TV advice
 

Check out this picture of our TV.

It's a 1993 26" Magnavox. I was hoping to get another year or so out of it.

The purple and green discolorations appeared today.

It turns out our son rubbed his chatter stones--relatively strong magnets--up against it (why? I've given up asking why the kid does anything) and that's when the colors appeared.

The question is, are these likely to go away? Or are we stuck with them till we decide to replace the set?

You mean you haven't upgraded to HDTV YET?!!!? GET WITH THE TIMES!!!!

Haha, jk. Sarcasm...But I'd scrap it though...

We have a TV with one of those purple discolorations, caused by a surround-sound speaker (apparently they are magnetic, too). It's faded a little over the last few years, but not that much. Lucky for us, though, it's in the far left corner of the screen, so it's been tolerable.

Wow, how big was the speaker? I wouldn't have thought one of the smaller "side" speakers would do that. (A subwoofer, sure.)

Search on ebay for "tv degausser". The problem can apparently be solved for $15.

And then send it to me, I think Jacquelita's TV could be helped by this

and any CRT style TV actually

It was one of the really small side speakers! It wasn't even sitting right on the TV, just close by on a shelf. But it was there for a while before the effect started happening.

Modern color TV's are self-degaussing (and by modern, I mean like less than 20 years old at this point), I believe, but this is not to say that the much stronger degausser of days past might not put this to rights.

SD...were you prepared to select the NASCAR ride-along thing, there? I watched some of the qualifying for Daytona yesterday, and am actually going to watch the race from beginning to end on Sunday. I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but watching Daytona in hi-def, 16 x 9 on my plasma screen should be pretty fun.

I'm afraid not... I just wanted to select a non-moving screen so I could get a good picture of the blotches.

Thanks, I will check out degaussers. (It's not impossibile we have one at work in our media center somewhere.)

Because when he accidentally got them close to the screen it did such cool stuff. Oooo, more, more.
I doubt if, Dad's gonna be pissed but the screen's already fucked, entered into it. ;)

Any speaker, any size, placed anywhere near a TV should be magnetically shielded.

I hadn't heard of a "tv degausser"- that's pretty cool. I'm sure I know somebody who needs one of those.

note to self: child-proofing, magnetic objects

I'll get over it--he watches more TV than I do!! But it seems to have gone away overnight by itself.

Stereo speakers did it to my TV. The repairman came out and waved a loop of wire in front of the tv screen. The picture looked like it was "pulled" toward the orientation of the loop. Then he moved the loop away, and the picture was back to normal. I always thought that the loop was a very crooked magic wand, but maybe it was magnetized, or was a degausser. :D

Friend, I can fix this.

Better still, I can tell you how to fix this. It will cost you nothing (you may express your gratitude at the cellar's tip jar, if you wish) and it will take... ten minutes. Ready? Got a pencil and paper? Good.

Go collect your son's chatter stones. Get some duct tape. Get a drill, cordless or corded, your choice. A drill bit or bit driver, approx 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter. Chuck the bit into the drill, leaving slightly less drill exposed than the length of the magnets. Or just chuck it all the way in and proceed. Now place the chatter stones alongside the drill/bit. Let them extend beyond the tip of the drill/bit. Tape them *securely* to the bit. Aim the drill at the screen placing the magnets as close to the glass as you can get without taking a chance at touching it and fire 'em up! Stir until smooth.

The spinning magnets move the electromagnetically sensitive phosphorous particles on the inside of the tube around so fast that they get redistributed evenly, producing your normal picture again.

Oh, the screen will look crazy while you're operating the magnet-drill. Be sure that you pull the tool away from the screen while it's still running. Don't stop it running while it's close enough to affect the screen--that's how you got this symptom in the first place.

Don't believe me? Here's where I got the tip. Plus, I did it myself on my own tv. Both parts, the magnetic smearing and the magnetic smoothing.

That sounds cool! I almost want to try it even though the problem has now disappeared.

Self-degaussing apparently works...

SD: Yes, do! It's fun, it's cool. You'll have the same mad scientist thrill your son had. You know you want to. Go on!

Els: Yes, that's certainly it. The degaussing power of the televisions varies widely and sometimes the distortions are too great for the little degausser to fix. I'm glad SD had a happy ending.

btw, I was so eager to help, I made my post after reading only the opener. Oops. I didn't bother to read on and learn that your problem had "fixed itself." Another brick in the road for me. Sorry. :)

No, I loved the drill idea. I'm glad you posted it.

Me too. I wanna buy a crappy old TV from the thrift store and play around with this. Make some "art."

Why bother buying one? Just get some honking magnets and go smear the screens. Then walk over the the powertool graveyard and find one that spins without sparks and clean up your mess!

Better yet, do it at Sears, or Best Buy or WalMart!

Palm a potent neodymium magnet in your hand and tap on the glass of other people's CRTs at work. Neat effect and won't screw with the monitor permanently if it was made in the last ten years.

Oooo... magic powers...

Hey, Flint. Here's what Kitsune meant to say. Find an old hard drive. Take it apart. On the mechanism that actuates the read/write head you'll find at least a pair of very very strong magnets. They're likely shaped roughly like a lima bean, and about that size. They may be chromed or painted white or orange. Interestingly, they're glued to the armature assembly. Try to scrape/pry them off. BE CAREFUL! They're very very brittle and fragile when subjected to hard shocks, like being attracted to it's mate of the opposite pole. They *will* shatter if you let them leap at each other. They'll still be just as magnetic-y but you'll have a handful of ceramic-sharp-shards much more difficult to handle.

These are the magnets Kitsune's talking about. I'm sure you already knew that though. You're some computer dude, neh?

edit--by the way, the magnets in the hard drive in the computer through which you're reading this post are guaranteed to perform as described. But you better print out these instructions because by following them you absolutely and irrevocably transform the hard drive from a computer component into a science project. This is a ONE WAY transformation only, no do-overs allowed and NO EXCEPTIONS. But you prolly knew that too. Carry on. [/mr science]

I have a set of these stuck to my whiteboard, but I don't mess around with them. Besides the ability to shatter, they pinch like a m-f'er. The skin between your thumb and index finger? Pinching it between two HD magnets will not only hurt it, it'll kill it.

I prefer the wee baby ones.

I have some very powerful ones in my bass speaker cabinets. Neodymium speakers!

The nice part is how a cabinet with such speakers weighs 20-40 pounds less than the cabinet with traditional magnet speakers, spending on how many speakers are used.

Not 5% as mush as most of you guys around here, but much moreso than my managers, so that's all that matters.
Oh! I want some neodymium-driven speakers (having just helped a friend move his Cerwin Vega 12" and 15" cabinets).
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Those are some strong magnets!