Printable catalog (PDF)
MrJentis on Instructables has a guide to dismantling a CRT monitor (which is very dangerous and not recommended):
Have an old or useless CRT monitor or TV you’re considering to throw out?
Well, before doing that, you might want to consider salvaging the onboard components such as the transistors, heatsinks, resistors, capacitors and especially the flyback transformer for later cool projects.
The goal here is to keep the tubes out of the landfills because they contain large amounts of lead and phosphor, and stuff you really don’t want to pollute the environment which may seep into the underground water supply.
FEED
Thanks for the link Becky! I have some monitors that I’d like to repair (cap kits) but these things scare the heck out of me. I need to find someone locally who can go through the discharge procedure with me before I’d ever attempt it by myself.
Heather
Comment by Heather — July 5, 2012 @ 4:29 pm
Well… you’re *supposed* to recycle them, not throw them in the landfill. And yeah – I won’t even open the case on a CRT device, even though I am comfortable working with 120 to 240 volt mains circuits… without the service manual for that specific unit, it’s kinda’ hard to know *exactly* what has high voltage on it and what doesn’t.
Comment by Britt — July 5, 2012 @ 5:00 pm
My parents would never let me take a tv apart. The old color tv’s would glow even after six months of being unplugged so we weren’t sure if the television was safe or not. My dad informed me the power inside could kill me.
Electricity can jump from one contact to anything that is grounded and I wouldn’t be suprised if someone got fatally electrocuted by being near an open tv. You need to have the right gloves on and know what not to touch and since every t.v. is different, it is hard to have experience if you aren’t experienced in t.v. repair.
Comment by Chuckt — July 5, 2012 @ 5:39 pm
This underscores the need for mentorship, having someone nearby with knowledge so you can safely dive in to projects like this and gain useful understanding without getting hurt. If you’re in the Baltimore/DC area, I’m willing to help with projects like this, I have the knowledge and tools to do this sort of thing safely, and I’m eager to share with others who want to learn. I have my friends’ kids over every so often to take something to pieces and, sometimes, build something new.
Comment by John — July 5, 2012 @ 10:36 pm
The flyback high voltage power supply used in all picture tube TV sets is actually NOT that dangerous in the sense that you could get a fatal shock from a unit that is turned off. Because the power supply runs at a high frequency only a small filter-storage capacitor is required, (usually only 500-1000pf) which simply isn’t enough couloumbs to store a fatal discharge into a healthly person. However such a shock can be very painful, could stop a weak heart, or cause you to jerk back and injure yourself. There have probably been more injuries from people dropping a picture tube and getting cut from flying glass than from a shock after coming into contact with the high voltage stored in the tube (the inner and outer coatings of the tube act as a large Leydon jar). By all means BE CAREFUL and DO follow the procedures to discharge the HV to be safe, but the whole thing is hardly rocket science.
Comment by Ken Scharf — July 6, 2012 @ 8:45 am