Hireboat TV/DVD

[bigray]

I have just returned from 4 nights on Richardsons San Selino. This boat has a TV and DVD player. What suprised me was that both were 240v powered by an inverter. With the boat being 12v other than that I wondered why the operators don't use 12v TV's and I can't help thinking that this would reduce battery useage or am missing something. The only thing I could think of is cost however 12v TV's have got a lot cheaper in recent years.

[3FagsandAHag]

I imagine the reasons are two fold, one price and two ease of change out.

With more and more boats going over to a 240v system it makes sense to standardise fittings as much as possible should you have something fail and need to put a replacement in, additionally the price of 240v TV's are now pennies (in comparison at least) to they're 240v counterparts

[3FagsandAHag]

I imagine the reasons are two fold, one price and two ease of change out.

With more and more boats going over to a 240v system it makes sense to standardise fittings as much as possible should you have something fail and need to put a replacement in, additionally the price of 240v TV's are now pennies (in comparison at least) to they're 240v counterparts

That should of course read as 12v counterpart.

I clearly am working to hard and need a break, roll on Friday

[Guest]

Some household TV's up to say 19 or 20" are 12v. At home, they plug into mains 240v and then step down to 12v via a transformer. So, in essence, these TV's are 12v and can be had from Argos, Comet, supermarkets etc. and are really cheap these days. Most come with Freeview and some even have USB connections and built in DVD player.

[ranworthbreeze]

Our tv has both leads, we opt for the 240 volt when available but use the dc input when we can not hook up to shore power.

After saying that more time than not we just put on a DVD, we can normally get a signal now with the new digital aerial but struggle to find anything on the tv these days.

Regards

Alan

[Oddfellow]

The 12v supply on a boat isn't a regulated supply and it's rarely 12v. A fully charged battery is about 13.6v and a flat battery is 10.5v though many will say that below 12v is pretty flat too.

If you have a TV with a separate power pack that puts out 12v, that's 12v guaranteed. It's regulated and that's what the TV expects and needs.

An unregulated 12v supply will probably work fine for a while and in private hands where the TV may only get used for 20 hours a year, it will probably last for a long time. In hire, we expect these TVs to last no more than 18 months when used in this way.

[ranworthbreeze]

Hello Andy,

Our boat is out 40 weeks a year and we are going to increase this maybe up to 48 weeks this year.

Our current tv is now around two years old and we have used it both on 12 volt and mains during this period and we have some owners that will use the tv for more than 20 hours a week let alone 20 per year, sad I know but that life.

Regards

Alan