23 Feb
2009
23 Feb
'09
3:43 p.m.
If it's been sitting for a month, you're
probably good. I've never seen
one hold a charge that long.
In all honesty the hype and the fear of working on monitors is especially
overrated. Yeah, there's thousands of volts in there. If you get bitten by
it, it'll hurt like hell. But it's not going to kill you. And monochrome
terminals use a lower high voltage than the average color television.
I would never trust a CRT to discharge. I've been bit by TV's that were in
the junkyard (yes, I was scavenging tubes). Yes, many designs have bleeder
resistors, but do you really want to trust them? And yes, it can kill. A
voltage induced cardiac arrhythmia doesn't require much of a zap.