X Ray "machine" out of a TV tube?

Question

Anyone see the latest Burn Notice episode? Westen used the cathode ray tube of an old TV and sent like 10KV through it to snap 1 picture to see what was inside a crate. I was just wondering, is it possible to really do that? How does it work, if so?

Answer 1

If you go through back issues of the Scientific American from 20 or

30 years ago, you can likely find Amateur Scientist columns about

making your own X-ray system. Some old time vacuum tubes put

out X-rays. I wouldn't advise doing it, though, for obvious health reasons.

Answer 2

Color TV Tubes CAN give off X-rays IF the voltage is high enough (like 30,000 volts), but the TV itslef has  special circuits inside it to casue the TV to automatically shutoff if the voltage goes too  high.

If you somehow disabled those circuits, you'd probably burn out the tube before the voltage got high enough to cause enough x-rays to take a picture.

Answer 3

No, for two reasons.  Firstly, 10 kV isn't enough voltage to give x-rays with any significant penetrating power (dental x-rays use 100 kV).  Secondly, the picture tube is made out of lead glass so as to absorb any x-rays that are produced.  Color TV's would be closer to being able to do this, as they use an accelerating voltage of about 25 kV, but the above limitations still apply.

Answer 4

Yes, it is definitely possible. an xray tube is just an evacuated drift region with a cathode and an anode. dental xrays are usually in the range of 75 kV. You put 75 kV across a tube and the electrons get accelerated up to an energy of 75 keV. When the electrons slam into the anode and stop you have charged particles which accelerate. When charge particles accelerated they give off radiation, it is called Bremsstrahlung, which is german and means braking radiation. So you can get xrays that are up to 75 keV in energy.