I have an ooooold 21" Dell monitor in my living room that serves as my television. Since it was rescued from a dumpster (missing power button), it’s a little dinged up and dirty. It’s worked like a charm for 2 years now.
I’m thinking though that it’s just not an appropriate centerpiece for my living room - a big “computer gray” box with black smudges on it and stuff. So I want to paint it.
It’s in the corner so the back - the grill - is not really exposed so I am not too worried about having to paint that part and thus getting paint in it. But what kind of paint, and what application process would work best for this?
I Googled “paint computer crt monitor” and didn’t come up with anything. There was one place that did custom monitor painting and it looks like a good deal ($159) but shipping this thing which is huge and weighs about 60 lbs is NOT a good deal.
I’ve painted monitors before. I pealed off the back of the case, taped off the tube and went at it with cans of spray.
Follow the basic rules for taking apart monitors (don’t do it if you don’t know what not to touch) and painting plastics (sand it to give the paint something to stick to).
I wouldn’t advise getting spray paint inside the monitor -but I’d suspect a little souldn’t hurt anything. If you aren’t going to pull the case apart than mask off the areas over the vents.
So what kind of paint do I need to use? Are there different kinds of spray paint? What grit sandpaper?
I don’t know anything about taking the monitor apart so I was planning on just taping some thick newspaper over the grate. I didn’t know they even come apart I just wanted to do the front, the stand, and the sides around the screen.
I’d go with a flat acrylic paint myself. It’s durable and adheres well to plastics. You don’t need a rough grit sandpaper either – in fact, you want something relatively fine, on the order of 220 grit or higher, so as not to rough up the surface too much. Just make sure, if you’re not taking the casing off (and really this is the best way) that you mask of every opening; the grille, any open ports (power, adjustment pots, etc.) and so on. A little spray paint probably won’t kill the monitor, but anything getting inside the monitor that serves as a permanent insulator in electronics that get pretty hot by nature is never a good thing.
If you are going to take the shell off, the thing you’re looking out for is the flyback transformer. This is the bit that gets 20-30,000 volts coursing through it while in use, and the big honkin’ capacitor its attached to can hold current in it for a while after the unit is turned off. If you want to make sure it’s safe, unplug it and leave it for a few hours before doing anything further with it to allow the capacitor to lose its charge.
Best not to take the case off if you are unfamiliar with electronics.
Back in electronics school, we did some work on CRTs. The first thing the teacher said was, “This can kill you.” We measured voltages and such, but we had special high-voltage probes and all.
At one point we built a monochrome raster using an oscilloscope, a couple of waveform generators, and a capacitively-coupled input circuit. That was cool.
Make sure you tape it up really well. I took the display off my laptop to paint the top of it, but secured the newspaper with really weak masking tape (all I could find at the time). The tape pulled away a bit where the case curved, and I had to re-paint part of it, plus the spray got under the display, and I had to spend an hour getting silver speckles off the screen.
It didn’t occur to me to do any prep-work to the surface other than cleaning it with alcohol, but it still looks fine two months later.
So yeah, cover everything up really well, and you should be fine.
I used to repair CRTs. I also used to paint them. There’s enough juice in there to kill you even if it’s been unplugged for a month. The CRT acts as a big capacitor. Don’t take it apart. But don’t have it plugged in where you’re painting it. Keep the spray can 18 inches away and at an angle from the vent slats. Even if some paint does get in there, I can’t think of much it could hurt. The circuit boards are basically painted already, and any paint that would get on it wouldn’t be conductive when dry. All I’d be worried about is a little stink. But really, at an angle not much will get in there, and I don’t know how meticulous you’ll need to be about paint the back and top of the monitor. There isn’t anything you have to worry about in the front.
What you need is Plasti-Kote Ultra Vinyl Color. No sanding or priming required!
See how this guy painted his speakers with it: http://case-mods.linear1.org/speaker-mod/
If you can’t remove the face plates of your drives to paint them, go to the hardware store and get some green painter’s masking tape, and mask the parts of the drive you don’t want painted with the tape and newspaper. Also wrap the body of the drive in newspaper so that there isn’t any chance of paint landing on the laser lens inside.
I use this stuff all the time on plastic parts for my R/C hobby.
Thanks guys for all of your help. As I said in my OP I have no plans to paint the grill, so I’m not taking it apart. And since I am afraid of electricity I REALLY am not going to take it apart
Gonna find me some Plasti-Kote Ultra Vinyl Color and get it done! Maybe I’ll post some pics if it turns out nicely
I just wanted to do the front, the stand, and the sides around the screen.