Smart tv. 12volt or 240 volt?

wizbeeward

wizbeeward

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We are looking to get a tv for Merlin and have read up on tv’s. We have a limited budget and won’t be staying many places we won’t have electric hook up so a 240 tv would work. I’ve read lots of poor reviews of 12volt tv’s sound quality and wondered if we bought a normal 22” tv how much of our leisure battery power would be used using it. We have solar to top up but if that’s not doing much does anyone else have 240 tv they use with leisure battery’s 🥴
 
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Most small TV are low voltage, often 12v and just have a power supply in the Lead. The only modification needed is to obtain or make up a suitable lead if one is not supplied. Running a TV through an inverter is a rather inefficient way of doing it.
 
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Reallyretired said:
Most small TV are low voltage, often 12v and just have a power supply in the Lead. The only modification needed is to obtain or make up a suitable lead if one is not supplied. Running a TV through an inverter is a rather inefficient way of doing it.
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Hmmm that's interesting. Will have to look into that. Thanks :)
 
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Agree about sound quality, we have an Avtex 12 volt smart-ish tv , connected the sound output to the rear speakers I installed via a separate amplifier, now watching anything is far better , more so watching movies or music. A sound bar would give similar results , you just need somewhere to put it . The size and weight of the 12v tv is good though both for the bracket and for storage , although mains tv’s are not that heavy nowadays.
 
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Look out for the Aldi or Liddll 12v tvs.around £120 for a 22 inch .
Ideal for a motorhome.

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I have a cheap 240v 24 inch smart TV from Asda that is run off a small inverter when we are not on hook up.
It uses 3.5 amps an hour.
I have one 115 watt solar panel and 2 x 100 AH lead acid leisure batteries.
Didn't have any problems when we were not on hook up from beginning of May to early October (all in UK) including one trip of 24 consecutive nights off hook up.
We are not big electric users though only using about 25-30 amps per day total.
 
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If you check the specifications of many current TVs or Smart Monitors you may find that they actually run on something like 19vDC and are supplied with a 240vAC to DC converter for domestic use.

Plenty of 12v/19v laptop chargers available that will work.
 
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If you are going to be on hook up most of the time it makes sense to go 240V. Otherwise you will HAVE to use your battery when even though you have 240V available. Having said that the battery is being recharged when on hook up so its not a problem.

Sorry - not a very helpful answer!
 
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wizbeeward said:
We are looking to get a tv for Merlin and have read up on tv’s. We have a limited budget and won’t be staying many places we won’t have electric hook up so a 240 tv would work. I’ve read lots of poor reviews of 12volt tv’s sound quality and wondered if we bought a normal 22” tv how much of our leisure battery power would be used using it. We have solar to top up but if that’s not doing much does anyone else have 240 tv they use with leisure battery’s 🥴
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I am a bit confused by your question. If you are on EHU and the TV is plugged into the 240v socket in your motorhome the batteries will not be used at all. But that would mean you will not be able to use it when you are not on EHU.

We have a 19" Cello Traveller TV which has two adapters so it can be used on 12v and 240v. The size is OK because we are sitting a lot closer to the TV that we do at home. We just use it on plugged into a 12v connector whether we are on EHU or not. No inverter needed. As others have said modern TVs run on low voltage DC. It is very wasteful to take 12v DC from your batteries and invert it to 240v DC and then change it back again to low voltage DC. That is what you will be doing if you plug the TV into the 240v adapter.
 
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Most small TVs, whether mains or 12V will have poor sound quality. Comes down to the size of the speakers that can be squeezed into the case, both in diameter and depth. If sound is important you will probably want to fit a soundbar regardless of how you power the TV.

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I can highly recommend the LG range of Smart TV's, we have the 24TN510S.
These run on 19v with a 12v to 19v converter bought separately.
No need to pay Avtex prices, these are only £179 and excellent quality.

Edit to add converter link:
www.power4laptops.co.uk

LG 19MN43D-PZ Compatible LCD / LED TV Car 12V Power Supply DC Adapter | Power4Laptops

This Replacement LCD / LED TV DC Power Adapter/12V Car Power Supply for your LCD / LED TV enables you to operate your LCD / LED TV from your Car Cigarette lighter.
www.power4laptops.co.uk www.power4laptops.co.uk
 
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peterc10 said:
I am a bit confused by your question. If you are on EHU and the TV is plugged into the 240v socket in your motorhome the batteries will not be used at all. But that would mean you will not be able to use it when you are not on EHU.

We have a 19" Cello Traveller TV which has two adapters so it can be used on 12v and 240v. The size is OK because we are sitting a lot closer to the TV that we do at home. We just use it on plugged into a 12v connector whether we are on EHU or not. No inverter needed. As others have said modern TVs run on low voltage DC. It is very wasteful to take 12v DC from your batteries and invert it to 240v DC and then change it back again to low voltage DC. That is what you will be doing if you plug the TV into the 240v adapter.
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There is no mention in the specs of my 24 inch 240v AC TV that it uses any other than 240v AC. Also no brick on the power cable to suggest this ?
 
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Do not buy a 22v Sharp smart tv. I have had so many issues I now mainly use with a fire stick.
 
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We had a Manta in our last motorhome and the sound was very bad. We now have a Cello (made in uk) one and the sound is acceptable.

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headlight said:
There is no mention in the specs of my 24 inch 240v AC TV that it uses any other than 240v AC. Also no brick on the power cable to suggest this ?
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My answer was aimed at the OP, who is asking advice as what TV to buy. The Cello is designed for travellers, hence its version name and comes with two leads, one for 12v DC and one for 240v AC. It is a lot cheaper than other makes sold in many motorhome dealers.

If the TV you have got has not got a "brick" on the 240v power cable the change back to low voltage DC will occur in the the TV itself. In which case you are stuck with using 240v, unless you are knowledgeable or brave enough to open up the TV and see what you can do in there. And I am neither!
 
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Reallyretired said:
We had a Manta in our last motorhome and the sound was very bad. We now have a Cello (made in uk) one and the sound is acceptable.
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Yes ours sounded a bit tiny for a while until I decided to look into the settings menu and found the correct settings. Very good now.
 
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wizbeeward said:
We have solar to top up but if that’s not doing much does anyone else have 240 tv they use with leisure battery’s 🥴
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Basic question but one that OP hasn't made clear is whether the m/h has an inverter. If it hasn't the 240v sockets won't power anything when not on EHU.
 
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wizbeeward said:
Hmmm that's interesting. Will have to look into that. Thanks :)
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headlight said:
I have a cheap 240v 24 inch smart TV from Asda that is run off a small inverter when we are not on hook up.
It uses 3.5 amps an hour.
I have one 115 watt solar panel and 2 x 100 AH lead acid leisure batteries.
Didn't have any problems when we were not on hook up from beginning of May to early October (all in UK) including one trip of 24 consecutive nights off hook up.
We are not big electric users though only using about 25-30 amps per day total.
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That sounds perfect for us then too ;)
 
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Ive just bought An Avtex TV and soundbar (not got the van yet) my question is when on hook up do you change the connection to 240v or just leave it connected to 12v

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headlight said:
There is no mention in the specs of my 24 inch 240v AC TV that it uses any other than 240v AC. Also no brick on the power cable to suggest this ?
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Many TVs have the 240V wire going straight into the TV. The electronics of the power brick is built into the TV, so it's not possible to power it from a low DC voltage. It will need either a 240V EHU supply or a small inverter 240V AC supply.

You can get a small 150W Pure Sine Wave Inverter, which is plenty of power for a TV, but still just about low enough power to be plugged into a 12V cigarette-lighter style socket. Anything bigger needs to be wired directly to the batteries. The small inverter doesn't waste as much energy as a big high power inverter running at low power.
 
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peterc10 said:
My answer was aimed at the OP, who is asking advice as what TV to buy. The Cello is designed for travellers, hence its version name and comes with two leads, one for 12v DC and one for 240v AC. It is a lot cheaper than other makes sold in many motorhome dealers.

If the TV you have got has not got a "brick" on the 240v power cable the change back to low voltage DC will occur in the the TV itself. In which case you are stuck with using 240v, unless you are knowledgeable or brave enough to open up the TV and see what you can do in there. And I am neither!
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Possibly that is correct although my TV being 24inch I did try to find out whether it actually did convert the 240v AC to low voltage DC and couldn't find an answer.
Either way I've had no problems running it off my little 600 watt peak/300 watt continuous inverter.
At 3.5AH it is not a big draw and probably only around 1AH more than a 12v TV.
At around 3-4 hours use a day that's only 3-4 extra amps a day plus a little bit for inverter inefficiency.
 
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Kannon Fodda said:
Most small TVs, whether mains or 12V will have poor sound quality. Comes down to the size of the speakers that can be squeezed into the case, both in diameter and depth. If sound is important you will probably want to fit a soundbar regardless of how you power the TV.
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Simplest solution is to buy a tv with bluetooth and buy a portable bluetooth speaker.

I've just bought a expensive 48 inch TV and I still use my external bluetooth speakers. Even with all its fancy speaker technology and digital processing (the number of sound options in the menu are mind boogling) the TV sound still lacks bass and clarity.
 
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Paul1867 said:
Ive just bought An Avtex TV and soundbar (not got the van yet) my question is when on hook up do you change the connection to 240v or just leave it connected to 12v
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I leave mine on 12v all the time. If you are on EHU your batteries will be being topped up anyway by your mains charger.
headlight said:
Possibly that is correct although my TV being 24inch I did try to find out whether it actually did convert the 240v AC to low voltage DC and couldn't find an answer.
Either way I've had no problems running it off my little 600 watt peak/300 watt continuous inverter.
At 3.5AH it is not a big draw and probably only around 1AH more than a 12v TV.
At around 3-4 hours use a day that's only 3-4 extra amps a day plus a little bit for inverter inefficiency.
Click to expand...
It will have to convert the current somewhere because LEDs don't work on 240v DC. Every mains run LED bulb has the electronics built in to do so.

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I have 2 tvs in my motorhome the 240v uses 7.8 amps per hour and the inverter uses 2 amps per hour . The 12v one uses 2.3 amps per hour

Both have built in dvd players
 
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peterc10 said:
I leave mine on 12v all the time. If you are on EHU your batteries will be being topped up anyway by your mains charger.

It will have to convert the current somewhere because LEDs don't work on 240v DC. Every mains run LED bulb has the electronics built in to do so.
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Fair enough I'm not arguing.
My point though is my 24 inch 240v TV runs fine from a small inverter and doesn't use a great deal of power.
I was advised against using a mains TV via inverter as they use a lot more power but I don't consider 3.5AH, confirmed with a UNI-T clamp meter, as excessively more power than a 12v TV.
 
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VXman said:
Simplest solution is to buy a tv with bluetooth and buy a portable bluetooth speaker.

I've just bought a expensive 48 inch TV and I still use my external bluetooth speakers. Even with all its fancy speaker technology and digital processing (the number of sound options in the menu are mind boogling) the TV sound still lacks bass and clarity.
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If it has Bluetooth built in is great , I bought one of those Bluetooth adapters that run off the tv usb and plug into headphone socket on tv to pair to the vans radio, the latency on them is rubbish ( when you see the person talking on the tv ,there is a delay on the sound of their voice coming from the speakers , made everything unwatchable ) . Would be the same pairing to a sound bar , don’t waste your money buying one of these adapters. 😉
 
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VXman said:
Simplest solution is to buy a tv with bluetooth and buy a portable bluetooth speaker.

I've just bought a expensive 48 inch TV and I still use my external bluetooth speakers. Even with all its fancy speaker technology and digital processing (the number of sound options in the menu are mind boogling) the TV sound still lacks bass and clarity.
Click to expand...
I dont think a 48" TV would fit in my van. :rofl:
 
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