any1th3r3 , 4 months ago

Disclaimer: I’m about as inexperienced as you are (and ended up giving up on CRTs for the time being, but mostly for lack of space tbh).

With that out of the way, my research from a couple years ago netted a couple of results, which might or might not be relevant to you (and I’m guessing you could have already found those), depending on where on the globe you are located.

• This person in the Bay Area, who also happens to manage the super useful CRT Database website.
• This person in the Lower Mainland.

If those two are not relevant to you, you might want to check your local CL / Kijiji / FB Marketplace / local equivalent(s) for potential listings.

Otherwise you could certainly YOLO it with the Trinitron since it’s well documented, assuming you feel confident enough around high voltage and are equipped with the necessary tools to discharge the tube, etc. From what I’ve seen it’s not as bad as it seems, as long as you you’re careful and follow the right steps/tutorials.
Do you have any spare PCB / whatever lying around you could use to practice soldering with? Components on CRT PCBs are indeed not so small, so I don’t know what sort of prior experience you have with soldering, but bigger components = easier to solder (as long as you use a bigger tip on your soldering iron, and feel free to use flux / add fresh solder).