Hi all,

Just wondering if there are any companies who still manufacture cathode ray tubes, for any purpose? Is ther much demand for CRT products (especially monitors)?

Cheers,

Chris

The last product with a cathode ray tube I've seen was about six years ago. Big W was selling some very hceap and nasty-looking portable televisions for $50.00 or thereabouts.

They were made in China and most probably ended up on council cleanup piles six months later which makes me wonder why retailers import this junk to begin with. After retail markup, transport, import duties and other taxes, packaging, marketing, manufacturing and purchase of raw materials there isn't a lot of money to be made on selling things like that, especially since CRTs have been obsolete for a good 15 years.

So to answer the question, my guess is that CRTs are no longer made. Plasma screens are generally reserved for large televisions, Liquid Crystal screens for smaller models, although these are now finding their way into larger sets with Sharp offering an 80 inch model and Organic LED screens are being used for small devices like mobile phones. The latter two are also being used for laboratory and medical equipment.

Brad has summed the situation up pretty well. CRT's are no longer being used in mainstream applications. There are probably a few specialised applications where they might be used but I think LCD's have developed to the stage where they can be used in demanding applications.

CRT's are still around in a lot of old legacy hardware (mainly industrial and military applications) and a small niche area of CRT rebuilding exists to cater for this area. This in an area that is rapidly dying out as rebuild companies close down due to a lack of customers and increasingly hard to obtain specialised components start to become "No Longer Available".

China was probably the last country to manufacture CRT's on a large scale. I doubt it is worth the effort even for them to continue to do so now.

The last time I was looking for a CRT replacement (for a vintage computing terminal) I found that all that was available as new or new-old stock was extremely expensive - probably because the only remaining market is military and industrial specialist gear that is relatively insensitive to price.

Some of the vintage computing hobbyists have enough knowledge to re-use junked CRTs from TVs or other models of monitor, but for this you need professional expertise and some dedication.

I do feel a little sad when I see skips full of CRT TVs and monitors building up at my local tip - heading for materials recycling.

Maven

That's why I'm doing my best to preserve some old CRT televisions and to salvage some spare 13.5" colour CRTs (as I mostly collect and prefer 13.5" sets).

Chris