Unofficial CRT Implosion Testing

This (unfortunately) silent video was made by Tek employees who wanted to see what would happen in the worst case of a CRT implosion. These tests are not standard testing conducted by Tektronix and do not meet any applicable regulations including U.L. standards. All liabilities are disclaimed. Note that the tests with CRT’s in shields almost entirely contain the energy of the implosion. In the instruments the Museum has received with broken CRT’s, the CRT breaks at the neck and releases the vacuum without further internal damage; no “implosion“ as such occurs. We have made a rough estimation that the energy released by an implosion is between 200 and 300 joules, or watt-seconds. But since the energy is released in a few milliseconds, the peak power could be as high as 50,000 joules per second, or 50,000 watts.