OK, who's spreading the BS around?

[Steve McVoy]

We have played the set for many, many hours. Yes, it is possible that the tube will fail in the future, but I think it is unlikely. The tube we had rebuilt was a worse case, with a huge leak at the junction between the metal and glass. The sealing method used by RACS (frit glass) appears to work well.

If the two tubes owned by Jerome Halphen are successfully rebuilt, I think we will be ready to recommend that collectors have their tubes done by RACS.

I stand by my statement that the successful rebuilding of 15GP22s is probable.

[jeyurkon]

Guess we're drifting off topic but...

From a purely statistical basis I suppose it hasn't been proven. But you could say that about any rebuild. You could always have an undetectable small leak that would cause a problem decades later.

Once could have a minimum of 5 CRTs rebuilt and then see how they're doing 20 years later, but I suspect most would rather take the risk of having theirs rebuilt rather than waiting for the results of the test.

The repairs are based on knowledge of where the leaks are and the technology used to repair them has had years of success. I think that lends credence to Steve's optimism.

Operating hours probably doesn't prove much except to show that the guns will last. Thermal cycling might be important, but that will occur at the neck of the tube where leaks haven't been found, to the best of my knowledge.

RACS has shown they can seal the glass/metal interface leak. Of the tubes I've had the opportunity to see, thanks to John and Bob, the two most probably locations for leaks are the weld on the Ultor flange and the glass/metal interface.

I don't know if any of Jerome's have a leak at the weld, but seeing how RACS deals with that version of the leak will be interesting.

John

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by jeyurkon

Guess we're drifting off topic but...

From a purely statistical basis I suppose it hasn't been proven. But you could say that about any rebuild. You could always have an undetectable small leak that would cause a problem decades later.

The repairs are based on knowledge of where the leaks are and the technology used to repair them has had years of success.

Well, it's gotten past infant mortality. And frit glass I think has been used quite well on vacuum florescent display, and probably is better than using epoxy and such (25 years ago where I worked, we had "Torr Seal" which was a white epoxy used by the guys using vacuum pumps and such)