Do CRT's go bad?

[Grauwulf]

Other than the obvious burn in issues what are the possibilities of a CRT being bad? I have a 34" Sharp Image monitor in a Showcase cab that I bought but I have no way of testing it as someone has removed the chassis. Is there anything I can check to guage the condition of the CRT without the chassis to power it up? And why would someone take the chassis off a monitor? to keep it as a spare for another cab? why not save the whole thing?

Looking for opinions and ideas. I hopefully can find a chassis or another Sharp Image monitor at the Starburst auction next weekend. If not I guess I'll have to give Sharp Image a call, I'm not having much luck finding one on E-Bay .

[OSCAR]

It is not uncommon for the CRT to go bad.  I have thrown out 2 bad tubes in last 2 weeks.  One had very weak emmissions and a rejuve didn't fix it; and the other had a heater-cathode short but the screen had enough burn that I didn't feel it was worth the hassle of doing the neckboard hack to bypass the short.

You can take your tube to a TV repair shop and have them connect it to a CRT restorer/analyzer to see if it is any good.  That will run probably around $35-$50 or so, but they should be able to tell you the condition of the CRT when complete.

Have you checked out http://www.8liners.com/datatech/monitor.html to see if they may have a chassis for your tube?  Email Victor with your tube info, he may be able to tell you if your tube will work with his replacment chassis.

[Grauwulf]

Outstanding information Oscar, thanks! That answer was pretty much staring me in the face, and I didn't realize it. There is a big sticker on the back of the CRT that says "Sony Trinitron", I should have realized that it's nothing more than a TV tube.  I'll give one of the local TV guys a call this morning ans see what we can come up with.