Asset Recovery II: Plasma TV Harvest

When driving around my neighborhood I'm always on the lookout for roadside swag, be it building material, furniture, or electronics as well as anything else of possible interest. I recently acquired two dead plasma TVs and brought them home since I have a project in mind and I knew that what was inside of them would be useful. In this Instructable I'll show how I dismembered a complex piece of gear and reclaimed valuable raw materials

Any television or monitor has the potential to store hazardous voltages, research the current ways and means to render them safe before proceeding with parting it out. It is also advisable to glove up and wear eye protection as glass will be encountered during disassembly operations. An apron, if available, would also be a good idea.

Each back shell is simply unscrewed and set aside. They have a prominent place in a future project, and will be most useful because of their near- net shape.

Unplug all cables, and unscrew the circuit boards. I temporarily bin that stuff and will go through it later, right now I want to move on and process for metal content. Next, while the front screen is still attached, strike off the spacers and standoffs using a hammer- they do not have a great amount of lateral resistance so this is quick and easy. The trick here is to tap just enough to dislodge the swaged part without deforming the metal chassis, I find orbiting around with each rap pops them off easily and minimizes panel distortion.

It will be advantageous to fabricate a tool that will slice through the adhesive membrane that secures the glass screen to the main chassis. I used an old handsaw and modified it with my bench grinder to the specifications in the image. To use, one simply inserts it between the adjacent surfaces and slices through the membrane, parting it from the metal chassis by ripping with the hook and chiseling with the nose. The glass will likely fracture and begin to fall off during this procedure, so this is best done outside since neon, xenon and argon plus a small amount of nitrogen may still be present in the envelope. Finally, it may be possible to use a stout piano or guitar wire and pull it through for the same effect, but I have not tried that on such a large scale project as this.

Lots of aluminum profiles and flats to add to my inventory now. I often find when working on a project that a stock item's shape will do my needs better than my original design concept, thus it helps to simplify the job.

The thrifty reclaimist uses all his/ her resources gathered during the journey. I have a large collection of screws saved when dismantling products and have divided them in two categories: machine screw threads, i.e. 8-32, 6mm, etc. and self- tapping threads, generally intended for plastics. The good news is also, that those blunt self- tappers will work quite well in wood if dense enough, and most woods are. Their coarse threads grab well, are easily driven in drilled pilot holes, and for small thin metal mountings are a reliable choice.