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RSD559's avatar
RSD559
Explorer
Sep 09, 2017

Little Samsung TV at CostCo for $109

Picked one up for the trailer's bedroom. Only 24", but that's fine when the TV is about 5 feet away from your face. What's cool is it's smarts. Wired or wireless access to a network. It picks up my mesh node from in the house. It uses apps for NetFlix, Hulu +, YouTube, Amazon, ... Plus it has internet access for anything else. The wife likes Acorn TV, British shows. It is only available on Roku and the internet. So we're good. It has coax to connect to the trailer's cable feeds and antenna, and you can connect a keyboard and mouse via USB. I had a wireless set handy. Kind of clumsy when setting up the apps, but works great in the internet. I couldn't believe the functionality and quality name for the price.
  • RSD559's avatar
    RSD559
    Explorer
    Sep 09, 2017
    Do they even make 12v TVs anymore? It plugs into 110v. I'll plug the Kill-A-Watt into it tomorrow and see what it draws. The smart features will, most likely, never be used in the trailer, unless it's parked in the yard being used as a guest suite. When I bought ours, people were looking at them for kid's rooms and computer hook-ups. The internet feature may be useful on the road, but not for streaming. I use a mobile hotspot for computer use on the road, but it's way too expensive to use for TV.
  • Tom_Barb's avatar
    Tom_Barb
    Explorer
    Sep 09, 2017
    newman fulltimer wrote:
    good luck trying to stream on any rv park wifi most are restricted


    We found this to be true, most every camp grounds are on a small data package. the way around this is to have your smart phone's Hot Spot active. when you pay that bill you'll know why the camp grounds don't like streaming.
  • mike-s's avatar
    mike-s
    Explorer
    Sep 09, 2017
    Ralph Cramden wrote:
    Probably, most LCD TVs or monitors are 12VDC internally.
    Source? Most electronics these days run at various voltages - 1.8 and 3.3 volt are common these days, although there's still some 5 V around (e.g. USB). Even if 12 V were used (backlight?), there's no real reason for a TV power supply to convert first to 12 V, and then again to the voltages actually needed. It would generate them separately. Can you give an examples of current TVs which do an AC->12VDC->??? power distribution?

    And, of course, in the context of RVs, "12 V" really means more like "11-15 volts."
  • Ralph_Cramden's avatar
    Ralph_Cramden
    Explorer II
    Sep 09, 2017
    mike-s wrote:
    Yea, but does it run on 12 VDC, and how much does it draw? The Samsung manual is worthless - from that one could assume it doesn't need any power at all.


    Probably, most LCD TVs or monitors are 12VDC internally. With this particular model (I think) as with most Samsung's the conversion to DC is inside on the power board so no external power supply. It probably comes with a standard 120VAC cord that plugs directly into the TV. If that's the case, to operate it off of the campers 12VDC power would require opening it up and making a modification to the downstream side of the power board.
  • mike-s's avatar
    mike-s
    Explorer
    Sep 09, 2017
    Yea, but does it run on 12 VDC, and how much does it draw? The Samsung manual is worthless - from that one could assume it doesn't need any power at all.

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