12v telly from Morrisons

[Rod a mod from Tod]

Hopefully my questions on boat electrics will not take on legendary status, but here goes again.

 

By pure fluke today we have bought a telly from Morrisons, Techwood 16" for £99, and on unpacking the telly it comes with a built in transformer into the plug to take the telly down to 12v. It was our intention to run the telly through a small individual inverter but is this really necessary. Could we not just plug straight in to our 12v socket or would it need to be regulated and run at bang on 12v through the tranny. Hope this makes sense.

[Guest]

Hopefully my questions on boat electrics will not take on legendary status, but here goes again.

 

By pure fluke today we have bought a telly from Morrisons, Techwood 16" for £99, and on unpacking the telly it comes with a built in transformer into the plug to take the telly down to 12v. It was our intention to run the telly through a small individual inverter but is this really necessary. Could we not just plug straight in to our 12v socket or would it need to be regulated and run at bang on 12v through the tranny. Hope this makes sense.

No you shouldn't do this without a regulator (can't remember name now). That said I have run a digi box (12V transformer type) straight off boat 12V for ages without any probs. It cost far less than 99 quid though, so I don't mind chancing it. I think the risk is from surges caused by other 12V equipment.

[Ex- Member]

Hopefully my questions on boat electrics will not take on legendary status, but here goes again.

 

By pure fluke today we have bought a telly from Morrisons, Techwood 16" for £99, and on unpacking the telly it comes with a built in transformer into the plug to take the telly down to 12v. It was our intention to run the telly through a small individual inverter but is this really necessary. Could we not just plug straight in to our 12v socket or would it need to be regulated and run at bang on 12v through the tranny. Hope this makes sense.

 

We;ve been running a 19 inch Meos 12 volt TV for 4 or 5 years we cut away the transformer and wire direct into 12 volt. No problems at all.

 

we just replaced this TV with similar but with free view and DVD and have done exactly the same. Many say use regulators but we've run all sorts of equipment like lap tops dab radio on the boat and I've run all sorts from vans and lorries and never had a problem.

 

I've been told by an experienced electronics person that in all modern equipment when any power spikes are detected and these units automatically shut down with some sort of voltage protection, if they didn't thousands would be returned to manufacturers, so they fit this protection as a matter of course to avoid returns.

 

This debate has been running for some time and many will come on now and probably argue the opposite. LOL

 

 

 

 

[by'eck]

Chances are you will get way with it. The TV will have a regulator after the wall wart so the fluctuations from your 12 volt boat supply will be compensated for. I have heard of several folk who have successfully powered a similar TV in this manner.

 

Nothing is certain though

[Guest]

Chances are you will get way with it. The TV will have a regulator after the wall wart so the fluctuations from your 12 volt boat supply will be compensated for. I have heard of several folk who have successfully powered a similar TV in this manner.

 

Nothing is certain though

Must admit we have a flat screen telly at home with 12V transformer input, and I would be tempted to try it if we didn't already have a "genuine" 12V Roadstar telly on the boat. As posted earlier, the 12V digi box which should be fed via its transformer has been faultless on the boat 12V system.

 

Thing is anew device should have a 12 months warranty, so if it blows, you can take it back and say it packed in and get your money back. If it doesn't blow in 12 months it will probably be OK anyway.

Edited July 31, 2011 by Guest

[alan_fincher]

This, as I understand it, is not just about "spikes" on the "12 volts".

 

It also has to do with the fact that "12 volts" in car or booat electrics terms doesn't actually mean "12 volts". It can mean (say) 13 volts with a newly charged battery, or 14 or more volts if you actually start your engine at any point where the set is plugged in and turned on.

 

It has been much discussed on here.

 

Many claim to have got away with it for years - others have firmly stated they have wrecked a TV by doing it.....

 

It depends how much of a gambling person you are, I think!......

[MikeV]

No you shouldn't do this without a regulator (can't remember name now).

We have the Amperor DC-DC regulator. £40 - but for peace of mind.....

 

Julynian's Meos is probably well designed as they are a good brand - but expensive. For a budget TV it is more likely they have skimped on the protection particuarly if you run the engine with, say, an alternator regulator that raises your nominal 12V to 14.8V. You pays yer money and takes yer choice!

[churchward]

Pretty much all of the sub 19" screen TVs and several above too work on 12V which is good news for boats using 12V DC Systems.

 

We have a 12 V LCD TV and DVD combo and us the Amperor voltage stabiliser. Some folk don't use a stabiliser and seem to get by OK however my logic was that they are not that expensive to buy and given that the 240V AC to 12V DC adaptor that comes with teh TV would supply a nice stable 12V supply in a domestic situation there may not be much tolerance of a higher voltage direct into the TV. Probably OK if you don't run the engine or other charging sources when you have the TV on that would push the supply voltage up to 14V or more.

 

There will be folk who get away with it successfully so it depends on you how you asses the risk of damaging your TV whether you get a stabiliser or not.

 

Here's a link to the Amperor product. You will need to find out what tip size is required for your TV.

 

http://www.amperorassociates.co.uk/c-DC_power_supplies/PowerS-12V_Stabiliser_S1U.html

[RobinR]

We have the Amperor DC-DC regulator. £40 - but for peace of mind.....

 

Julynian's Meos is probably well designed as they are a good brand - but expensive. For a budget TV it is more likely they have skimped on the protection particuarly if you run the engine with, say, an alternator regulator that raises your nominal 12V to 14.8V. You pays yer money and takes yer choice!

 

We purchased a budget Bush 12 volt TV from Argos 6 years ago. It lasted a year (on a shared ownership boat). The refund funded a Freeview Toshiba TV (customer return) less its 12 volt power supply, mains lead, instructions etc. The Argos refund funded the replacement and made a contribution to an Amperor regulator which continues to supply 12 volts even with the input below 11 volts!!. It is still working fine and we fitted a 9dB gain masthead amplifier to the aerial to feed a second TV in the back bed area.

[jelunga]

Our Meos digital tv/dvd player comes with a 12v cigarette socket cable as well as the mains transformer. Ryns from 11v up to about 14v with no problems. Check the handbook specs for input voltage toleranxes.

 

We have the Amperor DC-DC regulator. £40 - but for peace of mind.....

 

Julynian's Meos is probably well designed as they are a good brand - but expensive. For a budget TV it is more likely they have skimped on the protection particuarly if you run the engine with, say, an alternator regulator that raises your nominal 12V to 14.8V. You pays yer money and takes yer choice!

[GJK]

I use two Amperor regulators on Jannock, one for the telly and digi-box and the other to provide a 12V input for an HP PC. I know they work well because neither the telly or PC turn off now when the loo is flushed ;^) On testing the Amperor input voltage could go down below 10.5 Volts before the output moved from 12Volts. A great bit of kit.

Graham

www.jannock.org.uk