HackLab.TO

When: Sunday, 19 April 2026, 1 pm to 5 pm

E-waste does not belong in the landfill. Help Hacklab in its mission to make you independent from your junk and pick up a few new gadgets, gizmos and obsessions along the way!

Junk Independence Day is an event where people come together to swap and recycle old electronics including:

• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Streetlights
• Tablets
• Calculators
• Hobby electronics supplies

House Rules:

Al…

A-Train sorts through boxes of circuit boards and presents one to the camera. (Luciano Cesta)

Every few months, the lab welcomes people from across the city and beyond to drop off their old electronics and snap up other items people brought. After, we take the remainder of the inevitable pile of old electronics to be recycled or otherwise disposed of safely.

On this JID, the entire surface of the 20’x5’ table in the middle of the lab was covered many times over with circuit boards,…

• Sunday October 26
• 12 Noon – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots…

Come to Hacklab this Sunday, August 31 to learn about cyanotyping, a 100-year-old method of photographic reproduction! Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cyanotype-blueprinting-in-the-present-day-registration-1595749181759

Spot welding is very useful in makerspaces. Whether you want to join pieces of sheet metal together to make a project box or make battery packs from existing cells, a spot welder is an awesome piece of equipment. Anton and Joshua, both recently inaugurated members, thought they would try making one themselves.

Spot welders work by using heat generated by a material’s resistance to melt metal pressed between its two electrodes. Unlike other forms of welding, no material is added to join…

• Sunday July 20th
• 12 Noon – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots of…

Members of Montreal’s Foulab visited HackLab this past Tuesday during our open house!

Foulab was founded around the time that we were in 2008 when the hacker space movement had its start. If you are in Montreal, visit them! More info at foulab.org.

Here you can see them repairing electronic badges from the North Sec conference.

Hello Toronto! We will be part of Doors Open on May 24 & 25! Come to HackLab, meet our members and come see the cool projects we’re working on. More details here.

We will be open from 10 am to 5 pm each day.

• Sunday April 13th
• 12 Noon – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots…

A-Train’s Ender3000 3D printer.

Deep inside the recesses of HackLab, a Frankenstein 3D printing monster was brought to life! A-Train, a long-time member and seasoned 3D printer enthusiast, hacked together two Creality Ender 3 printers that saw very limited use in the lab to create a beast with two extruders capable of simultaneously printing two different colours and/or materials. He calls it the Ender3000!

“So I was thinking, ‘How could I creatively dispose of these [3D printers]?’,”…