where to find 5" crts these day?

[zachgold]

Hi All,

First thing, I'm really happy to find this forum. In fact, wish I had a long time ago.

I am an artist who works with crts by removing the tv casing and building new armatures for them. I know how dangerous this is, but I have it worked out fairly scientifically by now. My last long term project involved splicing in wire to separate the tube from the circuit boards. You can see it here: Aldis Lamp on Vimeo.

Anyway, I'm currently working on a project building plexiglass casings for 5" crts. I built a prototype about 1.5 years ago and the only new 5" crt I could find was the Coby CTV-555, admittedly a piece of junk, but it worked for my purposes. Unfortunately, this has been discontinued as even Coby is stopping crt production.

I could easily buy a 5" crt for cheap on ebay, but the problem is that I'd eventually like this to be a series of roughly a dozen pieces and it would be extremely difficult (not to mention expensive) to purchase that many of the same model individually.

So, my question is: does anyone have any tips on how to acquire 5" crts of the same model in bulk, whether new or used?

Many thanks,
zach

[JayCee]

You'd be better off asking here.

[zachgold]

I just posted my question there as well. Is there a reason why you'd recommend that forum over this one?

[JayCee]

TVs using 5" CRTs aren't/weren't commonly available here in the UK/Europe.

[zachgold]

Ah, I see. Didn't realize this was primarily a UK forum. Thanks!

[mike7]

There are 5" CRTs in cheap Karaoke machines obtainable from Toys r' Us. Presumably Chinese made and universally available.

[JayCee]

Originally Posted by mike7

There are 5" CRTs in cheap Karaoke machines obtainable from Toys r' Us. Presumably Chinese made and universally available.

Are you sure these are CRTs...LCD screens would be a lot cheaper for a toy manufacturer to use.

[mike7]

Originally Posted by JayCee

Are you sure these are CRTs...LCD screens would be a lot cheaper for a toy manufacturer to use.

I think this was the one I saw. It looked remarkably like a small B&W CRT and the quality was nothing to write home about.

Easy Karaoke VKG14 Machine - Toys R Us - Britain's greatest toy store

[zachgold]

Yeah, most toy karaoke machines today don't even have a screen, they're basically just video games. I looked around and think the chance of finding one with a 5" color crt is slim to nil. Plus, the price would be quite high compared to just a tv, which is a factor if I need over 10 of them. Thanks for the idea, though! Perhaps I do need to examine more embedded screens...