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Monday, August 30, 2010

Living Room A/V setup - Part 2 update

Got the Front speakers done now.




Bought a strip of metal from home depot to hang the front speakers off the tv.

I cheated and went to work (machine shop) to shear these to length and drill speaker wire holes, slot out the mounting holes.




Shearing




Milling holes for speaker wire and slotting mounting holes to allow for adjustment.




Speaker wire holes










The center bracket really needed to be a half inch or so longer. But I'm not going to buy another piece just to fix this as somewhere down the road when I upgrade speakers these won't be usable anyways I'm sure.





The right and left speakers I used an 1½" spacer to bring the speakers back flush with the front of the screen.


And you can see that I used split-loom to hide the speaker cables all the way to the wall.


Next is to get the power cable into the wall and into a surge protector safely. I'm going to be doing a homebrew/diy version of the Powerbridge

Basically you should Not run the power cable that goes into a tv or computer behind the drywall. Reason being that the cable could get warm and over time without the heat escaping, insulation become brittle, etc etc, house fire, Insurance not cover because of a code violation. etc etc. You get the picture.

So I will post about this when I actually do it.

Meantime you might want to check your Flat panel tv (if you  have one) and make sure the power cable isn't getting (pretty) warm. If it is you need to get a thicker gauge cable.

In my case, I need a 16 gauge cable for my 50" plasma because the 18 gauge was heating up. I'm not sure but maybe with 42" you can get away with the 18 gauge wire which is more common, for computers and smaller pc monitors, etc.
I tried a 16 gauge that came with my PC upgraded power supply, and it seems to be fine so. . .

Later

7 comments:

  1. I wonder if when you upgrade the speakers if a (I hate to say it) sound bar would work as your center and fronts? It would look better than mounting 3 different speaker on the panel again, I think.

    I love the Power bridge think, I had never heard of the fire hazard, even if that wasn't a risk, the power bridge should would be a nice professional touch.

    I probably should feel my power cord cause it is in my wall, I just hate to roll out my entertainment stand because of the huge mess of wires behind it, it makes it hard to roll it back flush with the wall. Its surprising that a great company like Pioneer or Panny would equip their tv's with cords that are somewhat dangerous. Of course they would say its fine if you don't put it in your wall, and they would be right, of course.

    Sorry for going so long, I love this stuff, and I hate studying.

    I dedicate this song to Mr. JonOfAllTrades
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGUFfa2iDHg

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like the black and white picture.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Mr. JonOfAllTrades,

    Although I see you have book recommendations I am unable to find your book review section. I would love to read your reviews on recommended books.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well I agree that compared to these 5x5" boxes a sound bar would look better. But I also think that more elongated speakers mounted on the sides and of course horizontal top or bottom for center channel, would look way better also. Aren't all sound bars meant to fake surround sound? So I'm wondering do they have 5 pairs of speaker wire terminals to get all the channels? Never looked into them that much.

    As for the power cord, I don't doubt that the TV's come with an appropriate, albeit sometimes too short, power cord. But as you should well know, I got neither power cord, nor remote with my free TV :(. Ha Ha
    I think it is not ok for it to be warm in any regards, if anything moving power inside your house is warm, you need to address it.

    Thank Nyssa for the picture, she said its easier to get black and white photo when the flash is messing you up in funky lighting with point and shoot camera.

    I would love to do a book review for you sometime. . . sometime.

    How about a Guest Post? Write up some thoughts on Dave Ramsey, or a particular idea, Leasing a car maybe? Having a car payment while in debt/not having a million net worth? Buying extended warranties?
    I better stop there, there is alot of 'Stupid' to address in personal finances.

    Get back to work.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Where would I put this "Guest Post"?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Will you posting an open invite for movie night for all your followers?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dear Mr. JonOfAllTrades,

    I can't find the music link on your blog. Do you even write music?

    ReplyDelete

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