CRT Lens Cleaning. Help! (1 Viewer)

[Oswald Pascual]

I have a Sony FPTV, and the CRT lens have sometype of optic coating. Well I gave it a small finger smudge and now I do not know of safe way to clean the lens without messing up the coating.

Help.

 

[Mike I]

You can use a camera lense cleaning cloth which you can get at any camera store..Same thing to clean the CRT's on an RPTV..

 

[DaveF]

Though I can't speak directly to RPTV optics, I can tell you how to clean optics in general.

1) Using pressurized, filtered air (e.g. canned air), blow off any dust and loose debris.

2) Acquire cleaning materials

Pure acetone works very well, but I don't think that's readily available to consumers (We buy by the gallon for the lab).

Since you can't use acetone, most likely, use a *very* mild soapy solution. You want to use mild, liquid dish soap, without any coloring, scents, bleaches, etc. You also want purified (distilled) water (you don't want any minerals in the water), as well as lint-free tissues (camera-lens cleaning tissues are good).

3) First, you want to clean a small area of the side of a lens, to make sure the cleanser doesn't harm any optical coatings.

Mix a drop or two of the soap with a few cups of the warm, lukewarm.

Get a tissue wet, and very gently wipe it around the area being cleaned. Then rinse with purified water. Ideally, you'd rinse with with copious amounts of water. But if that's not possible (working near the TV electronics), then you might be able to rinse by wiping with wet tissues.

Then dry by dragging a clean tissue across the area.

I'm used to cleaning loose optics. I assume you'll have to be extremely careful to not drip water into the lens housing, the electronics, etc.

Inspect the lens surface. Make sure the cleaned spot still looks the same as the rest of the lens.

4) Assuming the lens was harmed, clean the entire surface. Wet tissues in the soapy water, and gently swab the lens. I think circular motions, center to edge are recommended.

Rinse with water.

Then dry.

5) Final comments: Glass is very hard and not easily scratched; however wiping a dry cloth across a dirty lens is a good way to do that. In contrast, optical coatings can be fragile; caution should be used when cleaning coated optics.

I hope this helps.

 

[Oswald Pascual]

Hey Dave and Mike Thanks for the tip's. I will print and file this under my Home Theater notes. After closer inspection it appears that my optics are screwed to the actual lense with three little bolts. Looks like I should be able to remove the three lens without actually removing the gun. This should make it easier to clean. Will research it more before I remove it.

Thanks

 

[errol]

Hi Oswald,
Here's a few more cleaning tips you might want to check out.
Thanks,
Errol

 

[Allan Jayne]

Try pressing some Scotch Magic tape or not-so-old cellophane tape over the fingerprint and then peel it off. If you are lucky, the fingerprint will actually stick to the tape and come off.
Don't wipe lenses hard with paper towels, this will cause scratching becuase most paper towels are wood pulp.
Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm