Reviewing a cheap CRT degaussing wand

Rayner Lucas · 2021-01-12T20:48:30+00:00

Hi all. This post is a review of the cheap "green stick" CRT degaussing wands, as I haven't found much discussion of them and some other repairers of vintage monitors may find it useful. CRT degaussing tools seem to be hard to find these days. Occasional used ones come up for sale, and there are still some to be found in the US. However, in the UK they're near-unobtainable. The main source seems to be eBay sellers in China, all of whom are selling the same type: a wand- style degausser in a green plastic shell. So, having a couple of CRTs with purity problems, I bought one to see if it would do any good. The wand cost about 15 GBP and arrived within a couple of weeks. There was no documentation included, leaving me with just the specs given in the eBay listing, which read: -Relative magnetic field: 70MT -Load current: 1A -Working hours: 20 seconds -Power: 220V -Specifications: About 31*31*200(mm) The outer shell is some soft semi-translucent plastic (polythene?), and feels extremely cheap. A momentary switch pokes out of the top of the casing (a momentary switch is good, as it stops me accidentally leaving the coil energised). The wand came with a moulded two-prong plug, which I had to cut off to fit a UK plug. And... I have never seen mains cable that thin before. It is, at least, double insulated, but the conductors are at most 28AWG and possibly even thinner (it's hard to measure stranded cable, but the diameter is somewhere around 0.25mm to 0.35mm). The strain relief clamp in the UK plug wouldn't even hold the cable until I wrapped some extra plastic around it. Oof. Looking at the ampacity ratings on the Wikipedia article for American Wire Gauge, that cable must be very close to, if not exceeding, its recommended current rating. It feels worryingly plausible that someone, somewhere made the calculation "it's fine, if they push the button for too long the coil will burn out before the cable insulation melts". However, the tool does what it's...

Jan 12, 2021 21 Replies

Rate this thread:

Phil Allison 5 years ago

Mike Coon wrote: =============

-------------------------------

** One saw a pic of a B&W picture tube that had imploded. The electron gun had been propelled though the screen and imbeded itself in the back of a lounge chair.

There is almost 20,000lbs of pressure on the out side of a 23inch one..

...... Phil

Vote

Mike Garcia 5 years ago

Nice post! Good to know!

Mike Garcia http://mgarcia.org

Vote

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required