The bad news
is the tube in the VR201 monitor is
shot.
The screen has mould between the tube and bonded
on faceplate.
No amount of standard adjustment will make it
bright enough to read in
> normal lighting.
Have you tried taking the monitor apart and separating
the faceplate from the tube? That faceplate is bonded
on with a PVA compound - that's what the mold eats. I
have never done this with a terminal tube, but on the
old round-tube color TV's, you can take the tube, heat
the face with a heat gun, and separate the safety
glass from the picture tube. After that, you need to
clean out the PVA compound/gunk and stick the
faceplate back on - packing tape around the edges
works well.
Now, this method works on the old TV's because the
safety glass was just a piece of glass glued to the
tube. Is the VR201's faceplate glass, or is it
plastic? Also, some types of TV tubes (Zenith,
especially) don't take to the heat gun method. I have
no idea about the VR201, but it might be worth
investigating and taking the tube out. Sometimes if
the mold is really, really bad, it will have eaten
away almost everything holding on the faceplate, and
it will come off easily.
-Ian
