Tag: television

How do projection or rear projection televisions work?

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

How do projection or rear projection televisions work?

Inside the projection TV, there are three separate picture tubes that work very much like normal black and white picture tubes. One of these tubes creates an image of the red light in the television image, one creates an image of the green light, and the third creates an image of the blue light. In front of each tube, there is a color filter: red for the red tube, green for the green tube, and blue for the blue tube. There is also a projector lens that takes the light leaving the tube and filter and projects a clear image of that light on the screen in front of the projector. The light striking the screen looks exactly like the light leaving the surface of the picture tube. The three images (red, green, and blue) are carefully overlapped so that they mix and you perceive all colors.

How do the electrons know which spots on the screen to color darker and which to…

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

How do the electrons know which spots on the screen to color darker and which to leave lighter?

The electrons simply deliver energy (their own kinetic energy) to the phosphors they hit. When they are hit by electrons, these phosphors emit light. They fluoresce. The picture determines which spots on the screen should be dark and which ones should be light by controlling the number of electrons that hit those spots; by controlling the current in the beam. When the current hitting a spot is low, that spot glows dimly. When the current hitting a spot is high, that spot glows brightly.

How do the magnets that redirect the electron beam in the picture tube move it t…

Lou Bloomfield Leave a comment

How do the magnets that redirect the electron beam in the picture tube move it to the exact point that it’s supposed to?

The electromagnets that steer the electron beam are very carefully designed and constructed so that they steer the beam very accurately. They are coils of wire that are built on a form and then glued together so that they cannot move. There are some adjustments made electronically inside the television set to make sure that the beam follows a very start path as it sweeps across the screen. When you adjust the horizontal and vertical sizes of the picture, you are adjusting the currents flowing through these electromagnets.

How does a magnet change the picture on a television

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How does a magnet change the picture on a television—does this hurt the TV?

When you hold a magnet up to the front of a television, you are introducing an additional magnetic field in the system. This field exerts forces on the moving electrons inside the tube and they are deflected. The picture is distorted. With a black and white television, no harm is done because there is nothing to magnetize inside the picture tube. But color television picture tubes contain metal shadow masks that can become permanently magnetic. The picture remains distorted, even after you remove the magnet. To clear up the “damage”, you would have to demagnetize the picture tube. Although this is not a particularly difficult task, it requires a demagnetizing coil and is best done by a professional repairperson. The bottom line is, don’t play with magnets near a color television set.