19-11-2020, 10:40 PM
Alek Zawada is a well-known figure among collectors in Poland. For many years he has been dealing with vacuum issues professionally and as a hobby. For several years he has been conducting experiments with the construction of electron tubes and recently with the regeneration of cathode ray tubes. I met him personally several years ago. A few months ago, we discussed a successful attempt to rebuild the picture tube. My conclusions were as follows:
- nowadays it is possible to reconstruct the picture tube / cut off the old electron gun and fuse the new one / and get a good vacuum without the technically difficult and dangerous step of heating the picture tube. This is made possible by an efficient ion pump. It is connected along the line of the pumping tube and is cut off together with it when a sufficient vacuum is obtained.
- the whole process is very time-consuming, which may translate into the costs of the procedure
- I think that the biggest barrier to the development of the method is, unfortunately, the small pool of new electron guns available. Moreover, these guns are fairly modern in construction and therefore require reconfiguration for old CRTs. It is possible, but it is a tedious process. The last sentence belongs of course to Alek Zawada. I keep my fingers crossed for him.
- nowadays it is possible to reconstruct the picture tube / cut off the old electron gun and fuse the new one / and get a good vacuum without the technically difficult and dangerous step of heating the picture tube. This is made possible by an efficient ion pump. It is connected along the line of the pumping tube and is cut off together with it when a sufficient vacuum is obtained.
- the whole process is very time-consuming, which may translate into the costs of the procedure
- I think that the biggest barrier to the development of the method is, unfortunately, the small pool of new electron guns available. Moreover, these guns are fairly modern in construction and therefore require reconfiguration for old CRTs. It is possible, but it is a tedious process. The last sentence belongs of course to Alek Zawada. I keep my fingers crossed for him.