Living Room A/V setup - Part 2 update

Got the 2 surround (rear) speakers mounted.

Using these mounts by Sanus

Next I will be making little brackets to mount the left/center/right speakers to the plasma, using this strip from Home Depot.

The bracket will attach to extra TV mounting holes in the back of the plasma, at the bottom of the TV.

Didn't get around to sanding the mud  in the media shelves yet. 

  

We all knew this day would come. . .

I had to clone myself to get some stuff done quicker. . .

Hopefully now we can get some more done on these projects and make blog posts in the same day.

Living Room A/V setup - Part 2

Part 2 is the built in shelf that I only had a hole in the wall for back when drywalling the rest of the house.
You see it in the pictures in Living Room A/V setup - Part 1 as a dehumidifier box in the wall.

The hole goes into the garage.

Couple of cell phone shots of the framing going in.

Using 2x4 's that have been sitting around too long,
twisted boards do not make for a pleasant project.

Finished attaching drywall.

Ran an outlet into the media shelves that will sit below the first shelf, hidden from sight. This is where I will put a powers strip/surge protector. And another on the upper right hand side so that you won't see it either while sitting viewing the tv. If you can't tell I get nit-picky about wires and things being "just so".  Also ran some video cables to the tv. As well as 5.1 surround speaker wires around the room.

When I get to the shelves, which there will be 4 of,  I'll leave a space at the back so that any go-between cables/ power cords can fall down the back and stay out of sight.

Next I'll be mudding it up and installing/making a couple speaker mounts.

What I've been up to - Living Room A/V setup - Part 1

This is our living room right now. Well, as it was. . .

Stitch together multiple photos into a panoramic with free program Microsoft Ice !

About a year ago our awesome friend (who, oh by the way, introduced me to my wife), got this Pioneer 50" 720p tv from a job-site for free because it was Non-working.
He looked at it a bit, figured it was the power supply that was dead, but didn't want to shell out the $380 or so for a new replacement part from pioneer. Plus he already has a better plasma than this one.

When asked if I wanted it, the tinkerer in me couldn't say no - "A broken power supply? That's IT?!"

It turns out that pioneer actually had lots of problems with this power supply failing in these tv's and they made newer boards to replace the original.
So I began using saved searches on eBay to email me when new parts were posted for the PDP-505HD or compatible model PDP-502MX, along with the more specific part numbers off of the circuit board itself.

Finally a year later someone posted what I was looking for starting substantially lower than 'new from pioneer' prices. I ended up winning the power supply for $114 shipped. Only hoping that this would work.

Well it turns out that it did in fact fix the tv much to my enjoyment.


10 year old Pioneer 50" Plasma - $114

Articulating wall mount - $42 on eBay

Can you believe that around 2001 when this tv was new, people were paying between $10,000 - $13,000 for one of these?! Wow! Talk about being on the wrong/early-adopter side of the technology curve. . .

Considering that you can get a really nice new 50" plasma for what, under $800 easily now? 

Part 1 - Done!