Hello, everyone. Recently acquired this small Trinitron set, hoping to save it from the dumpster. Unfortunately, the CRT has a spot of discoloration on the far right side. Is there a way to degauss the set without one of the specialized coils? I have some demagnetizers meant to be used with reel-to-reel tape deck heads, but am not sure if that'd do the trick. Any ideas? Thanks!
-Adam

Do you have a good soldering gun? Those can degauss a tv pretty well. Be careful no to burn yourself like I did.......:)

Do you have a good soldering gun? Those can degauss a tv pretty well. Be careful no to burn yourself like I did.......:)

Move away from the screen before shutting off the gun, or you'll re-magnetize the screen.

Thanks for the replies. What would be the 'proper' procedure for using a soldering gun to demagnetize a CRT? I have a Weller 8200, which hopefully should work for the purpose. Would the aforementioned tape head demagnetizer work as well? I have a Sony which has what looks like a small horseshoe on the end, and an Akai which is smaller.
-Adam

I assume the 8200 is a gun ? Turn on near front of set, make circles
& pull back making smaller circles as you go. When you see no more
effect turn it off. You can also make a real coil easily.
If that dont do it & you are doing it right........
1) the set was dropped & aperture grill moved = junk
2) something on the neck moved, prob need a manual to
do a set-up, not easy like a delta gun CRT.
If it remagnetizes
1) something is near it
2)degauss not working, rare prob.
Good luck

73 Zeno

I have seen on some sony tv's the degauss thermistor will blow one lead off under the board. It usually causes the screen to look terrible.
Pull the circuit board and look around the degauss coil plug for failed solder joints near the plug and that area.

If you have another CRT set of the same or larger screen size put 'em face to face and turn the other one off and on in 1 minute cycles a few times so it's degauss coil will degauss the other set.

What he said. I use a 35" Sony Trinitron to do this. The 'degauzzer' in that thing has the beefiest sound at turn-on..

If you have another CRT set of the same or larger screen size put 'em face to face and turn the other one off and on in 1 minute cycles a few times so it's degauss coil will degauss the other set.

An intriguing idea. Questions: 1. Do the TVs have to be right up against each other, or is a gap preferred? 2. By one minute cycle, do you mean one minute on, one minute off, or something else? 2a. Does the TV to be degaussed need to be turned on, turned off, or does it not matter? 3. I have a computer monitor which has a DEGAUSS button on the front panel; would that work? Once again, thanks!
-Adam

I have some demagnetizers meant to be used with reel-to-reel tape deck heads, but am not sure if that'd do the trick. Any ideas? Thanks!
-Adam Done that many times with an old Olson tape demagnetizer made for 7" R-R tapes. Plenty strong to do the job.

Turn demagnetizer on several feet away from the TV, slowly bring up to the face of the tube, move all around the perimeter and top to bottom, move demagnetizer away several feet from CRT before turning off power to the demagnetizer.

I've still got my big ring degaussing coil that I bought in 1972. If the splotch won't go away, it might have been dropped, or maybe a stick-on magnet might have unstuck itself from the bell.

From my experience, it took a fairly good WHOMP to mess up the shadow mask on these sets.

A degausser (bulk eraser) for tapes will work. A degausser for tape heads probably will not - too tiny and concentrated field.

If the thermistor went bad, you could try replacing it with a thermistor salvaged from a CRT computer monitor. The one you want is usually packaged inside a squarish plastic component. There is usually another thermistor for the power supply, that one has the wrong temperature characteristic for degaussing.

An intriguing idea. Questions: 1. Do the TVs have to be right up against each other, or is a gap preferred? 2. By one minute cycle, do you mean one minute on, one minute off, or something else? 2a. Does the TV to be degaussed need to be turned on, turned off, or does it not matter? 3. I have a computer monitor which has a DEGAUSS button on the front panel; would that work? Once again, thanks!
-Adam

I've never done this, but seem to recall some time ago reading that someone here used this method successfully.
1. I'd imagine a small gap wouldn't hurt, but the closer they are the better it should work. 2. Yes. 2a. don't know, but I'd try it off at first if I really cared about the set being fixed. 3. Probably.