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Smashing a Television
obpancake
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
As part of a performance, I'd really like to be able to smash a television. All my google-fu has turned up is that it probably shouldn't be done, but I thought I'd check here and see if these are motherly 'don't play with matches' types of warnings, or serious 'you're going to release toxic substances into the air that are going to kill you' warnings.
I'm also under the impression that televisions should be taken to a safe place to recycle instead of just dumping them in the trash. Would said location take a smashed television?
I'm also under the impression that televisions should be taken to a safe place to recycle instead of just dumping them in the trash. Would said location take a smashed television?
obpancake on
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I used to be a Navy electrician. My boss, a veteran with many, many years under his belt, taught me one thing about TVs (CRTs to be specific). Keep in mind this is coming from a man who would work on live circuits all the time.
"Never open up a CRT. Don't work on them, don't try to repair them, don't break them, just stay away. If you need it fixed or worked on, find a professional."
Of all the things I learned from him over the years I served with him, that was the one thing he never made light of or joked about at all.
I'm not sure about the internal workings and such, but I personally wouldn't mess around smashing them up.
When the transition was made to DTV last year, some dumbass just threw their TV over the back fence of this apartment building. blocky glass bits all the way up and down the alley. Very messy to clean up, even more than if you just broke a window.
A better way would be to find an empty TV chassis and just spraypaint a grey piece of plastic or cardboard and glue it into the front opening.
Way back I worked a little at a TV-shop they routinely disarmed TV's on the way to be scrapped. What they did was remove the back of the set, which can be done without touching anything than the outside, and then put one end of a 2x2 piece of wood to the electronics at the base of the tube and give the other end a whack with a hammer. When the pressure is release a small "poof" is heard.
Are you going to be in a well ventilated area and be able to keep some distance between you and the tv? Then go for it. I've smashed my fair share of CRT boxes, and I didn't die *twitch twitch*.
No really I'm fine.
Take off the back then:
First - Discharge the CRT, this is done with two long screw drivers, slip one under the rubber seal at the top center of the CRT and make sure its touching the metal clip underneath, then touch the other one along the shaft of that screw driver also having it touch the glass back with the tip. Do this a few times leaving a few minutes in-between.
Second - Using a hammer and a bit of wood hit the plastic part of the neck (which is attached to the end of the glass part of the neck). All being well a large hissing sound should happen as air rushes in and that should be all the pressure gone.
You can now do what you like with it.
For those interested about the dangers of just smashing it there is very real danger of pretty much instant death and its nothing to do with the chems or materials its purely the force of the implosion.
Glass shards fly into the CRT cavity, hit each other at such force that they are then expelled at crazy force.
I've seen insurance claims where the TV front smashed and there were bits of glass imbedded in the wall.
edit: Obviously the bigger the set more the danger, smaller sets wont cause that much damage.
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CRTs are not pressurized, they hold a vacuum internally. When the CRT shatters the extremely thick glass at the front rapidly collapses under atmospheric pressure with enough force to reflect shards of glass back outwards with lots of force at a pretty good clip.
Seconding/thirding/whatevering the warning about the capacitors or playing around with the electronics in a CRT display. They contain extremely high voltages (20,000+ volts in parts of the flyback transformer circuit) in large storage amounts and discharge very, very rapidly. This can quite easily kill you if you happen to discharge one of these to ground via your body. They can hold these charges for an extremely long time.
My suggestion would be to see if you can acquire a TV housing minus the internals and black out the inside, then place a couple of sheets of safety glass inside the housing at the front and smash that. It'll be a lot safer and also way easier to smash and clean up than the possibly several inches thick glass of a CRT tube.
Throw in flying glass coming out at varying speeds and unpredictable angles it is all around a terrible idea.
And this is coming from a man who most definitely does not live in fear of danger.
I'd say it's this you should be the most worried about. If you're doing it for a performance, you don't want to risk sending shards of glass into the audience.
Not that the electrical aspect is something to ignore, but I'd say it's less of a worry than this.
For a performance, maybe it would be possible to make a prop-tv where a glass screen is backed with tape so even if you break it you won't get glass shards everywhere?
What the hell was that?
If you need broken glass, replace the front of it with shatter-resistant glass (the kind that crumbles), and then break it. Should solve many of the saftey concerns. Reusable too.
If the TV needs to be on during the performance, you're probably SOL.