By Greg Illes
Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones and your TV is perfectly situated in your RV for the best viewing comfort. But all too often, the TV is placed more for décor reasons and less for ergonomics. Here are some tips to move your RV TV for your comfort.
In our Class A motorhome, the TV placement is just plain horrible. It normally lives up high in the forward overhead, between the driver and passenger seats. This is a perfect position for watching programs – while standing up next to the kitchen sink. For any other seat in the RV, it’s a total neck-buster, and much too far away. Watching the news for a few minutes is no big deal, but a 90-minute movie is a real strain.
Making a TV set movable is not too difficult – provided it’s a flat-screen type. Inexpensive wall mounts can be used to reposition a TV to almost any imaginable location. For our floor plan, it made sense to build a small stand to mount the TV at about belly-height. The stand can be positioned for viewing either from the captain’s chairs (swiveled around) or the dinette seats. The TV is closer and at ideal viewing height. The base of the stand is shaped to fit just behind the driver’s chair, and it takes up virtually no space while we’re traveling.
Here’s how to move your RV TV
It takes a bit of amateur carpentry and a set of extension cables to move your TV for comfort. All that’s required is to remove the existing TV mounting system and replace it with a dovetail-style mount. An example is the VideoSecu LCD wall mount bracket, available on Amazon for about $10.
First, remount the TV in its original position with the VideoSecu mount. Then, install a second mount at your alternate location(s). Add extension cables for power and video, and you’ll be ready to watch TV in total comfort. When you’re ready to travel again, you can disconnect and store the extension cables, or (as we do) just stuff them up behind the TV in its original location.
For our installation, making up the movable stand was the best option, a fun afternoon’s work with $10 worth of red oak and some basic tools. But depending on the nature of your floor plan, you might want to simply mount to another wall, or the side of a cabinet.
Be generous with extension cable lengths – they won’t detract from image or sound quality, and you can tuck them aside while the TV is “deployed.”
Greg Illes is a retired systems engineer who loves thinking up RV upgrades and modifications. When he’s not working on his motorhome, he’s traveling in it. You can follow his blog at www.divver-city.com/blog.
Related:
Use your TV for a “memories” slideshow
##RVDT1514
My solution… my 36″ TV stands on a corner cabinet, angled 45* into the room for perfect viewing. Yes, stands. At the back corner, I made a cable hole for DVD player and stereo inside the cabinet. I bolted both ends of a light chain to the VESA holes on the back of the TV and dropped the middle of the chain into the cable hole, where a clip blocks it returning. The TV can be turned slightly, but is held back against the walls and down tight enough that it can’t do anything else. Its rode about 3000 miles now without any trouble.