler Auto: Surrey and further out locations

HollyNorth Production Supply: 1st Ave at Boundary, kind of hard to find. These guys sell to the film industry, but they do cash sales too

SR Fine Tools: Chinatown source of magnifiers, tweezers, etc

Wainbee: Hydraulics , pneumatics, toggle clamps, actuators, electromechanical (steppers, servos, etc). Surrey

3D Printing

3D printing online communities

Wanhao Duplicator I3 3D Printing Group - Great general information facebook group.

3D printing software

Cura - It works great and is simple. Use this.

3D printable models

Yobi3D - A 3D model search engine. Search results are shown in 3D.

Pinshape - A online catalog of 3D printer models. Paid and free.

MyMiniFactory - A decent selection of curiated 3D-printable models.

ThingiVerse - The original online catalog of 3D printer models.

YouMagine - Open source designs and 3D-printable models.

GrabCAD - Professional 3D models for manufacting parts.

Yeggi.com - Search Engine for 3D printable Models. Searches a lot of the smaller sites.

NIH 3D Print Exchange - 3D-printable models that are scientifically accurate or medically applicable.

Smithsonian 3d models - A large collection of 3d models from the smithsonian.

CG Trader - 3D models for VR / AR, 3D printing and computer graphics.

3D printing services

3D Hubs - A hub for finding local 3D printing services. They also have a comprehensive list of existing 3D printers with reviews.

Shapeways - Paid 3D printing and professionally made 3D models. Prints many different materials (Gold, Silver, plastic, etc..)

Dirty SLA - Cheap dirty prints. By far the cheapest you are going to find.

Laser and CNC

Furniture

Open Desk - Free open-source CNC furniture and an experiment in the possibilities of distributed manufacturing.

AtFab - Free open-source CNC furniture. Creating fully parametric fabable furnishings whose dimensions, details, material thickness, and slot size can be easily transformed and fabricated

Sketch Chair - SketchChair is a free, open-source software tool that allows anyone to easily design and build their own digitally fabricated furniture.

Open Design Furniture - An Amazing collection of open source furniture from many different sites and designers.

Pedro Terra LAB - Pedro Terra LAB Open source furniture.

Cross Border Shopping

In general Point Roberts is closer and easier on Transit/Bike. Blaine is further but offers the chance to pick up a parcel as part of another trip. Tax info at http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/media/facts-faits/060-eng.html.

China Online Shopping

English Language

Ali Express: Sort of Amazon meets eBay in China - and almost everything that is manufactured in or for China is available here (i.e. almost everything

Deal Extreme: Almost anything is available here from electronics dev boards to clothing. Chinese, very cheap price & quality, free slow shipping

Bang Good): Very similar to Deal Extreme in every way, but often cheaper

Alibaba: Manufacturer-direct sales for larger order volumes

Hobby King: Hobby parts, kits, and products for RC cars, multicopters, etc

Chinese Language