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Painting a CRT

I

Indolentron

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 10, 2005
Messages
210
I searched before I made this thread, so if this has already been discussed, I apologize; I did not find it.

My desk, keyboard, mouse, speakers, phone, and game controllers are all black. My monitors are beige. I do not like this. (pic)

I've seen people talk about painting/dying their CRTs before but have not picked up enough info to confidently do it without further guidance. I gather that vinyl dye is the best choice, but I need to know:
  • Is it possible to paint the monitor without taking the case off? (How would I cover the screen/ is it ok to get a tiny bit in the ventilation holes?)
  • If I did take it off, how safe would it be (FW900 was made in 2002, other was made in 1999, would they both have bleed capacitors?)
  • Specifically what paint/dye would I use?
  • What would I do about logos? (Someone said it was actually very strange looking to have a monitor without a logo)
  • What about the control buttons?
  • Would it be possible to spray dye on a cloth and rub it onto the monitor, so as to not have to worry about the vent holes/taking it apart?
Any advice appreciated.
 
My understanding is that you really need to dissemble the monitor to do it right without taking a chance on F'ing something up. The problem with that is it's possible to F it up if you don't know what your doing during the dissambly and reassembly process. Vinyl dye is your best bet on paint after completely cleaning the case throughly for grease and oils that would mess up the new finish. The dye on a rag thing you asked about would turn out to be a real mess - LOL. If you don't think you would be up to the challange then get a local shop that does repair work on monitors to do the dissambly and reassembly work. It would be BAD to mess up a FW900. :eek:
 
Great... I don't wanna screw it up, and I don't really know how to take it apart, and there's no monitor repair shops around here...

I am a tech aide for my high school, maybe the guy I "work" for will help... don't know if I want to ask though.
 
Opening up sony monitors can be tough as they have plastic latches that are hard as hell to get undone. But after you take off the grille peice you can leave the rest on but tape off the parts u dont want dyed.
 
spraypainting the buttons while still in the bezel is a bad idea... I think they only way you'll be able to pull it off cleanly is to disassemble the monitor completely.

After a quick search on the intarnet, I found a site you can download a service manual from... that should give you detailed instructions on how to disassemble it safely.

http://rv6llh.rsuh.ru/sony/new2004/FW900.zip
 
I had one of the old beige W-900's a while back. It's fairly easy to get the back off. There are four screws located behind the corners of the tube. Remove the monitor foot first. Be careful inside, I avoided touching any big red wires and stay far away from the PCB which is attached to the neck of the tube.

-edit- nevermind, your model is different than the one I had, they must have updated the case. Sorry, should have looked at pic first.-

I had best luck laying the monitor on it's face and lifting the back off. Some people don't recommend this because if there is anything loose inside the CRT, it will fall into the display area and possibly disrupt the picture.

The front faceplate is more of a problem, but with some work you should be able to get it off (I took mine off because the silly VGA 1/2 switch was so cheezy it broke after about a year) I can't remember how it came off, sorry.

Since the back comes off as one big piece, it should be easy enough to paint, the front faceplate is more of a challenge. I'd reccommend full disassembly of all switches, LED's etc as spray paint in a manual switch (like the VGA 1/2 on the W-900) is going to gum it up.
 
I've painted mine and had a thread with details and guide somewhere, but I'll have to find it.

In short, yes, take it apart. It's really too easy to get paint to seep onto your screen and there's no way you can effectively cover up vent holes from the outside as well as not fudge up your base, electronics, and jam your controls because you will be needing to spray a couple of coats.

It's safe to take off, just make sure you're grounded and don't touch anything metal.

Again, controls, unless you can pop them off from the outside, you should disassemble monitor shell and pop out individual buttons and paint them.

As for logos, not much you can do there unless you have some sort of silk screening machine at home or you spray light enough coats that the logos show up through the paint, either in color, or in thickness.

Use Vinyl Dye.

No you can't spray onto a cloth and rub it on. Paint will dry horribly everywhere and you'll make a total mess of everything and it won't be fixable unless you sand the whole monitor again.
 
Hmm thanks for all the advice... I'll see about getting some vinyl dye, but probably wont try this immediately. I'm definately going to do it with the crappy monitor first...
 
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