RAVE - TV Wall Mount

Of all things to Rave about - a TV mount?  Not very exciting - true, but definately got me excited enough to "Rave" about it. 

 While looking for a mount for our screen room, one of the biggest issues and how we ended up with this mount, was easy removability.  Being outside and facing the street, the last thing we wanted was to advertise a free 32" LCD TV for anyone with the kahunnas to come up and take it during the night.  I saw a lot of mounts that would hold the TV in place and some that included articulating funcionality (swivel, pitch, etc...) but none that allowed easy removal of the TV.  But after much searching, we found the perfect mount at Sam's Club.  As TV mounts go, this one is pretty sweet.  It is by no means perfect, and I am not a big TV installer by any means, but this one really impressed me.  The mount is by a company called "Level Mount" and is their model DC37DJ.  While writing this, I was researching some additional information on the mount and found out that the company makes lots of cool articulating mounts - all the way up to 65" mounts.  If I need to hang another TV, they will defnately be my first stop.

So what is so impressive about this mount?  It has the basics of course - it is for mounting LCD or Plasma TVs 10-40” and up to 100 LBS, has articulating arms and supports VESA 75, 100, 200, 400, 600 mounting pattern standards. The artculating part was pretty cool, but many have that feature.  This one has four arms that pivot out from a center support (as you can see in the picture) to be able to mount up to the VESA standard mounting points on your flat panel TV.  I always wondered how they made these things universal - now I know.

I installed the mount on a masonry wall and the only issues I have/had is turning the knobs that tighten and loosen the pivoting arms.  I removed one of the arms to reduce it's overall depth, but still allow some flexibility.  It is pretty tight behind the TV and you can get some pretty sore knuckles trying to loosen the locks - which is required if you need to swivel or tilt the TV. the brackets are nice and forgiving for numerous mounting locations.  My first thought was "Crap" - my VESA screws were high on my TV which made me think the brackets were going to stick out above my TV - not so.  I flattened the top brackets and used the bottom pair to get to the lower VESA holes - no exposed brackets anywhere.  As I said before the one big thing we wanted was removability.  The mount ends up as two pieces (once assembled) the wall bracket (which has a built in level bubble) and the the TV bracket (composed of multiple pieces).  The wall bracket has a flexible lock at the top that keeps the TV in-place, but if you depress it and lift - off you go with your TV.  We store ours inside, and bring it out when we watch TV in the screen room.  The TV is pretty light, so lifting it off the mount and moving it is no big deal.  Storing it is another matter, and I am currently looking at getting a spare wall bracket to put in the master bedroom to mount it there when not in use in the screen room.  BTW - The TV was a great Black Friday deal at Compusa - $299!

I now need to get creative with the cabling, as I hate exposed cables of any kind.  I have some drilling to do yet and will post some more pics once the project is complete!

W.E.S.