[glhaynes]

I've never worked inside a CRT (but may need to soon) and am not great at electronics repair, but I'm a little surprised you describe yourself as having a lot of skill but still tend to avoid them. From my understanding, it's straightforward to reliably discharge them and make them safe to work on. Do you think it's easier to get this wrong than I've understood or do you just feel uneasy about it in general? Just curious!

[wkat4242]

It's just the risk. Most components in a modern TV are very safe to work on. Even the PSU is not that bad. CCFL backlight had voltages only in the hundreds of volts, and modern LED backlight is even lower. A CRT is totally different business. The author of the article pointed out another thing, wire insulation properties at such high voltages.

There's just a lot to consider, and extremely high voltage stuff isn't really my area. I tend to do more low voltage stuff. When things go wrong with high voltage they tend to go wrong pretty spectacularly, and can cause serious bodily harm too. I just prefer not to take the risk. I'm similarly cautious with Li-ion and Li-Po battery charging circuitry. I don't like to mess around with those and if I repair them it's purely a like-for-like repair.

Another thing is that when I started with electronics CRTs were still very common and I wasn't skilled then, as such I had a lot of respect for them and a lot of caution. As my skills grew, CRTs became obsolete so I never really got comfortable with them and the apprehensive feeling remained.

But I think I have skills with electronics yes, I repair a lot of electronics, designed some of my own and I also built and modded some radios, and came up with some of my own mods (I have a ham license too).

[rasz]

Im an EE that never worked on CRT and declined plenty of requests. I also like to think Im quite mechanically inclined, but I would _never_ go anywhere close to a split rim being serviced. There are things just not worth the risk in life, like jumping head down into unknown stream, or skating down handrails.

[bombcar]

Split rims is a good example of the kind of risks - they can be handled correctly but the temptation to skip steps is always there - but much more strongly there for people who do it a lot. If you replace them once, you can be anal about the safety (cage + chain + remote fill) because you don't need the speed.

I'd still replace the worst split rims with at least deuce rims.

[toast0]

One problem is there are a lot of adjustments that are really best made while the CRT is on. Another problem is CRT circuit boards experience a lot of heat, so repair work can be frustrating; it's hard to replace components and what not when traces have lifted.

[ddingus]

https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU

That technique helps a lot with traces being damaged.