CRT manufacturing equipment

I fear it isn't just the equipment, but the knowledge...like convergence...

And all of the nasty chemicals needed to make them. This is most likely the reason they will never be made again no matter what equipment or knowledge there is still available.
 
This

And all of the nasty chemicals needed to make them. This is most likely the reason they will never be made again no matter what equipment or knowledge there is still available.

You wouldn't be making them in the USA, that is for sure. Too expensive to get the permits and properly dispose of the hazmat.
 
Don't forget, the medical, government, and science fields still use CRTs due to the purity of the colors that you cannot achieve with LED/LCD/OLED/etc. In many fields, you absolutely must have purity in the color and black must be black. CRTs are still the king with this and as a result, fields where research or standardization is needed will still use a CRT over anything else.

Television studios also still use CRT quite a bit in studio. So while the CRT appears "dead" from our perspective, the manufacturing and knowledge about them is far from dead.
 
Steve, have you guys been looking for 19" tv's to use as tube swaps? I've done several over the last few months and they all have come out great.

Just not too sure how long the supply will last.
 
We'll get some kind of 3D-printed curved OLED (or successor) monitor before anyone starts manufacturing CRTs again. Even if a full CRT line still existed out there, it would likely cost more to start production back up than anyone would ever make. There are bazillions of CRTs still around and almost no demand, arcade collectors and retro gamers aren't even a blip on the radar compared to how many of these things were made near the end of the run.
 
We'll get some kind of 3D-printed curved OLED (or successor) monitor before anyone starts manufacturing CRTs again. Even if a full CRT line still existed out there, it would likely cost more to start production back up than anyone would ever make. There are bazillions of CRTs still around and almost no demand, arcade collectors and retro gamers aren't even a blip on the radar compared to how many of these things were made near the end of the run.

The problem is finding them before they get recycled... I used to be able to find at least one usable 19 TV tube on CL at any given time - not so much anymore... Now when I type in 19 and TV on CL I mostly get 19 inch flat screen LCD TVs....
 
The problem is finding them before they get recycled... I used to be able to find at least one usable 19 TV tube on CL at any given time - not so much anymore... Now when I type in 19 and TV on CL I mostly get 19 inch flat screen LCD TVs....



Oh that's definitely true, I used to buy them at goodwill for $1 too but now they're gone. But I was talking more about manufacturing. Assuming crt production is completely shut down, it's not getting restarted again unless someone is willing to buy in bulk. I bet there are still warehouses of unused tubes out there still if someone looked hard enough. Even if there aren't though, there's just not a big enough demand to start manufacturing them again. Consumer demand for TVs drove that market and consumers don't want CRTs.
 

The seller can't keep any of their details straight in the ad.
The model numbers they list belong to arcade pushbuttons. The listing is also full of pictures of buttons.
These tubes are listed as both widescreen and 4:3.
720p is a widescreen format.
They are both 20-31 inch and 14-26 inch.
And they respond to only 30 percent of inquiries.
 
The seller can't keep any of their details straight in the ad.
The model numbers they list belong to arcade pushbuttons. The listing is also full of pictures of buttons.
These tubes are listed as both widescreen and 4:3.
720p is a widescreen format.
They are both 20-31 inch and 14-26 inch.
And they respond to only 30 percent of inquiries.

Seems legit. LOL
 
I think the best solution instead of trying to revive CRT manufacturing is to design an LCD monitor to have the same look and feel of a CRT. Just use the CRT shape as a shell, put the LCD screen in it (rounded curved display and all) and futz with the look until you get something 99% accurate to the original look and feel.

There's no reason why we can't use today's technology to recreate yesterday's.

Obviously I'm not talking about just jamming a normal LCD screen in a cab and calling it a day. But it would be far cheaper to design a "fake" CRT monitor than a real one at this point.

It would be lighter, require less power, be far safer to work on and troubleshoot... etc

I'm all for keeping things original but man... 100 years from now it's gonna be a bit difficult to come across a nice working CRT monitor... I'm trying to think about future arcade rooms or barcades or whatever... Like if you have 50-100 machines in a public arcade right now, it must be hell trying to deal with CRTs. I can't imagine trying to do that 50-100 years from now.
 
I think it would be cheaper to make a unverisal monitor pcb and buy all of the 19" tube one can find no matter what style or type of tube it is. That would be a bit cheaper. Compared to building your own tube. It should old video arcade machines a little more life.
 
I think the best solution instead of trying to revive CRT manufacturing is to design an LCD monitor to have the same look and feel of a CRT. Just use the CRT shape as a shell, put the LCD screen in it (rounded curved display and all) and futz with the look until you get something 99% accurate to the original look and feel.

Funny you should say that. I watched a video last week where the guy took a 19"CRT and busted it all apart except the front glass and stuffed an LCD into what was left.

Wish I could find the video now.
 
Funny you should say that. I watched a video last week where the guy took a 19"CRT and busted it all apart except the front glass and stuffed an LCD into what was left.

Wish I could find the video now.

I can't imagine that a flat panel behind a convex piece of glass would look right. I've probably got a dozen tubes and feel like I need to hurry up and hoard a bunch more.
 
Not right now. It is easy to move an electon beam (elecromagnets), but very hard to move a laser (mirrors on a special motor). It is extremely hard to display raster images with high refresh rates using lasers with current scanning technology.

This would be the holy grail though.

Could low powered lasers and a some sort of phosphor screen be used instead.
Use newer tech, but same principle.
 
Not right now. It is easy to move an electon beam (elecromagnets), but very hard to move a laser (mirrors on a special motor). It is extremely hard to display raster images with high refresh rates using lasers with current scanning technology.

This would be the holy grail though.


You do realize this is old tech? Laser DLP has been around for a number of years now. This is literally what you are talking about.
 
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