Anything I should know before dismantling a large CRT telly?

[ARWadsworth]

yes, but by people wearing gloves!

[Skipweasel]

Definitely my preferred solution.

[Skipweasel]

Not at all. They're carted away and dismantled - there's a place in Wales that does them, for a start, and I'm sure there are plenty of others.

Can't find that one - but there's one in Scotland...

[Bernard Peek]

Our solution to disposing of a 33" CRT TV was to leave it in the front garden. A huge bloke appeared about an hour later, hoisted it onto his shoulder and walked off.

This is a very effective way of recycling in this part of London.

[tony sayer]

OK for someone who likes their VCR and doesn't want a new HD one and who has a lot of olde tapes they still want to use..

[tony sayer]

In article , Skipweasel scribeth thus

[Skipweasel]

Tried to get rid of a pair of 8" floppy drives like that in Warren Street in the early 80s. They vanished - and then reappeared. This was repeated for several days until dustbin day.

[Man at B&Q]

Did you keep the flourescent tube? You can give them that at the same time.

MBQ

[Mathew Newton]

You need to get yourself something like a Logitech Harmony remote. They are superb things and, being activity based, a doddle to use. Press that button marked, say, 'Watch TV' and it'll turn all the necessary devices on/off as required. Fully customisable so that you only get the buttons/functions necessary for any given activity (e.g.

*one* volume control!) so you're left with a sinple intuitive remote that all the family can use! (Hope that doesn't sound *too* much like an advert!)

Throw in some IR-controlled dimmable lightswitches and you can have automatic mood lighting for watching films etc! ;-)

Mathew

[Skipweasel]

There's usually a tiny nipple on the end of the neck which is the stub of the tube used to evacuate the tube. That snaps off safely and easily with a pair of pliers. Or, as I once found out, by dropping a 50p (the old large ones) piece on it.

[Arfa Daily]

Sadly, I'm a 'full function' user, Matthew ! I have tried all sorts of universal remotes over the years (I'm in consumer electronics service, so have ready access to such items) and have always found them lacking in that they won't control the 'clever' features of the equipment. To be fair, for the most part, the Sky remote, being programmed for my TV type, handles most of the general stuff. When I need access to 'special' features of all the other equipment, it's not too much trouble to pick up the appropriate remote. I have only recently noticed that I have all these remotes, after getting a new sofa. The previous one had wide flat arms, perfectly designed to take remote controls. The new one has more rounded tops to the arms, which makes balancing the handsets on there, a little more difficult. They also show up more because the arms are narrower that on the previous sofa. I suppose the 'real' answer would be to have one of those totally programmable ones that look like an iPad, and comes with home automation systems.

Now there's an idea. Anyone up for writing an iPad app for universal remote control? Mind, I don't suppose there's an infra red transmitter in the iPad, is there ? Doh ! That knocks that one on the head ... :-)

Arfa

[Mathew Newton]

Like what? The Harmonies can mimic any IR function code from any of your remotes... In fact it can sometimes perform functions that you can't even do with the originals! (e.g. discrete on/off commands)

Mathew

[Ron Lowe]

Mains transformers?

Droppers, my lad.

Hooting great multi-tapped wire-wound resistors clipped to the top of the chassis, operating in the manner of a 1-bar electric fire.

( Never Drop a Dropper: LLJ, RIP )

[Ron Lowe]

London, Great Plauge. Man shuffles along the street, pushing a barrow, and clanging a bell...

Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!

But only once a fortnight!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh c'mon. The've been SMPS at line freq since at least 1980..the moment they could, they ditched the mains droppers.

[Arfa Daily]

Yeah, I know they *can* but it's usually a case of remembering what the 'label' is on a button that's been assigned to some obscure function like for instance "Amp Menu" or "Sound Field" on my AV amp, or "Timers" on the PVR, or "Aspect" on the TV. I'm not really that bothered about having all the separate remotes. It just struck me that it was amusing to have six items 'in the stack' just to watch TV, and that they all had forty or more buttons on their remotes, to control the various functions ! d;~}

Arfa

[Arfa Daily]

Ah! RS 'Dropper Sections' in little yellow boxes ... And a tobacco tin full of 4BA nuts and bolts. Short ones for bolting dropper sections across an existing dropper where it had holes in the tags, and longer ones for when you had to bolt a section to a convenient hole in the chassis, and then wire it. Many were the dropper sections that I fitted in the field as a yoof, with some great big booze-soaked hairy-arsed gorilla leaning over the back of the set to see what I was up to :-) I was always taught to put a screwdriver through a few remaining turns on the original open circuit section of dropper, in case it should remake.

Arfa

[Skipweasel]

And a distinctive burnt-dust smell.

[tony sayer]

Blimey yer showin yer age Arfa!..

Well never knew that to happen once gone they seemed to burn themselves out from what I remember of it....

[Mathew Newton]

I thought you said you were in the consumer electronics business? ;-) The remotes you describe sound like the ones we had in the early

90's... many universal remotes nowadays have customisable LCD screens hence there's no ambiguity about what button does what (I do appreciate that otherwise it does more harm than good mapping functions do obscure buttons just because there wasn't a more meaningful button available).

Sure; I only wanted to point the alternatives out in case you might not have been aware. We used to have a whole bunch of remotes and whilst I could cope the rest of the family weren't quite so keen and since replacing them all with a single Harmony remote that can intuitively control *every* function if need be I can't speak highly enough of them! In most circumstances you only need access to a limited set of functions across all your devices and so having those functions spread over only a few dozen buttons immediately at your fingertips (i.e. no scrolling through pages or other alternate- function tricks) is a real boon.

I suppose the downside is the cost - mine was relatively cheap at ~=A350 but nevertheless I consider it money well spent.

Mathew