Leave TV on the wall when traveling?

[Tweety]

We have our TV mounted on the wall between the door and the dinette. So far we have always taken it down and put it on the bed for travel. I'm wondering if anyone leaves theirs on the wall mount while traveling. Since ours is mounted just forward of the axles it seems like it would be a fairly nonbouncy area of the trailer. Does anyone leave theirs mounted for travel? I think we'd need some sort of velcro attachement to hold it firm.
It is a light weight 15" LCD/dvd combo. The wall mount is screwed into studs with 2 screws.

 

[Honda03842]

TV Mounts

In our Motorhome we have a 15 inch LCD in the bedroom mounted on a wall mount that allows tilting of the TV. We do not remove this TV when traveling. We do place a small bungee cord over the mount to ensure it doesn't bounce off it's screws. This has worked for some four years of travel.

In our Trailer we mount the same TV on a hook. The hook is screwed into the bottom of the rear overhead cabinet, permitting us to see it from the dinette. For in bed viewing we place the TV on the shelf at the end of the bed/gaucho couch. When we travel we place the TV face down on the bed, fearing the single point mount would cause it to swing.

Norm Milliard
1982 Sunline 15.5 sb
2004 Honda CRV

 

[Trailblazer-MGRV]

We leave our LCD mounted to the inside cabinet wall when traveling. We have had zero issues, but then again I did reinforce the cabinet side wall and the place a stand under the LCD to take any weight off of the arm so there is effectively no bounce when traveling down the road.

 

[JohnGB]

Tweety

Good topic as soon we will emerge into the new digital age of LCD. I don’t have a good answer but do have some thoughts on it and some more questions.

Thoughts:

TT suspension is not great and pending leaf springs or rubber torsion axles the bounce inside the TT is different. A motor home has good suspension, but a TT, not always. Standard leaf springs bounce hard and the further rear of the axles you go the worse it gets. This is one reason why bikes on the back of a TT take such a beating. Rubber torsion axles are smoother by themselves or even leaf spring axles with rubber equalizers or shocks. Point: What does this vibration do to the sensitive electronics inside a LDC TV originally made for home use when we mount them have in TT? The TT microwave ovens are made more robust to take the bounces then home use micro waves so why would home LCD TV’s made stronger?. This is a good question that I do not have a good answer to.

Questions:

Cold weather and LCD screens of a TV. Take them in the house or leave them in the TT? The older CRT tube TV’s live in the campers all winter long all the time. But I know my lap top screen is not happy in cold weather. Going out to the camper that was sitting in 25 deg F temps and then firing up the furnace to go camping creates a level of moisture in the system until it dries out. When its it OK to turn on??

When I make up my mount, it will have a quick release feature so I can take it to the bed area or into the truck and then into the house in the winter. If we can ever get a long team official read on this, well then I can just leave them in. My TV mount area will be towards the rear of the camper which is the worse place for vibration.

EMAN may be able to give us some field testing data as they are our Sunline test case. I think he was up to 60,000 miles ish area if I remember right and over some heavy terrain with some cool electronic gizmos inside. Curious on what they do. Pat and Cindy, please chime in.

PS Trailblazer, you do winter camping what do you do with the TV? Take it home or leave it in the camper?

 

[Honda03842]

No Answer

I don't know the difference in vibration or shock between motorhomes and trailers. However, the tires in a motorhome, 90 psi, really find every bumb in the road and transimit it to the body of the motorhome. In some 90,000 miles of traveling, we have not had a single electronic part fail in either rig except for losing one computer.

Driving down a rather rough dirt road with our Motorhome in Alaska our computer lept off our desk and onto the floor, crashing the hard drive. It was the roughest road ever and I swear we weren't going faster than 10 mph. It was actually scary - we thought the motorhome was coming a part.

As to temperature, LCD's have to warm up after low temps. Generallly they should not be let at really cold temperatures. Our trailer regularly saw cold temps - inside into the 30's without ill affect. Even when it's cold outside, the internal temperature rarely matches the outside temperature.

I did find this info for LCD TV storage temps. Operating temps should be above freezing.

Jensen
For their 19", 26" and 32" LCD TV sets: -22* F to 158* F

Samsung
For all of their LCD TV sets: -4* F to 113* FI have never seen a moisture problem except fot the windows.

Norm Milliard

 

[Trailblazer-MGRV]

T
PS Trailblazer, you do winter camping what do you do with the TV? Take it home or leave it in the camper?

This was a debate we had on our camping group prior to winter camping. Ourselves along with the rest of the people winter camping endied up leaving our LCD TV's in the units. We had zero issues with the TV. What we determined was the secret was to make sure the trailer and the TV had warmed up prior to using it.

 

[JohnGB]

Well after the weekend and doing some more TV thoughts….

Now have some new problems and questions.

Questions:
Norm, the LCD TV in your motorhome, do you have any idea if the motor home manufacture made ones have any kind of vibration special TV pacakges for MH use? LCD technology is used widely in automotive, GPS, dash etc. but do not know if they do anything special on the vibration part. And it may not be the screen but maybe the rest of the electronic items. Don't know if my vibration worries are just that, worries but no actual problems as long as one has a very solid mount.

This much I do know, the RV microwaves are made slightly different for vibration then the home use ones.

And there seems to be something with toasters…. We are now on our 3rd toaster in the camper. Something about the camper and traveling they do not like. After several trips the heat control seems to go nuts and you burn up the bread. Does not seem to matter if it is the cheaper toaster or top of the line. Have literally ”toasted” 3 of them now.

We have one in the house, same brand and model as the camper and it is still going strong no problems. At this point we just keep looking in side and pop it up as buying a 4th one seems to be another $15 to $20 down the toaster tube. Don’t know if its us or what, but the toasters do not seem to hold up at least for us going down the highway in a TT.

Which is what prompted my vibration questions. Electronics in themselves are all over the campers/motorhomes, just still cannot not find any solid info on the LCD home TV’s in TT use. Maybe we are the place to develop the findings. Seems Trailblazer has worked thru the cold issues and you have had good luck with the LCD TV.

Now the problems.

This past weekend a new Meijer store had it’s grand opening. And they have several top brand LCD’s marked way down. So now we have a new Zenith 19” HDTV for ½ price.

That is not the problem but this is:

Never had HDTV before. Now the camper has a better reception TV then in the house!. We fired it up in the camper to test it out. WOW. I have the feeling an upgrade trend will be coming soon…. Since I have to make a holder for the TV it is being used in the kitchen of the house now until I get one made for the camper. The words "spoiled" have already been mentioned by the DW….

And now a real pain problem. It seems the new TV remote turns on the Sunline radio???? And when we up the channels on the TV, the radio goes with it leaving a loud shhhhhhhhhh…… . Static sound of nothing…. The Sunline radio has no remote, at least that is under our actual control. Now I need to put power off switch in the radio feed line as even changing volume on the TV changes the radio channel to more shhhhhh…..

Next area is VCR and DVD player. We have many many VCR tapes and we have a perfectly good working VCR/DVD recorder player that we had in the smaller camper and was going to move to the new camper. No problem with vibration and that combo. We watch VCR often at nights some times especially during winter camping. Well now I have a digital TV with a digital tuner and an analog VCR/DVD player recorder. As a player no problems as this new TV has about every Input connection there is. But no OUT put signals. So DW can’t record on the VCR….. Oh well guees we will get over that or end up with a roaming convertor box on days what we just have to tape that show....

John

 

[kanyonkitty]

Morning JohnB,

Congrats on the new HDTV, yep you'll love the picture quality. I have a 22" in the Sunline and a 32"in the house. I stopped watching my 37" tube TV and now watch my 32" flat panel HDTV. I moved the 37" into my bedroom.

The radio-remote control issue, I had the same issue with the Voyager radio, so I wound up putting a piece of black electrical tape over the "tiny hard to see" purple light that is the remote senser. I was told to do this by Sunline. Now I don't have a remote conflict, and the radio didn't come with a remote even though it had that capability.

Kitty

 

[Honda03842]

MY LCD

Norm, the LCD TV in your motorhome, do you have any idea if the motor home manufacture made ones have any kind of vibration special TV pacakges for MH use? LCD technology is used widely in automotive, GPS, dash etc. but do not know if they do anything special on the vibration part. And it may not be the screen but maybe the rest of the electronic items. Don't know if my vibration worries are just that, worries but no actual problems as long as one has a very solid mount.

We have a 'store bought' LCD, received as a gift. We have no shock mounts, we simply attached a standard LCD bracket to the wall. I believe this is year 4 with the TV and have traveled some pretty rough roads without any problems. It is a Zenith LCD.

Norm Milliard

 

[Trailblazer-MGRV]

With regard to the TV remote turning on the radio, we have this problem as well. Now in our case depending on whether it is the TV remote or the DVD player remote, our radio will turn on, change channels and increase the volume. Funnythe remotes never seem to turn the radio off or turn the volume down.

Anyways, I have tried the trick that Kitty has indicated but it did not work for us. I am guessing that I did not get the tape over the hard to see purple light. Kitty do you have an pictures of this so I know where to look or can you give me an idea as what general area to look for.

Thanks

 

[JohnGB]

Wow, Cool info.

Between Trailblazer doing the cold test, Norm reporting on the road test, and now Kitty reporting on the silly radio and remote….. The LCD living in the Sunline is becoming more of a reality. Think I may be changing my views and mount the unit rigidly along with a bottom rubber shock foot under it.

OK, how are you all on fixing the toaster issues? We are due to aquire number 4…. And want to have the fix in place before toasting another one….

Thanks

John

 

[kanyonkitty]

Will try to get a picture of the radio and post it tomorrow

My toaster has been in many Sunlines and still works, so can't help you on that issue

 

[JohnGB]

Will try to get a picture of the radio and post it tomorrow

My toaster has been in many Sunlines and still works, so can't help you on that issue

OK Take a pic of the field tested toaster too while you are out there. Since you have one that works, maybe we can "attempt" to find one of similar vintage. But it sounds like yours is an oldie but goodie, no longer made that that anymore style.

Sort of like my . 4 cup Sunbeam coffee maker that lives in The Camper 2 . It is a unique small one Cindy's mom gave us after she had if for like 20 years. If I ever break that flask, I will never find another one.... the new ones seem to just leak all over. I have a collection of new ones in the basement I gave up on as they do not pour right to save there life.... Or in my case, for there continued use

EDIT: 4 cups of there coffer maker is 2 of my mugs....

 

[Tweety]

We also have quite the collection of coffee makers in the basement, and took delivery of a new Cuisinart 12V 4 cup yesterday. I may go out to Tweety later today and see how it works and how long it takes to brew.
Our toaster is a $10 Proctor Silex from KMart. It is stored center trailer, and was the #1 rate toaster from Consumer Reports about 5 years ago when I bought it. It works better than the fancy one in the house.

 

[JohnGB]

We also have quite the collection of coffee makers in the basement, and took delivery of a new Cuisinart 12V 4 cup yesterday. I may go out to Tweety later today and see how it works and how long it takes to brew.
Our toaster is a $10 Proctor Silex from KMart. It is stored center trailer, and was the #1 rate toaster from Consumer Reports about 5 years ago when I bought it. It works better than the fancy one in the house.

H'mm have to check toaster brands on what we have. 5 years??? we cannot seems to get 5 camping trips before the heat controls goes nuts.

A 12 volt coffee maker. Gee you are taking this bondocking thing to a new level. We resurrected the perk parts for the coffee pot we put on the stove.

 

[Tweety]

I read that unfiltered perked coffee is bad for cholesterol levels and it never tastes as good to me...tried those perk coffee pot filters which I just made a big mess with.
Proctor Silex 2 slice toaster model # 22450

 

[kanyonkitty]

OK, here is a crappy pic of the radio and where the piece of tape is located. You can see the tape showing on the silver of the radio and it extends upward covering the hard to see purple sensor light. Toaster pic/brand will have to be done later as DiGiorno just delivered .

 

[Trailblazer-MGRV]

Thanks for the photo kitty. Now I know where to look. We are camping this weekend so it will give me a chance to take a look at the radio and cover up the sensor. I will report back how it went after the weekend.

 

[Trailblazer-MGRV]

Just got back from our camping weekend. Kitty I have to thank you very much for posting the photo. I found the sensor and place the tape over it. I can now report back the TV and DVD player remotes no longer affect the radio. I have to admit now that I know where the sensor is, I can;t believe I didn't see it before. Anyways, thanks again.

 

[Tweety]

We left our TV on the wall mount for the trip home from Buttonwood and all is fine. We put a little pillow behind it, and used a strap to secure it to the grab handle that's by the entry door.