My first spontaneous CRT implosion.
 

I had my first spontaneous CRT implosion the other day.

https://i.imgur.com/GELzypQ.jpg

The set is a Rank Area C2601 from 1975 - Locally assembled from imported kits, these were one of the first color sets available in Australia. I picked this one up of the side of the road a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't got around to doing anything with it yet. It had been sitting on the shelf untouched.

https://i.imgur.com/UuvvenW.jpg

I was in another part of the building when I heard the bang.

https://i.imgur.com/ACJpHxA.jpg

The LCD survived the incident.

https://i.imgur.com/u1LfgvB.jpg

The force pushed broke the back cover off it's mounts.

https://i.imgur.com/BOyqkjG.jpg

The CRT was a Thomas Electronics rebuild.

https://i.imgur.com/zLwaLgB.jpg

The yoke and clover leaf were damaged, but the chassis while full of glass particles seems to be ok.

https://i.imgur.com/Oi7AqPZ.jpg

The remains of the shadowmask.

https://i.imgur.com/C14YM3O.jpg

It's is hard to see in the picture, but the join is uneven - not that I've seen many rebuilds, so this maybe normal.

Wow. Looks like it murder-suicided with the LCD set infront of it.

Glad I have yet to experience an implosion knock on wood.

I wonder how common deltagun CRTs are over there. 23", 25" rectangular and 21" round are easiest to find here everything else takes luck and patience.

I trust you sent in the warranty card back in the day...

I've seen broken via shipping or by choice, but never spontaneous. (Unless that LCD was giving him a hard time...)

Growing up we had a 50's Zenith & the separate safety screen disintegrated.
Took out the remains & we used it for years. Seen a few go to air over nite for
no reason & even had a customer shoot his Admiral console. He got pissed
when the Bruins lost a game & shot the SOB with his 1911 45 cal.
BTW thats a Hitachi chassis, same looking as US ones in the early 70's.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

I've only seen that happen whilst EOLing a TV with a gun. Don't sit too close to the TV I guess :eek:

I think this is the first time I've heard of a tube imploding "spontaneously" other than early developmental units in the lab.

Maybe someone with more experience can enlighten me.

We didn't get color TV until 1975 - only a few of the very first models sold here were delta gun. Most of not all of the components in this set are NEC.

The only realistic way to get this set working again would be to swap in a more recent chassis and inline tube - if I can make a 27" SPC fit in there - 26" aren't that easy to find anymore. Otherwise, it may end up as a pet bed

It seems that the problem was more prevalent with a Zenith! Lucky thing, it was at night when no one was in the room.
The label on the back states "Rank-NEC".

There must've been some kind of defect in the front glass. A ticking time bomb. I would guess, anyway. What else could it have been?

I have seen brandnew CRTs cracking caused by fast temperature changes. In this cases the neck broke of but nothing dramatic happend.
The only damaged screen glasses were caused by fall.
I worked in a TV manufacturing plant until 2003 when it went bankrupt.
So I'm talking about 100000s of CRT TVs :scratch2:

Same here (although in the field).

I've never once heard of a CRT imploding with anything short of a gunshot to the faceplace.

John

Makes me feel a little better about the 1987 vintage NEC 30" TV stored out in the garage with its temperature extremes for the last 12 years next to my 1988 S10 pickup truck. If that tube imploded like the OP, the truck would likely be totaled! I may still have to get that out of there just to be safe.:scratch2:

ISTR someone posting about a spontaneous implosion of the CRT in a 50s set in their collection here on VK in the last 2-3 years...

I used to own an otherwise mint with paperwork CBS 50s console that the original owners told me had the safety glass spontaneously shatter when it was fairly new.

thread here : http://www.videokarma.org/showthread...t=packard+bell

jr

Could there have been a scratch or chip on the tube face?

I had a b/w Zenith console that had a rough ride home with me (fell over in the back of the truck, I was 18 and careless). Set worked great. At one point I was keeping it in an unheated building. I walked in there after a cold snap and there was a large crack across the screen, but no implosion. My guess is the glass sustained minor damage when the set fell and the cold snap was the last straw.

Witnessing an implosion is very VERY unpleasant, I know this first hand.
It can best be described as being in an auto accident, and slammed into a wall at the same time.

It was back in my HS electronics class, ( where I got my CTC-16XL from), many people would often donate their dead and dying electronic stuff to the school, all sorts of fun stuff to play with, TVs, AMPs, Radios, you name it.

The TVs were mostly of the delta CRT type, hybrid, tube, solid , whatever, all sizes, mostly 19 inch, and 25vxx22 (whatever.)

And we get to play with them in the 2nd part of the class, Lab, which is what I was doing when it happened.
I don't remember the make or model, just that it was a 25v, with a bad/weak CRT, but good chassis, and hunting around, I found a GOOD CRT that was the right size that would fit, but when I went to put it in, the mounting bracket did not line up in the enclosure, all the holes to screw it down vanished. :/

Meaning I had to remove the tension band and bracket assy from the bad CRT and put it on the good one, no big deal.
Place bad CRT on big 3 inch styrofoam mat face down, tension band and bracket assy came off no problem, bad CRT was bound for the trash heap, went to remove the offending hardware from the good CRT and put the one that fit on...
started to loosen the tension band and... KABOOOM!
It suddenly decided not to be a CRT any longer.

It felt like I was hit by a car, grabbed by an unseen force and violently pulled forward, my ears were ringing for quite some time from the concussion and sound of it, we were in a rather large classroom, and to help keep things cool, the door was kept half open, after the implosion, it was slammed shut from the inrush of air.

The very first thing I remember is, after opening my eyes was, phosphor , phosphor everywhere...
it was like a silver cloud in the air, that soon coated everything.
Glass was ALL OVER THE PLACE, mostly in very tiny pieces, largest being 2 inches or so.
And the most miraculous thing was, I was unhurt, aside from a minor cut on the chin, and soreness days later being like what I can only describe as whiplash, from being grabbed by the sudden vacuum, an overall very nasty thing to go through.

Tension band and mounting band are entirely different things. I hope you were not removing a tension band.

you are correct :p
it was the "mounting band"
the thingy that held the brackets to the corners.

I figured you knew, just don't like to leave possibly misinterpreted things here for newbies to get into trouble! :thmbsp:

Yikes. Glad I have yet to have that happen (knock on wood).
The closest I've had CRT damage wise is 2 rectangular color CRTs mid cataract removal developing screen cracks...one was definitely my fault the other was spontaneous. The one I caused was the first RCA CRT I ever tried a removal on. I was using the sun and wedge method and the wedges cracked the outer ring of the safety glass off...I was trying to chisel the rest of the safety glass off but I was getting lots of little cuts from it and between that and the 100 degree heat I gave up and set the scalding hot CRT in the cool water pool in the shade to switch to the water removal method...when the face went into the water I suddenly remembered what glass does when you change its temp rapidly and realized I was holding a bomb for a split second my mind raced "do I pull it out and try to save it or do I just run?" I chose to run and about 10sec later ting!, TING, ting, hiss gurgle...the screen cracked and it sucked water in....the water was still in there a few months later when I smashed it up and threw it out. The second did its face cracking in the sun and I was a bit further away when it happened so I was less scared and more bummed.

Back in my college senior design project I managed to have a near deaf experience. After I had brought in my hobby plasma speaker to show off it inspired another member on our team to bring in his electric fuel cell which was promptly filled with water, road salt (it was winter in Milwaukee), soap and other things and bubbles of H2 gas were being lit by our butane soldering torch. Our project involved high power at low voltage so we had to solder pencil thickness wires together. The bubbles ignited occasionally with the enthusiasm of good bubble gum to that of damp firecrackers...I was fascinated by this and was handed the torch. Now our lab room was a big room, it was a full size class room turned lab that could accommodate 5 or more 5 man teams and their projects easily. Within a moment of me having the torch I inadvertently found the mother of all gas bubbles in the tank, and it went off like a cannon!
It extinguished the torch splashed a bench of test equipment like a show at Sea World and I was deaf for a few minutes to the point where you could shout at me and I could shout and I wouldn't hear a peep over the ringing...one guy on our team who was some kind of military at some point and was tough'n'gruff who was on the far side of the room said it was such a bang he "almost shit himself". We were lucky about one thing...it was probably after 10PM and nobody else was in the building to hear it and complain. Our project and to an extent other projects in that lab were the animal house of senior design that year. Within a day my hearing had normalized, but I doubt I'll ever hear anything louder.

Don't shoot your TV when you get pissed. That safety glass is very thick.
I used to load primers only so I could safely ease my frustrations.
Good call John.

That Rank Area was a cool set, I hope you can eventually find a replacement crt.

A few years back I had a '57 Zenith implode for no reason. During a heatwave, I wasn't in the room, I heard a boom and when I went in there... Glass allover my living room. No idea why it imploded, all I could think of was the expansion and contraction of a 100 degree day.