Stumbled across a computer repair shop in Portland that still works on CRT monitors

I was visiting a buddy in Portland last month and we walked past this tiny shop called Rose City Electronics. The sign said they fix anything with a screen so I popped in to ask about an old Dell CRT I've been storing in my garage. The guy behind the counter had a whole shelf of CRT chassis and flyback transformers. He told me he gets shipments of parts from a warehouse in Ohio that still stocks stuff for monitors from the 90s. I spent like 20 minutes talking to him about discharging capacitors and recapping old boards. He even showed me a test rig he built himself using a breadboard and some salvaged parts. I came home with a list of components to order and a newfound hope for that Dell monitor. Has anyone else run into a shop that specializes in this kind of retro fix work?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlesj467h ago

That "recapping old boards" line really got me thinking... I actually dragged a 2003 Sony Trinitron across three states because I couldn't stand to toss it. Found a guy in a strip mall in Boise who still takes them apart for fun on weekends. He told me most shops won't touch CRTs because of the shock risk but he keeps a box of vintage capacitors under his workbench. I ended up buying a flyback transformer from him that he'd had sitting around since the Clinton administration. It's wild how there's this whole underground network of people keeping these heavy old beasts alive.

olivia_chen356h ago

That "underground network" part is way too real. I found a retired TV repair guy in a tiny town in Ohio who let me dig through his garage. He had a stack of old Panasonic CRTs and a box of Sanyo caps labeled from 1994. I traded him a six-pack of cheap beer for a set of deflection coils because he said his wife was tired of them "cluttering up the place." It's amazing how these old parts are still floating around if you know where to look.