Rattles

[Rick 2005 Dolphin 5376]

Originally Posted by Dmorgan6375

Woops, that should have read Pull out and down to view the tv!

Believe me, you can see the TV fine installed behind the frame. You are trying to make a simple install a complicated mess.

[Dunner]

Originally Posted by GREGORYJ

I found a LCD LED 32" TV that was slightly narrower than the inside of the Dolphin's wooden cabinet. With the front cabinet off and laying face down , put the TV inside
the cabinet then screwed door frame casing behind the sides and bottom of the TV
to hold it in place. I filled the gap at the top with a piece of maple. This TV weighted
only 14 lbs. It has worked fine for 2 years now , or about 21,000 miles of travels.

That looks almost like my Sea Breeze 1311, except I used a wider top strip and covered it with burlap. See previous post #8. How did you mount the new TV? Mine was super easy. Looks like the same Samsung 32" Series 4050 LED TV.

[GREGORYJ]

Hi Dunner. My mounting job was very easy as well. The Tv being the right width is what made it work out. My TV (Westinghouse -$220) was between 1/4" to 1/2" narrower than the inside of the National wooden cabinet. This TV then was wider than the opening of the National cabinet so is mounted behind the opening. I used wooden door or window casing pieces pressed in against the rear of the TV and then screwed with short screws into the sides of the cabinet. This was after the TV was layed inside the cabinet when the cabinet was laying face down. The maple filler at the top wasn't a perfect match to the wooden cabinets but does look better in person. So no TV mounting kit was required. Once the TV was mounted into the cabinet, the cabinet was mounted back into the RV.

[mbrandt1402]

Mounting so it can be pulled out is easy. Lowering it, not so much.

I've given it some thought, as I'd like to be able to do that in our TropiCal. The leverage of the TV's weight against the mount would go up quite a lot with the TV lowered. To use some of the simple geometry that I can still recall from high school, if you pull your TV out a foot and then drop it a foot, the lever arm in the extended and dropped position would be nearly 17". Is the mount over-engineered by nearly 50%? Maybe, but I'd rather not test it. I did this with a 42" plasma (I had not found this site, nor read about the bad experiences a lot of people have had with plasmas in RVs), so my TV is a little hefty compared to a 32" LED.

When I first installed my flat screen and double arm mount, the TV would creep away from the cabinet while driving down the road unless it was an unbelievably smooth freeway. I had built the system so that mount was almost fully collapsed when the TV was stored, so there was a mounting plate on the TV in close proximity to the mounting plate attached to the RV. My solution was pretty simple: buy a gate hinge and bend a Z into the long leg of the hinge to make a catch that would drop into place over the edge of the stationary mounting plate. Mount the hinge with the bent leg running forward toward the stationary plate so that when you push the TV against the cabinet (compressing the RadioShack rubber feet stuck to the back of the TV), it catches. Add a spring to hold the catch down, a stop to keep it at the right attitude and a string to pull the latch open and you are done. It worked well enough that I dug through my "20 yr tub" and replaced the string with a lock actuator left over from an auto alarm system installation. I used a lighted doorbell switch installed into the bottom edge of the TV to trigger the lock actuator. Works perfectly, and always draws a smile from any mechanic that I show the system to.

[2Labs]

Originally Posted by Post43

Nice. How did you mount the flatsceen?

I put a flatscreen TV in our overhead cabinet during our trip to Niagara Falls a couple of summers ago - while staying in the KOA Niagara Falls.

I did ours a little differently, in that I pushed the TV cabinet back flush with the rest of the front cabinets. I used, and modified the mount that held the tube TV in place.











While the LCD replacement TV fits the cabinet width, it was a little short top to bottom. We added a small strip of wood, covered in black suede, at the top. And yes, 2 years later, I do have to *still* decide what to do with the gap at the top. I've thought about adding a sound bar up there, but will likely just fab up a board, stained like the cabinets, to go across the top.

You can read more about our modification here Rainy Day/TV Project Finished (almost) | Our RV Journey

[MikeandRuth]

2Labs:
My mount is almost identical to yours. I turned the existing base mount vertical to the cabinet face angle. I used a wall mount with serrations to prevent sliding and set screws to lock the tv in place. My TV sits against the face edges of the side cabinets.
I fabricated a filler piece for the hole in the overhead in maple to match our other cabinets.
I just purchased a sound bar I intend to mount on the overhead, but it will need to be slightly in front of the filler piece to enable the connectors to clear. It sure helps our aging ears!!!
Mike

[mbrandt1402]

IMHO, sliding the TV fascia forward until it is flush or eliminating it as Mike did should be a fundamental part of upgrading to a flat screen on National rigs with front stairs. The first few weekends we had our TropiCal with the old SD TV up there I ran into the corner of the TV fascia several times. Even with a 42" flat screen, the corner of the TV isn't really in play.

[GREGORYJ]

I agree. We where sometimes bumping our heads on the protruding TV cabinet. So this
past summer did, as others have done , reducing the cabinet depth. This of coarse
left an opening in the ceiling above the TV which I covered with a piece of maple.

[MikeandRuth]

Here are some pictures of ours. I had a bunch of before and afters, but the computer ate them! I took these this morning.
Our original TV sat deeper in the cabinet than the pictures above.
We had a molded plastic frame that surrounded the TV and covered the hole you can see in these pictures. I cut the face off and reused the bottom piece. It butts against the bottom back edge of the TV and looks fine.
Our ceiling cutout is a radius that matched the shape of the old set.
I positioned the mount so the TV needs to be against the ceiling and then slide forward to engage the mount. It drops down 3/4" into position, and I fabricated my filler from 3/4" maple to minimize rattles. Since it needs to be removed for future service, I used the plugs you can see to cover the mounting screws.
As I said in my previous post, I used a serrated mount with retaining screws. I did not want the TV to gets loose under any circumstances.
I want to mount the sound bar on the maple piece, but the connectors may be an issue and I might need to move it out a bit. Right now it is on the dash! I fell out of a tree and broke my shoulder recently and need to heal up before I can finish the project. The Firemen thought it was really funny that a 71 year old man was in a tree!

[Dunner]

I used the existing fascia, some scrap aluminum and scrap computer desk wood to to mount mine.