An unusual TV component

Hello, all.

I have an unusual question for you, perhaps you can help me. It's about a very clear and, to me, very puzzling childhood memory, related to a television set.

When I was a child, my parents had a black and white TV as the centerpiece of the living room. This must have been in the mid-to-late

1960's. It was in the U.S.A.

Eventually, the TV went on the blink and couldn't be repaired, so my parents bought a new one and relegated the old one to the basement playroom, where my brothers and I would spend our free hours. My dad, though not an electrician, was fairly handy, so I suppose he wanted to hold onto the old TV for a while in case it could be cannibalized for parts. It was clear, though, that it was considered "junk", never to be repaired and eventually to be discarded, so it was OK for us to mess around with it.

In the course of exploring the insides of the set, I came across a part that generated heat - it was warm to the touch. I don't remember its exact appearance, but it was about the size of a man's fist. I seem to remember it had a rectangular frame and what ever was in the middle of the frame protruded on both sides. The whole thing was covered, maybe with tape or some other sort of silvery-grey insulation, I don't remember. Looking back, it may have had the general shape of a small transformer.

But the puzzling thing for me is that it generated heat, for weeks and months after the set was disconnected from the power mains. It gave my hands a tingly feeling, but it did not cause any shock or static electricity. It mystified me. It suggested radioactivity to me, but even as a child I knew that radioactive materials in such quantity would not be part of a TV set. Still, I made sure not to mess with it for extended periods of time. I dismounted the part from the TV chassis, and the effect continued.

I don't remember what happened to that part; I may have just lost interest and discarded it eventually.

Does anyone have any idea what could have been that heat-generating part, something that was warm to the touch for weeks after the TV was disconnected from the mains. I suppose it could have been a large capacitor or battery of some sort, but I'd prefer to hear from the experts. I suppose it's true, too, that because this happened so long ago my memory of it could be distorted and inaccurate, but the basic facts I've related here are pretty clear in my mind.

Thanks.

Reply to
caltech22
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You have perhaps described the horizontal output transformer. You have perhaps also described a psychological phenomenon.

Reply to
Charles Schuler

The heat generation is probably a trick of your mind. Your fingers sense rate of heat loss combined with temperature. For example, a marble floor seems colder than a wood floor, even though they are at the same temperature, since the marble sucks heat out faster.

In this case, if the part is covered with a thermal insulator, it may suck out heat more slowly than your mind expects. Your brain may interpret this as 'it's warmer than I expected' rather than 'this part has lower thermal conductivity than I expected'.

Lou Scheffer

Reply to
Louis Scheffer

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:28:41 -0800, caltech22 Has Frothed:

Nothing in a tube set that would remain warm to the touch months after it was unplugged. Perhaps it was just a youthfull apparition?

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Reply to
Meat Plow

--
HOT?  :-)
Reply to
John Fields

Funny John ... it never crossed my feeble mind ... I like it HOT!

Reply to
Charles Schuler

I think it is the sixties drugs return to you WOW Are you sharing those??? there is nothing in any tv of any time that would still be hot or even warm after just a few hours. unless it was next to a heater vent

Reply to
David Naylor

So did Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

David Naylor wrote in news:efudne06lLjNhBbYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I recall most of the TV's of that vintage had the HV transformer and drive tube (still have 2 or 3 sitting in a box) enclosed by metal shielding with the high voltage and xray warnings on the outside. It could have been the massive power transformer for running the da.. thing.

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Reply to
me

Hi...

Now you have me wondering.... he said it was unplugged, but suppose it wasn't; and was one of those instant on sets that held the filaments up just a bit. Memory isn't so good anymore, but I think they were around back about that time.

Anyway, if that's the case it would account of a bit of warmth, and if the set was sitting on a concrete floor, even a bit of the "tingling" he remembers :)

Take care.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Weitzel

It's no wonder the set died, and could not be repaired. That was the perpetual motion image modulator. A few were manufactured in error - sort of like that stamp where the image was printed upside down. How do you think they got the images to move around in the picture tube? The modulator did that. Unfortunately, the fact that it would not shut down with the set turned off caused unavoidable damage, and all of the sets where the mis-manufactured modulator was installed died. As proof, consider that none of them are working today. :-)

Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

That was the nuclear power pack.

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

On a sunny day (21 Dec 2006 14:28:41 -0800) it happened snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in :

The name of that movie was 'batteries not included'.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Then heat would be the least of his problems. Too easy to get jolt from an old TV.

I did wonder if there were some capacitors in there that might have held a charge and produced a mild shock after a few months... but I suspect they wern't that good (high leakage) and they certainly wouldn't have stored enough energy to produce heat for months.

Reply to
CWatters

On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 10:18:10 +0000, CWatters Has Frothed:

The CRT could store a charge for months. They actually could rebuild a charge on their own.

--
Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook, Line & Sinker, June 2004

COOSN-266-06-25794
Reply to
Meat Plow

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