Hi there folks,
Firstly please let me apologise for having such a large first post, but if you could make your way through it and offer some suggestions I'd be most grateful.
My wife and I are currently in the process of doing up our living room, and sorting out our TV and AV equipment is priority number 1. We currently have a 3 shelf black glass stand that our equipment is on, and although there is nothing wrong with it our 19 month old boy likes nothing more than turning everything on / off and putting DVDs and games behind the tray in our home cinema unit. Needless to say this setup needs to be a lot smarter when it comes to detering his mischievous fingers!
Our current equipment is as follows:
50" Panasonic plasma TV (model number escapes me)
Panasonic Home Cinema System (DVD, not Blu-Ray)
XBox 360
Sky+ HD
Unknown brand Blu-Ray player (which I'm looking to replace with a PS3)
At first we wanted to wall mount the TV and have floating wall shelves underneath and out of reach of our boy, but having consulted with an installer who came to the house he seemed to think the shelves would be really low down if the TV was put up at the optimum viewing height, and probably wouldn't withstand him resting his full weight on a shelf. When I asked him whether he thought the TV could be mounted far higher to compensate for this (it is after all a big TV) he simply said no.
So, armed with this knowledge (which may or may not be correct) I've since been looking at the various options and none seem to sit quite right with me. I can't seem to find any (black - high gloss or normal is fine) cabinets that have glass doors instead of drawers, and have a bracket on the back to house the TV and raise it off the cabinet top. Unless these cabinets exist, I see our options are:
1. Buy a cabinet, and let the TV sit on top of it. This to me is an accident waiting to happen unless there is some way of securing the TV to the wall.
2. Buy a cabinet and still mount the TV on the wall. This will make the TV much harder to turn off and also make it impossible to topple over.
I'd like to go with 2 but I'm not sure the extra hassle of getting the wires sunk into the (external) wall and replastering would be worth the final result. Any comments on this?
In terms of what we are looking at for the actual cabinet, we don't really want to spend a fortune, so this is looking pretty good right now:
Tv Stands,Tv Units,LCD Stands,Wooden Plasma Tv Stands,Glass Tv stands,Tv Entertainment Furniture
However, like I say I'm completely open to suggestion on this one!
Also regarding the enclosed AV cabinets, I'm immediately concerned about the cooling / ventilation aspect of it. I'd like to custom fit some fans (as some of you have already done from what I can see) to any cabinet that I do buy, but although I understand the concept being pretty useless at DIY and electrics means putting the idea into practice could be challenging. Many solutions I've read about require rewiring a 12V DC Adapter which I wouldn't be comfortable doing. Assuming I can make a hole / holes in the unit:
1. Would I need holes to let cooler air in, and to let hot air out, or would just getting the airflow moving be enough?
2. Where would these hole(s) best be placed?
3. Would the following setup work?
Fan: NF-S12B ULN Ultra Low Noise 120mm Cooling Fan, 500/700 RPM
Power: AC Power Adapter with Molex Plug
Grill: 120mm Fan Guard 12
4. Is it safe to run these - or any - fans pretty much constantly?
Thanks in advance all, and once again sorry for such a large first post.
Firstly please let me apologise for having such a large first post, but if you could make your way through it and offer some suggestions I'd be most grateful.
My wife and I are currently in the process of doing up our living room, and sorting out our TV and AV equipment is priority number 1. We currently have a 3 shelf black glass stand that our equipment is on, and although there is nothing wrong with it our 19 month old boy likes nothing more than turning everything on / off and putting DVDs and games behind the tray in our home cinema unit. Needless to say this setup needs to be a lot smarter when it comes to detering his mischievous fingers!
Our current equipment is as follows:
50" Panasonic plasma TV (model number escapes me)
Panasonic Home Cinema System (DVD, not Blu-Ray)
XBox 360
Sky+ HD
Unknown brand Blu-Ray player (which I'm looking to replace with a PS3)
At first we wanted to wall mount the TV and have floating wall shelves underneath and out of reach of our boy, but having consulted with an installer who came to the house he seemed to think the shelves would be really low down if the TV was put up at the optimum viewing height, and probably wouldn't withstand him resting his full weight on a shelf. When I asked him whether he thought the TV could be mounted far higher to compensate for this (it is after all a big TV) he simply said no.
So, armed with this knowledge (which may or may not be correct) I've since been looking at the various options and none seem to sit quite right with me. I can't seem to find any (black - high gloss or normal is fine) cabinets that have glass doors instead of drawers, and have a bracket on the back to house the TV and raise it off the cabinet top. Unless these cabinets exist, I see our options are:
1. Buy a cabinet, and let the TV sit on top of it. This to me is an accident waiting to happen unless there is some way of securing the TV to the wall.
2. Buy a cabinet and still mount the TV on the wall. This will make the TV much harder to turn off and also make it impossible to topple over.
I'd like to go with 2 but I'm not sure the extra hassle of getting the wires sunk into the (external) wall and replastering would be worth the final result. Any comments on this?
In terms of what we are looking at for the actual cabinet, we don't really want to spend a fortune, so this is looking pretty good right now:
Tv Stands,Tv Units,LCD Stands,Wooden Plasma Tv Stands,Glass Tv stands,Tv Entertainment Furniture
However, like I say I'm completely open to suggestion on this one!
Also regarding the enclosed AV cabinets, I'm immediately concerned about the cooling / ventilation aspect of it. I'd like to custom fit some fans (as some of you have already done from what I can see) to any cabinet that I do buy, but although I understand the concept being pretty useless at DIY and electrics means putting the idea into practice could be challenging. Many solutions I've read about require rewiring a 12V DC Adapter which I wouldn't be comfortable doing. Assuming I can make a hole / holes in the unit:
1. Would I need holes to let cooler air in, and to let hot air out, or would just getting the airflow moving be enough?
2. Where would these hole(s) best be placed?
3. Would the following setup work?
Fan: NF-S12B ULN Ultra Low Noise 120mm Cooling Fan, 500/700 RPM
Power: AC Power Adapter with Molex Plug
Grill: 120mm Fan Guard 12
4. Is it safe to run these - or any - fans pretty much constantly?
Thanks in advance all, and once again sorry for such a large first post.