Brian Hall wrote:
I managed to get the CRT out of a little old portable TV, with a 4 by 5 inch screen, and it has lots of lovely copper wire that I want to get out and use for a secondary coil. I know these tubes are under a vaccum of sorts and I will have to melt off a bit of glue and bend off some posts with pliers, so should I pop the tail end of the tube before I start trying to extract the wire? If so what is the safest way to pop a tube or otherwise get at that wire?
There really isn't a safe way to "pop" a CRT. The "safest" way might be breaking the vacuum nipple, but you're still looking at an implosion/explosion hazard, and you will be dealing with a lot of lead.
When you are done, you have hazardous waste, which will cost you a bundle to dispose of properly.
If you are really that hard up for cash to get some secondary wire, get an old/broken microwave oven and harvest the wire from the shaded pole blower that is used to cool the transformer.
Unfortunately, that wire is rather small, (30 gauge?), but it is still larger than the tiny wire in a CRT.
Jon
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