Powering LCD TV & hiding wires behind wall

DaveBH

Hi guys,

I have a wall-mounted 32 inch LCD over my apartment fireplace with the cables currently running outside the wall under painted conduit. I'd love to remove this conduit and put the wires behind the wall but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I have a small electric dimplex insert-fire which fits into the hole under the mantlepiece. This is wired to a switched fuse (again hidden behind it). Could the TV and DVD player be powered from this line as well or is this specifically for the electric fire?

Finally, what's the best advice for drilling/fishing the scart/audio cables from the back of the TV to the DVD player etc?

Many thanks in advance for your advice

DublinDilbert

what's the distance between the fire and the bottom of the TV?

I presume it's some sort of cavity wall if the Fire is set into it... Can you pull out the electric fire and see the "inside" of the wall?

I would try pull the fire out and work my way up from the bottom, with a coat hanger, there might be a few "cross pieces" which you'll need to drill.... Once your up-behind the TV cut a hole in the wall and try fish out the coat hanger.

If the fire is powered from a "fused" spur,which is on a socket circuit and fed from 2.5 T&E, you will probably be able to fit a single/double socket in behind the fire also to feed the TV.

When feeding the wires down behind the wall, take the plug off the mains lead and refit it after you feed the cable. I wouldn't feed full scart cables down behind the wall, scart cables are designed to be bi-directional, hence all the contacts. Just send up the L/R/AV signals on separate "component" cables with RCA plugs (red/white/yellow), which will be much easier to feed. The quality should be just as good.

Stoner

whatever you do, try to remember that at some stage you may need different types of leads going up and down the wall, so try to allow for future cables at this stage.

also we don't know for sure what sort of signals are contained in the Scart leads, so find out before you try breaking them up into straight runs/separate cables, it could be a component or composite arrangement. Component and S video connections will deal with the picture only.
so for sound you'd need an optical lead or the red and white leads (stereo only)
HDMI would be the best you could hope for it carries HD picture and sound, but once again it all depends on the hardware you have, but I'd def get a HDMI cable and run it up with the other cables while you are at it.

I'd take this opportunity to check the outputs and inputs on your hardware to see if you are using the best combination. HDMI, Component, S video are all better then a scart lead carrying composite (red, white and yellow) signals. Scart leads are not a standard, they are a connection so they can carry an array of different combinations of signals (not HDMI or DVI though)

There is a "hockey stick" plastic conduit unit. Electrical wholesales sell them, they will need to be chased into the wall, but they allow a great conduit from the TV to the other units, its a messy job, but once in, it looks great. Many apartments are being built with this unit installed as part of the base build.

So thats what i would do, it the wall was not dry-lined and did not have easy access behind it, I'd install this large conduit chased into the wall. you may be an expert on signal cable etc, but if not I'd check out what the best picture I could get from the inputs and outputs I had. You don't really want to watch DVDs etc on a plasma/LCD TV over red/white/yellow cables if you have S-Video, component (red, blue ,green) or HDMI/DVI options