CRT hacking ideas....

[badpeter]

After a recent and rather successful trip to the recycling area, I found and old GE CRT TV (tiny one) with a vcr and a blockbuster batman tape stuck in it . I cannot imagine who would keep something like this until friggin 2019 but thats besides the point...

I was always a big fan of CRTs, and I was wondering how can I hack it into something cool. And by "cool" I mean being able to control the video signal in some manual and interesting way.

Decades ago back in school I have done the classic hookup of sound output to deflector coils to draw Lissajous figures and I tried building a crude scope as well... I want to take this in some sort of NEW direction, maybe somehow control the color?

The other thing I have is an Arduino and I have several programs with TVOut library (I wrote code for pong for example), which works via composite input. It is BW only, but maybe something can be done about it.
Wondering if anyone has any unusual ideas!

[Mads Barnkob]

I always loved the oscilloscope clocks, build a large version of it and hang it on your wall! http://oscilloscopeclocknixiecrt.com/

Not even hackday has something you didn't mention https://hackaday.io/projects?tag=crt

I seem to recall that someone, long ago, used CRTs as giant capacitors for pulse discharges, just be sure to put the damn thing in a enclosure if it decides to implode

[badpeter]

I think I am going to use it for "scope music" by connecting a small bluetooth amp to the coils. They say 15 w is enough.
I wonder, is there a realistic way to control each of the 3 electron beams to change color? It is feeding static which becomes a white dot, but what if I hang a large variable resistor on each of the connectors (granted I can find which one s which), maybe I can turn individual beams off...

[petespaco]

Wouldn't the horizontal oscillator be a good start for a tesla coil?

[badpeter]

^Potentially... If i remember correctly horizontal is 15 khz and vertical is 60 hz (mains frequency).

For now I will just use it for "oscilloscope music". Check out Jerobeam Fenderson on Youtube. He does phenomenal stuff vectorially drawing graphics with sound. I hooked it up to the sound system yesterday. Coils are 2 and 14 ohm each. Speakers are 6 ohm each. It kind of works but needs some tweaks to display things correctly.
Will post a vid as always, when it is done=)
Also I found RGB bias knobs at the back to make the screen any color. Turned it sweet scope-green for now.