In article <1157768229.394842.146590@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups. com>,
bob@coolgroups.com wrote:
> I was playing around with a magnet on my CRT screen. Now my monitor
> has some dark patches. Any way to fix this?
A monitor has a built-in degaussing coil, and it applies an
A.C. magnetic field, to try to erase residual magnetism in
the monitor. That is enough to correct for small magnetic
anomalies.
Placing a magnet on a monitor, can magnetize the metal frame
of the monitor. The built-in degaussing coil is neither powerful
enough, nor positioned well enough, to correct magnetic vandalism
of this kind.
When I bought a new CRT 10 years ago, the brand new CRT had
discoloration typical of a magnetization problem. I took the
monitor to a TV repair shop at a larger TV/Stereo store, and
they used a portable degaussing coil. The coil is about one
foot in diameter. The service person waves the coil around
the monitor and steps way back from the monitor before
turning it off. Since the magnetic field lines point out
of the hole in the middle of the coil, just before the service
person turns off the coil, they turn it so the opening in the
coil is no longer pointing at the CRT. That prevents the spike
when the AC switch on the degaussing coil is turned off,
from polluting the monitor again with magnetism.
One treatment seemed to fix up my new monitor, so it had
a nice white background when the picture was supposed to
be white.
Keep all magnets away from the CRT, if you expect to keep
your color purity. The degaussing built into the monitor
is enough to keep it clean, unless you stick a magnet on
your screen or on the side where some framework metal is
located. And since we know the magnet you used, came out
of that disk drive you were playing with, that is about
the strongest small magnet you could have selected for
the job :-)
The TV/Stereo store I used, did my degaussing for free,
but I'm sure most businesses would charge for the service.
Even though it only takes about 2 minutes to do. Note
that there are no guarantees with the portable degausser -
a determined vandal with a magnet can permanently ruin a
monitor, if the applied field was strong enough. Even the
portable degausser has a limited ability to erase
magnetism in the frame of the monitor. If you were thinking
of moving up to a 5 lb alnico magnet for your next
experiment, think again :-)
(some magnets to keep away from your monitor or TV set)
http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3041946
Paul