7 ms·

Replacing the bad flyback transformer in Apple's Studio Display 17"

101 points by riveducha 3y ago

Scoundreller 3y ago
> The focus knobs should be tuned so that the screen image is sharp. I don’t really have a good set of steps for this, so just play around with them until the monitor is as sharp as can be. This explains my methodology for a lot of things in life
- nyanpasu64 3y ago
  I haven't tried focusing a CRT with two focus knobs (horizontal and vertical?), but from my general experience with focusing a CRT oscilloscope and tuning VGA signal sharpness on CRT and LCD, one good way to focus is to create three B&W images of vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, and a checkerboard. When showing the vertical stripe image, tune horizontal focus until as much of the screen as possible is in-focus. Then repeat with the horizontal stripe image and vertical focus, then double-check on a checkerboard and regular desktop usage.
  - riveducha 3y ago
    I thought that the two focus knobs would be horizontal and vertical focus, but they weren’t. Not sure how they work but there are only four options to try out (increase or decrease knob 1 or 2) so didn’t take long to do.
wkat4242 3y ago
Nice job and write-up. As the author says CRTs are dangerous. Even when they're off they can still carry insanely high voltages. The flyback transformer is one of the more dangerous components of them. I'm great at electronics repair and I tend to avoid them. Luckily these days that's easy :) If you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't attempt it. Just get a more technical friend to do it. If you do know what you're doing you probably wouldn't need this guide in the first place :)
- glhaynes 3y ago
  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!
  - toast0 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU That technique helps a lot with traces being damaged.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    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).
veave 3y ago
I find your accent soothing.
dougg3 3y ago
Thanks for sharing! I had a brand new one of these displays in 1999 when they first came out and it developed the same problem a year later. The replacement from MacMall’s warranty company (which was graphite instead of blue) also eventually developed the issue too. Good to know there’s a solution if I ever decide to fix it. I think Apple should have recalled these.
- riveducha 3y ago
  The 21” version was supposed to be solid but I have never seen anyone with one or seen it for sale. The price tag was probably too steep compared to the faulty 17” one. Sad to hear that the graphite model was just as bad though.
fragmede 3y ago
The sad reality of externality-removed capitalism is why would you do that? In our disposable economy, a new monitor can be had for cheap. Repairing things is for the poor or nerdy. which I resemble the latter pay. Incentivizing fixing things, rather than buying a new shiny flashy thing is not a thing that we do well. Oh well. Hopefully room temperature superconductors and solar and batteries can lead is to a place of victory for the environment in place of coal.
- jrmg 3y ago
  Even with the externalities accounted for, if you must use a monitor, it might be better to buy a new one than repair the old one. The replacement parts have a footprint, and a newer monitor might use so much less power in operation that it’s more efficient to make and use it than to continue to use the older CRT. I really wish there were an easy way to work out if this was where the ‘efficiency crossover happens in X years of use’ point was. For example, I have a perfectly usable Thunderbolt 1 [edit: Thunderbolt 1 dock] that meets my needs. But it uses 5-10W of power more than a new Thunderbolt 3 or 4 one would. Should I continue to use it or switch to a newer one?
  - JonathonW 3y ago
    It'll depend on your usage pattern and local cost of electricity-- if you're running that device that uses 10W more power 24/7, that works out to 87.6 kWh of additional power usage over the course of a year, or about $15 at the current average cost of electricity in the US ($0.17/kWh as of June 2023). If that's a monitor, you'd have to run it for a pretty long time before your break-even point on purchase cost alone (10+ years on a lower-end monitor, and probably not in your lifetime on something from Apple). If your usage isn't continuous (which it probably isn't), that'll reduce your electricity cost and extend your break-even point even further; if electricity costs more in your region, it'll shorten it (average EU energy prices are around double that of the US IIRC, and some countries are much higher). But it's still going to take a while to break even if the efficiency improvements you're considering are in the 5-10W ballpark; that's not all that much power in the grand scheme of things.
aurizon 3y ago
That 'snap' is the arc and the voltage = zero until it gets going again - repeat. This is common on old monitors as dust builds up and often a fix can be done by a careful cleaning plus application of 'corona dope' along spark paths. Turn it on in a dark room and watch/listen for the spark. Dope that path and alternate paths and dry with hair dryer. Test. There are universal repair flybacks - select what seems to fit. Usually the existing controller will serve - computer monitors are far smaller than most TV's of that era. Hardest thing is finding new old stock. To save the nation new flybacks can be wound - complex but doable. Hardest problem is adapting the space and circuit. The flyback can be wired point to point with hookup wire. Only the HV wire needs to be HV wire. Then you can zip tie the flyback in whatever space and dress the HV with respect.
vondur 3y ago
We had a bunch of these monitors back in the day, don’t remember any of them dying early. I was always afraid of taking apart CRTs thanks to those transformers in them. People used to overclock monitors back in the day to increase the refresh frequency.
- mhb 3y ago
  The capacitors are the things to be concerned about.
Hizonner 3y ago
> Opening up CRTs is dangerous. Do this at your own risk. Considering hiring a professional instead. Hire a professional. To fix a quarter-century-old monitor that was nothing special when it was new. Why? I mean, I wouldn't bother fixing the thing anyway, but hiring somebody is going to cost you more than a much better brand new monitor.
- teh_klev 3y ago
  > To fix a quarter-century-old monitor that was nothing special when it was new. > Why? I mean, I wouldn't bother fixing the thing anyway, but hiring somebody is going to cost you more than a much better brand new monitor. There are folks out there who spend their time fixing unexceptional cars such as old Ford Orions, Austin Metros, VW Golf Mk 3's (poverty spec) and so on. In their day these were the most boring of the mundane mass market motors you could buy. But it's about capturing and snapshotting a point in time. Sure this particular monitor was probably crap, but combined with a same period Mac it's a time capsule. You might think it's a waste of time, for others it's a hobby/past time. And it's one less thing in the landfill.
  - whalesalad 3y ago
    Oddly enough I have a thing for MK3 GTI’s
- userbinator 3y ago
  Standard legal boilerplate disclaimer?
- rasz 3y ago
  Collecting and repairing vintage computer electronics as a hobby is comparable to lego or embroidering, except for this one specific example where it will easily Fking kill you. People might not expect mellow past time to have such dangerous traps.
metadat 3y ago
I love this kind hardcore repair hacking to keep hardware going. There is no logical reason to spend time on this, yet someone did. Big respect to the author, you are inspiring!
ivraatiems 3y ago
I have a fully functional third-gen iMac (the "jelly bean") that needed its inner bezel replaced. Sourcing a non-broken bezel was one big job, but even after I did, finding someone with the knowledge and skill to repair it safely was a task. I wasn't willing to do the repair myself, it's just too dangerous for an amateur. These machines are supposed to have components that automatically discharge the screen after they're removed from wall power, but on a 20+ year old machine, no way to know whether that was working. You have to touch the screen and fasten it to the inner bezel, so repairing it without proper discharge was a non-starter. I called around to various TV repair shops and was generally told they couldn't do it, or that it'd be prohibitively expensive. Finally, an electronics surplus store in my area referred me to a gentleman of the old-school AV hippy variety who knew how to repair all sorts of old equipment. He was able to construct a tool to ground the machine while working on it and we did the repair successfully together. It was an adventure!
- mvandermeulen 3y ago
  > we did the repair successfully together Excellent anecdote and love to hear that these people still exist
- zxexz 3y ago
  I would absolutely love to hear more about this, any of the details you care to share. Truly does sound like an adventure.
- winrid 3y ago
  So he made a connector with a resistor that connected to ground? Is this different than normal TV repair somehow?
andyjohnson0 3y ago
From what I understand of this, the danger comes from charge stored in large capacitors. So what is the longest that these capacitors can hold a significant charge if the crt is left disconnected from mains power? Hours/days/weeks? Is simply waiting long enough a reliable way to render a crt safe to work on? (Irrespective of the answer to this, there is no chance at all that I would ever mess with crt circuitry. But I am curious.)
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  I got a really nasty shock from a capacitor in a flash (as in camera) that was powered down for weeks, back in the 90s.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    When I was an asshole little kid I would pull these out of disposable cameras and use them to Tase people at school.
    - zxexz 3y ago
      I remember building a crappy, but extremely dangerous (to the user), Gauss gun out of a stack of discarded disposable cameras, when I was much younger. I remember pulling out the capacitor and the charging circuit was pretty easy, and you just hook them all up in parallel, connect to a stack of AA or D cells in parallel. Still amazed I never died from doing crap like that. Definitely vaporized a few sections of skin and lit sections of my hair on fire a few times :) I recall repurposing the Gauss gun as a tiny "handheld" EMP that would vaporize a section of wire. Made a Win95 thinkpad (ancient now, old then) do funny things.
    - ComputerGuru 3y ago
      I guess some clarification on the word "tase" is required. In my case, the shock threw me back some distance – I won't give in to hyperbole and say "threw me across the room" but 'twas nothing like the gentle tickle of 120VAC or the throb of 230VAC.
- 3y ago
watersb 3y ago
Oh man... I used to run a network with hundreds of Macs. I still remember that One Monitor, flyback transformer I could hear from my office cube, in another wing, one floor down.
serf 3y ago
Everyone in the comments keeps saying "if you don't know what you're doing, go find someone that does, skip the work, dont touch it", etc etc. i'm here to say that that kind of behavior doesn't foster self improvement and learning. here's what I suggest : learn about the job, learn about the hazards, take the precautions, get the equipment, don't let your guard down, and then do the work by-the-book. you'll learn something in the process, both about the thing itself and the concept of maintaining a 'safety culture' around work that requires it. You won't get hurt, because you're going to follow the right safety precautions and work procedures. Now, if you want to throw your hands up and just say "i'm not willing to put the hours in to ... " , then by all means, don't take the risk -- have it done. If you're in this for the pursuit of knowledge/skill/craft/gratifications then just pursue it as you would anything that is potentially dangerous and take the right steps. You wouldn't tell someone to stay off a motorcycle, it's an enjoyable past-time -- you would remind them to follow safe driving procedure and to wear protective equipment.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Here's some good discussion of the risks: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/how-dangerous-or-lethal-is-hv-in-crt-devices/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/how-dangerous-or-lethal-i...
- bombcar 3y ago
  The hazards have to be knowable (they all are) and you have to take the precautions. The trick is, that professionals often need to know how to do something just barely safely so that they can do it fast and efficiently. But a hobbyist doesn't need to do it fast, so you can do it very safely. In this example, learn how to ground out the equipment, do so, and then leave it for weeks, etc.
  - ddingus 3y ago
    Yes! And that is precisely the advice I got many years ago. Take your time, get educated, when possible talk to people and get the task done. Over time a lot of best safety practices overlap and blend together and one learns how to be safe without so much angst and unknown prep. Doing things yourself adds right up too. After a few years you will end up quite skilled and the payoffs start to have real impact!
unfocused 3y ago
For those interested in Electronics repairs, have a look at Mr. Carlson's Lab on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrCarlsonsLab/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MrCarlsonsLab/videos Lots of detail and explanations. P.S. I'm not affiliated with anything, I just genuinely think this is one of the best (educational) channels out there on this.
clueless123 3y ago
Maybe I was super lucky or somehow immune.. but as a Kid I got zapped by flyback transformers quite a bit of times.. (5 or 6 times?) It hurts,and it leaves a burn point where it touched.. but did not killed me. Eventually I learned to ground the whole thing with a cooper cable and a resistor.
ddingus 3y ago
https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU This desoldering component technique video is well worth your time. Of all the basic electronics skills, doing this has always been challenging, particularly on older equipment where the copper traces will tend to peel up. Having that happen is not the end of the world because a simple bodge wire is not hard to do in most cases. But, there are times when a failure like that can really matter! A flyback with the high voltages can be one of those times when you just want a clean replacement. This guy shows you how to use wire to desolder many component pins at one time.

101 points by riveducha 3y ago

> The focus knobs should be tuned so that the screen image is sharp. I don’t really have a good set of steps for this, so just play around with them until the monitor is as sharp as can be. This explains my methodology for a lot of things in life

nyanpasu64 3y ago
I haven't tried focusing a CRT with two focus knobs (horizontal and vertical?), but from my general experience with focusing a CRT oscilloscope and tuning VGA signal sharpness on CRT and LCD, one good way to focus is to create three B&W images of vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, and a checkerboard. When showing the vertical stripe image, tune horizontal focus until as much of the screen as possible is in-focus. Then repeat with the horizontal stripe image and vertical focus, then double-check on a checkerboard and regular desktop usage.
- riveducha 3y ago
  I thought that the two focus knobs would be horizontal and vertical focus, but they weren’t. Not sure how they work but there are only four options to try out (increase or decrease knob 1 or 2) so didn’t take long to do.

wkat4242 3y ago

Nice job and write-up. As the author says CRTs are dangerous. Even when they're off they can still carry insanely high voltages. The flyback transformer is one of the more dangerous components of them. I'm great at electronics repair and I tend to avoid them. Luckily these days that's easy :) If you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't attempt it. Just get a more technical friend to do it. If you do know what you're doing you probably wouldn't need this guide in the first place :)

glhaynes 3y ago
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!
- toast0 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU That technique helps a lot with traces being damaged.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  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).

veave 3y ago

I find your accent soothing.

dougg3 3y ago

Thanks for sharing! I had a brand new one of these displays in 1999 when they first came out and it developed the same problem a year later. The replacement from MacMall’s warranty company (which was graphite instead of blue) also eventually developed the issue too. Good to know there’s a solution if I ever decide to fix it. I think Apple should have recalled these.

riveducha 3y ago
The 21” version was supposed to be solid but I have never seen anyone with one or seen it for sale. The price tag was probably too steep compared to the faulty 17” one. Sad to hear that the graphite model was just as bad though.

fragmede 3y ago

The sad reality of externality-removed capitalism is why would you do that? In our disposable economy, a new monitor can be had for cheap. Repairing things is for the poor or nerdy. which I resemble the latter pay. Incentivizing fixing things, rather than buying a new shiny flashy thing is not a thing that we do well. Oh well. Hopefully room temperature superconductors and solar and batteries can lead is to a place of victory for the environment in place of coal.

jrmg 3y ago
Even with the externalities accounted for, if you must use a monitor, it might be better to buy a new one than repair the old one. The replacement parts have a footprint, and a newer monitor might use so much less power in operation that it’s more efficient to make and use it than to continue to use the older CRT. I really wish there were an easy way to work out if this was where the ‘efficiency crossover happens in X years of use’ point was. For example, I have a perfectly usable Thunderbolt 1 [edit: Thunderbolt 1 dock] that meets my needs. But it uses 5-10W of power more than a new Thunderbolt 3 or 4 one would. Should I continue to use it or switch to a newer one?
- JonathonW 3y ago
  It'll depend on your usage pattern and local cost of electricity-- if you're running that device that uses 10W more power 24/7, that works out to 87.6 kWh of additional power usage over the course of a year, or about $15 at the current average cost of electricity in the US ($0.17/kWh as of June 2023). If that's a monitor, you'd have to run it for a pretty long time before your break-even point on purchase cost alone (10+ years on a lower-end monitor, and probably not in your lifetime on something from Apple). If your usage isn't continuous (which it probably isn't), that'll reduce your electricity cost and extend your break-even point even further; if electricity costs more in your region, it'll shorten it (average EU energy prices are around double that of the US IIRC, and some countries are much higher). But it's still going to take a while to break even if the efficiency improvements you're considering are in the 5-10W ballpark; that's not all that much power in the grand scheme of things.

aurizon 3y ago

That 'snap' is the arc and the voltage = zero until it gets going again - repeat. This is common on old monitors as dust builds up and often a fix can be done by a careful cleaning plus application of 'corona dope' along spark paths. Turn it on in a dark room and watch/listen for the spark. Dope that path and alternate paths and dry with hair dryer. Test. There are universal repair flybacks - select what seems to fit. Usually the existing controller will serve - computer monitors are far smaller than most TV's of that era. Hardest thing is finding new old stock. To save the nation new flybacks can be wound - complex but doable. Hardest problem is adapting the space and circuit. The flyback can be wired point to point with hookup wire. Only the HV wire needs to be HV wire. Then you can zip tie the flyback in whatever space and dress the HV with respect.

vondur 3y ago

We had a bunch of these monitors back in the day, don’t remember any of them dying early. I was always afraid of taking apart CRTs thanks to those transformers in them. People used to overclock monitors back in the day to increase the refresh frequency.

mhb 3y ago
The capacitors are the things to be concerned about.

Hizonner 3y ago

> Opening up CRTs is dangerous. Do this at your own risk. Considering hiring a professional instead. Hire a professional. To fix a quarter-century-old monitor that was nothing special when it was new. Why? I mean, I wouldn't bother fixing the thing anyway, but hiring somebody is going to cost you more than a much better brand new monitor.

teh_klev 3y ago
> To fix a quarter-century-old monitor that was nothing special when it was new. > Why? I mean, I wouldn't bother fixing the thing anyway, but hiring somebody is going to cost you more than a much better brand new monitor. There are folks out there who spend their time fixing unexceptional cars such as old Ford Orions, Austin Metros, VW Golf Mk 3's (poverty spec) and so on. In their day these were the most boring of the mundane mass market motors you could buy. But it's about capturing and snapshotting a point in time. Sure this particular monitor was probably crap, but combined with a same period Mac it's a time capsule. You might think it's a waste of time, for others it's a hobby/past time. And it's one less thing in the landfill.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  Oddly enough I have a thing for MK3 GTI’s
userbinator 3y ago
Standard legal boilerplate disclaimer?
rasz 3y ago
Collecting and repairing vintage computer electronics as a hobby is comparable to lego or embroidering, except for this one specific example where it will easily Fking kill you. People might not expect mellow past time to have such dangerous traps.

metadat 3y ago

I love this kind hardcore repair hacking to keep hardware going. There is no logical reason to spend time on this, yet someone did. Big respect to the author, you are inspiring!

ivraatiems 3y ago

I have a fully functional third-gen iMac (the "jelly bean") that needed its inner bezel replaced. Sourcing a non-broken bezel was one big job, but even after I did, finding someone with the knowledge and skill to repair it safely was a task. I wasn't willing to do the repair myself, it's just too dangerous for an amateur. These machines are supposed to have components that automatically discharge the screen after they're removed from wall power, but on a 20+ year old machine, no way to know whether that was working. You have to touch the screen and fasten it to the inner bezel, so repairing it without proper discharge was a non-starter. I called around to various TV repair shops and was generally told they couldn't do it, or that it'd be prohibitively expensive. Finally, an electronics surplus store in my area referred me to a gentleman of the old-school AV hippy variety who knew how to repair all sorts of old equipment. He was able to construct a tool to ground the machine while working on it and we did the repair successfully together. It was an adventure!

mvandermeulen 3y ago
> we did the repair successfully together Excellent anecdote and love to hear that these people still exist
zxexz 3y ago
I would absolutely love to hear more about this, any of the details you care to share. Truly does sound like an adventure.
winrid 3y ago
So he made a connector with a resistor that connected to ground? Is this different than normal TV repair somehow?

andyjohnson0 3y ago

From what I understand of this, the danger comes from charge stored in large capacitors. So what is the longest that these capacitors can hold a significant charge if the crt is left disconnected from mains power? Hours/days/weeks? Is simply waiting long enough a reliable way to render a crt safe to work on? (Irrespective of the answer to this, there is no chance at all that I would ever mess with crt circuitry. But I am curious.)

ComputerGuru 3y ago
I got a really nasty shock from a capacitor in a flash (as in camera) that was powered down for weeks, back in the 90s.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  When I was an asshole little kid I would pull these out of disposable cameras and use them to Tase people at school.
  - zxexz 3y ago
    I remember building a crappy, but extremely dangerous (to the user), Gauss gun out of a stack of discarded disposable cameras, when I was much younger. I remember pulling out the capacitor and the charging circuit was pretty easy, and you just hook them all up in parallel, connect to a stack of AA or D cells in parallel. Still amazed I never died from doing crap like that. Definitely vaporized a few sections of skin and lit sections of my hair on fire a few times :) I recall repurposing the Gauss gun as a tiny "handheld" EMP that would vaporize a section of wire. Made a Win95 thinkpad (ancient now, old then) do funny things.
  - ComputerGuru 3y ago
    I guess some clarification on the word "tase" is required. In my case, the shock threw me back some distance – I won't give in to hyperbole and say "threw me across the room" but 'twas nothing like the gentle tickle of 120VAC or the throb of 230VAC.
3y ago

watersb 3y ago

Oh man... I used to run a network with hundreds of Macs. I still remember that One Monitor, flyback transformer I could hear from my office cube, in another wing, one floor down.

serf 3y ago

Everyone in the comments keeps saying "if you don't know what you're doing, go find someone that does, skip the work, dont touch it", etc etc. i'm here to say that that kind of behavior doesn't foster self improvement and learning. here's what I suggest : learn about the job, learn about the hazards, take the precautions, get the equipment, don't let your guard down, and then do the work by-the-book. you'll learn something in the process, both about the thing itself and the concept of maintaining a 'safety culture' around work that requires it. You won't get hurt, because you're going to follow the right safety precautions and work procedures. Now, if you want to throw your hands up and just say "i'm not willing to put the hours in to ... " , then by all means, don't take the risk -- have it done. If you're in this for the pursuit of knowledge/skill/craft/gratifications then just pursue it as you would anything that is potentially dangerous and take the right steps. You wouldn't tell someone to stay off a motorcycle, it's an enjoyable past-time -- you would remind them to follow safe driving procedure and to wear protective equipment.

userbinator 3y ago
Here's some good discussion of the risks: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/how-dangerous-or-lethal-is-hv-in-crt-devices/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/how-dangerous-or-lethal-i...
bombcar 3y ago
The hazards have to be knowable (they all are) and you have to take the precautions. The trick is, that professionals often need to know how to do something just barely safely so that they can do it fast and efficiently. But a hobbyist doesn't need to do it fast, so you can do it very safely. In this example, learn how to ground out the equipment, do so, and then leave it for weeks, etc.
- ddingus 3y ago
  Yes! And that is precisely the advice I got many years ago. Take your time, get educated, when possible talk to people and get the task done. Over time a lot of best safety practices overlap and blend together and one learns how to be safe without so much angst and unknown prep. Doing things yourself adds right up too. After a few years you will end up quite skilled and the payoffs start to have real impact!

unfocused 3y ago

For those interested in Electronics repairs, have a look at Mr. Carlson's Lab on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrCarlsonsLab/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MrCarlsonsLab/videos Lots of detail and explanations. P.S. I'm not affiliated with anything, I just genuinely think this is one of the best (educational) channels out there on this.

clueless123 3y ago

Maybe I was super lucky or somehow immune.. but as a Kid I got zapped by flyback transformers quite a bit of times.. (5 or 6 times?) It hurts,and it leaves a burn point where it touched.. but did not killed me. Eventually I learned to ground the whole thing with a cooper cable and a resistor.

ddingus 3y ago

https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU https://youtu.be/Vou2xlJkuoU This desoldering component technique video is well worth your time. Of all the basic electronics skills, doing this has always been challenging, particularly on older equipment where the copper traces will tend to peel up. Having that happen is not the end of the world because a simple bodge wire is not hard to do in most cases. But, there are times when a failure like that can really matter! A flyback with the high voltages can be one of those times when you just want a clean replacement. This guy shows you how to use wire to desolder many component pins at one time.