Re: Monitor Discharging

This person (todd1814) has NO idea what he is talking about. First, the
charge on a monitor is NOT lethal (no current) as it is a static electric
charge. It certainly will give you a healthy shock and that is dangerous
because you might drop the picture tube (a bomb!), but otherwise not a
serious (life threatening) situation. I have accidently discharged a few
monitors through my arms over the years and no ill effects (I think ;-).

His second point about discharging the high voltage to the ground of an
electrical outlet is just foolish. Sorry, it has to be said. He does not
understand electricity at all, that is obvious. A charged picture tube is a
rather large capacitor that is discharged by shorting ITSELF out. This can
usually be accomplished by jumping the anode (under the rubber cap) to the
chassis with a short piece of wire. A screwdriver is perfect for the job,
just connect a wire to the chassis (assuming that the tube has not been
removed) and then slid the blade under the rubber cap until you hear a
"Snap", then press the blade against the metal tab holding the anode lead
to the cup in the side of the tube for a short time to complete the
discharge. After the HV lead is removed, I like to leave a jumper lead
connecting the anode cup to the chassis for a while to clean up any
residual charge.

I have made a series of pictures showing the safe way to remove a monitor
chassis @:

http://www.flippers.com/vidtips.html

critiques welcome!

John :-#)#

At 09:31 AM 12/9/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>I had understood, and I am uncertain if this applies equally to vector and
>raster monitors (meaning I hope I'm on topic! :) ) that when discharging a
>monitor quickly, you go from annode to monitor chassis. I believe in fact
>someone was quite adamant that you *not* go from annode to a ground in the
>wall.
>
>I ran across this site that takes completely the opposite point of view:
>http://www3.50megs.com/todd1814/capkit/capkit.htm
>
>It also goes on that discharging to the chassis is a good way to fry your
>PCB.
>
>Anyone in the know care to comment? Is this web site correct, or grossly
>in error?
>
>Thanks!
>
>--- saint

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Received on Thu Dec 9 10:32:42 1999