Wall mounted TV

[AndrewSchofield]

Hi guys,

We've had our LCD TV on the wall for about 6months now and we've got the usual problem of the unsightly wires dangling below. I can stick a spurred socket behind the TV for power - but how can we best conceal the rest of the wires - Scart leads, audio output etc... Is there a way of burying these in the wall or are we best to surface mount them and try and camouflage them somehow?

Any ideas will be much appreciated - i'm a little lost for inspiration?

 

[EddieM]

Neatest way is to channel, and use AV plates. Quite a lot of work though.

 

[AndrewSchofield]

NOt too worried about the workload - and we're thinking of re-decorating soon so a perfect time to do any destructive work. Can you tell me any more about AV panels or tell where i might be able to find out more?

 

[EddieM]

Somwhere like here pretty common though.

 

[AndrewSchofield]

Cheers Eddie - extremely helpful and extremely rapid replies!! Much appreciated.

 

[EddieM]

No worries

 

[ChrisFrost]

I've installed quite a few TVs on walls and buried the cables. AV wall plates are alright, but there are three main points to consider...

1) you'll have to solder wires to the connections on the backs of the wall plates. That's no biggie if you can solder, but if you can't... And if you want a fully wired SCART - 21 pins...

2) accommodating all the various connections - RF, SCART, AV, HDMI, Optical means potentially lots of back-boxes and lots of chopping work - Will these fit behind the TV and not be too visible from the sides as people walk around the room

3) the biggest issue is the bulk and depth of the cables coming out of the front of the wall plates. Yes, you can get some right angle plugs or adapters: but it's either messy, expensive, or both. SCART isn't particularly install friendly either.



My preference, and this is only a suggestion for you to consider, is to use standard AV cables and just bury them in the wall leaving the tails long enough to connect to the TV. There's less connections, so less to go wrong. It's easier to test the cables before they are buried. It takes up less space than a row of AV wall panels, and you won't need to buy extra fly leads, so the total cost is lower.

Where I do use wall panels is at floor/wall socket height for ad-hoc connections such as games consoles, cameras, camcorders etc.

 

[Richard C]

Here’s what I did;
View media item 22068]
Rather than bury the cables in the plaster (not a good idea IMO), I channeled out the wall using an angle grinder & buried a piece of plastic trunking complete with the lid attached (45 x 20mm I think), terminating at standard full depth steel box each end & used an A/V cover with blanking plates to cover unused space. Might be a problem with scart but certainly more than enough room to draw in my component video, & optical sound cable & there is still enough room left for a HDMI if needed. I would not advise you use this for the power cable, make provision for a separate socket outlet & aerial box behind the panel; those are mine at top right.

 

[AndrewSchofield]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the other suggestions but i've already chiselled out and plastered over the wires before I came back to see the other replies!

Can anyone give me a bit of advice on the aerial/co-ax wall plate. The terminal behind has a little screw which obviously tightens up on the central solid copper core of the co-ax cable. What do i do with the copper strands around the outside of the cable - should these be attached to the wall plate somewhere??

 

[Monkeh]

Buy a better plate. If it looks like this:

It's not worth the bother of connecting.

It should look like this: