So, last night being a night before my day off I brought a four-pack of beer home. I caught a decent buzz and decided to head for bed. I had my 1983 GE SS 13" colour set on; Jerry and Elane were in his apartment, Kramer came bursting over, things were pretty cool.

About 5 or so hours later, I rolled over in bed. I reached for my bottle of water, thought sarcastically (thinking my roommate or landlady were cooking) Who's making rubber for a midnight snack? Then I remembered the TV had been on...

Low voltage was still active as the channel display was still lit but I'd lost picture and sound. I'd fallen asleep with the computer on (I usually do), and when I looked over towards the display, I could see a visible haze in the light cast...

Now the room is filled with the sickly sweet smell of electronic death...

I've seen a couple TVs fail before, and I even saw one start pouring brown smoke out when the ps shorted out...but I've never let one smoulder before...

So A) do you think I came close to a fire? B) I'm going to guess this is the flyback as I took in one once with a dead FB and I had the same thing, channel indicator and keep-alive still functional, and C) how many brain cells do you think I killed by sleeping in this hydrocarbon haze?

A) I'm going to guess that by '83, the cabinets and insulating materials in most TVs were enough to keep the set from engulfing in flames. Especially in a GE since they had a plastics/chemicals division which came out with a lot of new ideas back then.

B) if the fly went out, it definitely could leave the channel indicators and possibly even the remote functions activated, just with no pic or sound. The flybacks in early 80s GE can be a sore spot from what I've read.

C) Even though sleeping in the burning e-haze wasn't a healthy thing to do, bet you'll be just fine. Get some air or something, and let the room air out. The smell of burning TVs reminds me of my foolishness as a kid during camping trips. Used to find anything I could and just throw it in the campfire. Plastic cups, discarded hiking gear, matchbox cars, etc. Man did that stuff smell bad when it went up! Not recommended....

I once bought a very nice 50s Kenmore table fan, still in the box. That night I took it home, oiled it, and let it run all night in the bedroom. Sometime around 3am I awoke and smelled something 'hot'. The bearings had seized. Not much smoke, yet.

I've had a few smokin' GE's, mostly 70s models.

In some cases that vapor has been known not to cause disease but to cure one-specifically, it could cure an old tv habit! Hope that doesn't happen here!

Dunno... I'm pretty sure (I'm not the fire marshall) that my white-trash neighbors house caught on fire because he had a TV running constantly on the second floor. One of the firemen told me it was a TV.

Earlier in the day, I had smelled the burning electronic smell, but couldn't place where it was coming from. A few hours later and there was a fire truck in front of his house, and flames coming out the windows.

word of advice
get a smoke detector.

Dunno... I'm pretty sure (I'm not the fire marshall) that my white-trash neighbors house caught on fire because he had a TV running constantly on the second floor. One of the firemen told me it was a TV.

Earlier in the day, I had smelled the burning electronic smell, but couldn't place where it was coming from. A few hours later and there was a fire truck in front of his house, and flames coming out the windows.

I've had sets spark and fizz out, but never had a major fire. Guess I should be more careful about letting sets run all night or during the day (to make it look like someone is home) when I'm not there.

If your GE uses the "BC" chassis, I'm not at all surprised by what happened. The "BC" was not a true GE chassis; rather, a Matsushita chassis made for GE. Almost every one of these that I've seen had a burnt up flyback. I even had one burn up in my shop and the results were similar to what you described. It was working one minute and then "pop, smoke, and major stink" the next. When the flyback went, it shorted the HOT, which opened the B+ fuse.

The closest I ever came to a real TV fire was when an old RCA CTC38 flared up. The circuit breaker was defective. I figured that's all that was wrong, and me being young and stupid at the time, jumpered it with a clip lead. I turned the set on and a blaze came from the area of the PC board where the power supply diodes were. The fire went out a few seconds after I killed the power. I learned not to jump a fuse or circuit breaker and to always inspect the chassis for anything out of the ordinary before applying power.

Just to be safe, I never sleep or leave the room for extended periods with the TV on.

Four beers gave you a buzz?

I picked up an old TV in The Mighty Valdez a few yrs back-Can't remember what it was, & this was B4 AK, I ran an extention cord out to it, plugged 'er in, turned it on & smoke almost immediately.. I thought it was dangerous, & trashed it... If only I knew then what I know now...