CRT manufacturing equipment

IdahoFarmer

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Do you think that somewhere in the world right now there exists all the machinery / hardware needed to resume CRT manufacturing?

And do you think that this hardware is at risk of being recycled / trashed?
 
Dunno, but with enough money you could most likely retool someplace to do it....may cost a cap ton though...
 
Probably? Look at a youtube video how CRT's are made, they're far from easy. Considering the almost nonexistant demand for them these days I wouldn't be suprised if all that equipment is decomissioned. At least in the states, in China perhaps there's still factories around.
 
I like CRTs. I am fine watching a movie with a good 27" TV. I like playing NES on a woodbox 19" even better.

In fact, in many futuristic sci-fi movies, they are using CRTs on space ship control panels and other places. So since these movies are such an accurate portrayal of what is to come, we know we'll all be returning to CRTs in the future. I take it that these LCD flat panel things must just be a fad. :p
 
Probably? Look at a youtube video how CRT's are made, they're far from easy. Considering the almost nonexistant demand for them these days I wouldn't be suprised if all that equipment is decomissioned. At least in the states, in China perhaps there's still factories around.

If China still has all the equipment together in one place it would have to be by accident, it has probably all been smelted down, ripped up and re-purposed.

And it isn't likely anyone is going to tool on up again since what tiny CRT demand is out there is split all over the place in what it actually wants, and isn't likely to be willing to pay enough to cover costs.

Example, we want 19" and 25" standard res tubes.
Standard res TV enthusiasts likely want 36" tubes. Console gamers mostly want the same.
PC gamers want 1080P wide tubes and 21" super high res 4:3 tubes.
 
Rather than try to manufacture new tubes, it would just be easier to take a road trip acrosse the U.S. in a semi collecting 19 inch TV's...
 
When I was buying and selling eletronics scrap in Southern California. Did ran across CRT glass blowing equipment. There was no demand for it. Unfortunately, the equipment went to China as scrap. There a few old old engineers I know who know how to recoat a CRT but the chemicals you need to clean a CRT will result in a toxic goo and would be impossible to get rid of in California.

There was a person that was interested in investing time and money to do this but he made a mistake when question about disposal of the toxic waste this process produces. He was just going to send it to a normal dump or bury it someplace. The people who were interested in helping with the project left when they heard this.

Could one make CRTs Out of virgin materials? To avoid most of the toxic foot print? I think so.
Coating the CRT technology is still out there.. Just find a laser lense coating company and they should be able to accomplish that task.

Not sure about building new guns. Those guys are all retired by now and are slowly dieing off.
Maybe someone in China will know or some one in Japan might know. The engineers in California would have to be in there 80s plus.

Sorry I am not more helpful.
 
I think making new crts for arcades and otherwise isn't a bad idea. Really, that's awesome but you would need to make them for cheap. I get that it's cool and all but the average person isn't going to go out of their way for 300$ if you could make a crt tv/monitor for 150$ you'd have people lining up. With arcades it'd be cheaper to fix what you got and tv's unless you're selling to movie producers it wouldn't do well. At 150$ (which I'm not sure is realistic) you'd have these thing flying out the doors I'd say. I wouldn't be bothered repairing a shitty 4600 when 150$ gets me a new perfect monitor. Don't look to America, look to China you can get those things made for cheap.
 
The world's a big place, it's amazing what's hiding here and there. I think they could be made by hand without expensive equipment, too but it would be expensive since it would take so much skilled work.

The whole idea of things like this being a lost art is b.s., if it was done before, it can be done again and probably better... it won't be though, without enough demand. For most applications, an LED t.v. is better, just not for OUR application so most other people don't have the demand for CRT's, just us arcade people.
 
The world's a big place, it's amazing what's hiding here and there. I think they could be made by hand without expensive equipment, too but it would be expensive since it would take so much skilled work.

The whole idea of things like this being a lost art is b.s., if it was done before, it can be done again and probably better... it won't be though, without enough demand. For most applications, an LED t.v. is better, just not for OUR application so most other people don't have the demand for CRT's, just us arcade people.

It's not just arcade people... There are many people who want crts for the look and style of a tv. You're right though the demand isn't exactly the same as it is for something like beer lol
 
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