RE: Any Pictures of Flat Screen Install?
I posted one in in this thread.
W4MBG reminds me that in my Home Theater (5.1) install I mounted the sub-woofer under the front dinette bench seat. I used a home wall vent to allow the sound to escape. The vent faces the other dinette seat and is mounted near the outside wall. You can't even tell it's there.
RE: TV replacement
In my Rexhall Vision 25' class A (yep, it's short), I was tired of the 19" CRT up front that had the standard def picture. I decided to go high def, but put it somewhere altogether different. My wife and I decided that if the TV sat on the dinette table one person could sit in the swivel chair by the door, the other in the pax seat. Of course you can't mount the TV to the table, but ...
I measured the distance between the dinette seats and decided to mount my new flat screen (Vizeo 32" LCD) on the wall, where the table attaches to the wall, but in a cabinet.
Huh, you say?
The dinette table attaches to the wall with a male/female aluminum lift out bracket. I removed the bracket and the floor box that hides the flexi heat tube as it runs to the front of the rig. I temporarily took out the heat tube as I built the TV stand.
The TV stand is really just a pair of 100 pound rated ball bearing drawer slides with a small block of hardwood attached between them. A set of shelf brackets on either stabilize the unit. A couple of L brackets attach the slides to the wall. To the hardwood is attached a cheap flat screen TV wall bracket.
If you've followed all of this we now have a sliding mechanism that will move the TV up and down. The following pic illustrates.
http://inlinethumb32.webshots.com/49503/2665819450100685926S600x600Q85.jpg
Here the TV and heat tube is test mounted to determine space requirements.
http://inlinethumb08.webshots.com/48967/2185584030100685926S600x600Q85.jpg
Ok, now for the box. There are two main pieces to the box, as it’s constructed a bit like a coffee table with a glass top. You have the rectangle at the top and the legs. We need the box to be very strong as it must stand the strain of someone hitting the table diagonally. I decided to use some standard oak flooring as I still have a pile of that laying around. Oak is very strong, glues well and matches the interior. Also oak flooring has tongue and grooves. The grooves make a good recess for holding panels. I took the oak to the table saw and removed the tongues. I built the top rectangle of the box so that the TV just fit inside. The top box also has diagonals in order to up the strength. The top portion is glued and finished nail together. The grooves in the wood face down. This is addressed later. The top of this box is then screwed back onto the wall using the same holes originally used by the table bracket. While I had the table bracket handy, it got mounted to the front of top box.
This picture illustrates:
http://inlinethumb27.webshots.com/44762/2315896950100685926S600x600Q85.jpg
This picture shows the table, but we’ll address that later.
On to the legs. If you look at the picture above you’ll see holes in the top portion of the box. Those are for the long screws into a pair of vertical oak "legs", which also have the grooves facing in.
I fit the legs so that they are real tight to the top. The legs should be tight enough so that the weight of the table and anything placed on it will not let the top box section move vertically.
With the top having grooves and the sides also having grooves you can fit a flat of wood (or other material) between them. I added one more piece of oak at the bottom with the groove facing up. My panel was made of luan with a covering very close to the material of the coach.
There are other details such as how to build the sides and the top not covered here but I used the same groove trick for the sides too. The wires are run though the wall to the left and into the upper cabinets. A 5.1 home theater/blu-ray player is hidden there and other wires connect to other equipment in the pax side top cabinet (the “glovebox”). Because of HDMI, there are few wires between the TV and the home theater.
The table top was covered with blue tape and run through the table saw removing enough length to make up for the box. Of course I used a very fine toothed blade. A top made of oak flooring was also fashioned to hide the TV when in the down position. This is a simple lid that is removed and placed off to the side when the TV is up.
Here is the result with the TV down:
http://inlinethumb22.webshots.com/50837/2703645170100685926S600x600Q85.jpg
And with the TV up:
http://inlinethumb07.webshots.com/50310/2144880700100685926S600x600Q85.jpg
I use a strap to pull up the light weight TV, but will put on some gas struts in order to help it up. A short hinged leg pops out at the back of the hardwood to hold the tv up. There are sites that offer reasonable 12v electric lifts, which is another option.
Finally, what to do with the TV hole up front. I could put more audio/visual stuff in there, but decided to just cover it up for now. I took out the whole padded TV holding housing and built an L, covered with the same material as the tv unit. Here is that pic:
http://inlinethumb16.webshots.com/50191/2518997570100685926S600x600Q85.jpg
