On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:07:34 -0800, Don Bruder Gave
us:

In article ,
Sammy wrote:

My PC monitor (17 inch glass tube) is about 4 years old and has
been used heavily. I took the cover off to fix a loose connection
because the picture was sometimes jumping.

Inside the circuit board was quite dusty and rather sooty. The
CRT tube and anything neary was very sooty.

---- Is there any merit in cleaning (hoovering or gently wiping)
this dirt? ----


MY THINKING: I figured that the reason why the soot was attracted
to the CRT tube was because the high voltage attracted the soot on
account of the hold being able to hold a charge (or maybe because
the soot was conductive or something like that).

Then I thought maybe the soot was allowing some of the high
voltage on the tube to leak away and that way reduce the picture
quality.

As you can see I have no real idea at all about the facts of this,
so I'm asking you specialists.

Sam



PS: I did clean the inside and I reckon picture looks a bit
sharper. But maybe I am completely deluding myself! Or maybe I
leant on one of the sharpness controls while I was cleaning!


At the voltages that can be running around in the back of a crt,
cleaning out accumulated "crud" is a damn good idea, since, as you say,
some of it may well be (semi)conductive.

Even if it's inert, it'll have a negative impact 'cause it's acting as a
blanket, keeping components hotter than they would be if running in
"free air" conditions.

Good response! Keep hands away though! Make sure to use a long
handled feather duster as well as compressed air.