Room divider with rotating tv. Dealing with electrics

I’m confident that there is nothing on earth that Stw won’t have some knowledge on, or failing that, an opinion on at least.

It’s like this see. I’ve got to design/build a room divider stroke cabinet and they would like to incorporate their tv into the centre of it, and be able to rotate it to watch it in bed or in the lounge. A bit like something like this.

Now, building it all I’m fine with and have used turntables in projects before. It’s the electrics side of it I’m not 100% with, but no doubt someone in stw….world has encountered this before.

I can build a box of sorts that the telly would fit in, mount it to a turntable and run the cables down through the middle making sure there is slack obvs I reckon but, I’m concerned that the movement might cause issues over time with the cables. I imagine they would always need to rotate one way, then back the same to cancel it out. The ones above and others I have seen appear to mount on a central pole which presumably the electrics are run down, rather than a turntable at the base.

Anyone come across a solution designed for this type of scenario? The guy said he imagined something akin to a bmx gyro stem. Not sure that exists for electrics! 😅

Anyway, interested to hear experience or Mickey taking or whatever you got 👍

Oh, and budget is maybe Habitat, not Ikea… 🤔

Shirley that’s a lot of faff with tellies being both thin and cheap. Buy two and mount them back to back on VESA mounts with a small void between for cable management.

They want a picture the other side.

Unless you’re going to get really fancy and build slipring couplings into your turntable design, you’ll want to install a stop on the turntable to prevent rotation beyond 360 degrees (or maybe even 180 degrees depending on the brief).

After that, just make sure you specify quality cables and provide a chafe free route for them.

Usually cables will have a bending radius spec, but you won’t see this when buying a cable assembly.

Aim to do the bending over a space of 8-10″ and you should get a reasonable compromise between cable life and tidyness.

Also worth bearing in mind that you’ll want to secure the cable to the back of the tv, not rely on the connection into the plug/socket as that will strain it and eventually knacker the tv instead…

Is it just a single power lead that will be involved in the rotation? Or is there a full compliment of cables for various sound bars / sky boxes / fire sticks?

I’d also be considering plenty of ventilation if the plan is to box it in with a picture on the back.

I believe that some TVs now have a single lead that provides power and signal to the tv, which connects to a box where all your hdmi sources plug in. Using one of these TVs might make your life easier

Very helpful thanks folks. I knew stw would provide some help 👊

Yes to a stop, I’d considered that already. It’s a must I think.

I would imagine there will be two or three leads as many of us have. I’ll advise them on potential issues and that there may be a single cable option.

As for ventilation, I imagine the tv being mounted to a slim box as if that box were a wall, running the electrics into the box and out the bottom, picture on the reverse. So the tv itself wouldn’t be contained as such, but I could still vent the cables at the top of the mounting box.

If you use a hdmi switch box you could reduce the number of cables to 2.

Use coiled power and hdmi cables for flexibility and restrict the rotation to a single direction would be my suggestion.

They want a picture the other side.

TVs show pictures…

I imagine any setup is going to be fairly dependent on port positioning – might be annoying if they ever want to replace/upgrade the TV?

Build the rest of the room on a huge turntable and keep the TV still.
Problem solved.
RM.

Just run the cable down the center of the turntable assuming there’s somewhere you can drill the hole. In that “box” under the TV in the pic, form the cable into a ‘pigtail’ (grab it and twist so that it forms a loop) that way when the TV spins it tightens/relaxes the loop rather than trying to twist a tight cable. Remember to put the limit stops on the turntable so it’ll turn <90deg each ‘wrong way’ and a full 180 the right way, not at the 0/360 position, that way it’s only normally twisting through the middle of it’s range with some slack either end.

And as Lerk said, ziptie the cables to whatever frame you build, the cables should last a lifetime of being twisted like that, the connectors will die long before the cable does.

At a pinch you could go HDMI-SDI-HDMI to get a narrower more flexible cable. We did exactly that for mounting cameras on gimbals if there wasn’t a slip ring. But That starts to get complicated.

In that “box” under the TV in the pic, form the cable into a ‘pigtail’ (grab it and twist so that it forms a loop) that way when the TV spins it tightens/relaxes the loop rather than trying to twist a tight cable.

Prezactly what I was going to say. A lot of tellies have an elastic cable cinch to keep the last section of cable to the connectors in the telly still and not being yanked about when being moved around on eg wall brackets

They want a picture the other side.

TVs show pictures…

Tv’s show images, pictures are pictures. 😅

Build the rest of the room on a huge turntable and keep the TV still.
Problem solved.
RM.

Genius, although I’d have the same issue with the main power ring Shirley? 😂

Good points TINAS thanks 👍

Gordon Bennet.. and I thought I made life hard for myself with interior design…

I think it’s a nice idea really if your space is open and divided like that. It’s good to have these challenges anyway 😊

If you want to make it rotate and not impose any rotational forces on the cables, look for a ‘slip ring’

Some are available for hdmi but I bet they’re not cheap.

Some are available for hdmi but I bet they’re not cheap.

Will probably cost a lot more than the television!

Use a electric slip ring.

Use a electric slip ring.

You would need to slip ring EVERYTHING.

Power, HDMI, audio (if separate), Ethernet, and anything else. That would require a big, and VERY expensive slip ring.

HDMI is ~600MHz (in the short wave radio spectrum) you can’t just run it across a simple slip ring, each ring needs shielding from the next, which is why long HDMI leads cost an absolute fortune, they’re basically multi core RF cables. Short cables get exponentially cheaper because you can use much cheaper cable and obviously less of it.

Vs a cable that costs £5 with enough slack to make sure it outlast the TV and is easily replaced when the next TV needs a new standard cable.

Like what ned said…

Higher end Samsung TVs have a fibre optic cable to a breakout box. So you just need to worry about that and a power lead if you get one of those…

It does depend on how you define tv

If you they bought a smart tv and were happy to only use the internet as a source that would mean you only needed power.

Or could you chrome cast from a reciever to the box?

They would need to use the tv’s speakers or mount a sound bar in the frame.

Buy a slip ring they seem to be available

The telly can then spin round and round

Simple solution would be one of these