installing wall-mount unit for Plasma 42" (1 Viewer)

[DustinT]

hi,

has anyone installed one of these before? from what i've read they are quite Versatile, intended for 16 or 24" spaced studs.

thats all good, but what about 3/4" plywood walls? (doh!). i've recently discovered that EVERY internal wall in my house is construced using 3/4" plywood.

if anyone has any DIY sites for the wall mount unit, or pictures of their own installation of that unit i would greatly appreciate it. i think the time it takes to learn, and research how to do this is worth the $500 i'm savig from having CC install it for me.....

tia!
Dustin

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I did a peerless install this weekend for my 42. Was pretty simple.

When you say you have 3/4 plywood walls, you mean there is no studs/supports? I would think 3/4 would support the plasma. if you used anchors similar to what you'd use in concrete.

 

[DustinT]

no, there are studs in there, they are just harder to locate because of the 3/4". no stud finder will locate them, and you can't do my patended knock test... so unless measurements are perfectly acurate... which i'm sure they are not. one wall in this house actually had 2x6 tongue and groove for the wall... so i guess it's not all 3/4" plywood, haha... it's a small 1 bedroom 1920 house so these types of things i guess aren't tooo strange for the time.

i'm not familiar with anchors used in concrete, but i'll do some searching for it. is it like heavy duty mollies?

What does your 42" weigh? I have only ONE last kitchen counter top that i need to install ( the one with the sink in it..doh!) then i can move on to the t.v. and surround sound project! (which is why i'm doing the research now...

thanks for your post,

 

[Ted Lee]

vince, what do you mean by "peerless install"? any tips you can give?

i need to mount my 42" as well ... but i'll tap into studs (16" on center) so it shouldn't be too difficult.

dustin - my stud-finder has a setting called "deep scan" (or something like that). it's designed to find studs where the walls are thicker. i've never had to use it, but maybe you can find a stud-finder with a similar feature.

also, i've seen some guys simply take a very tiny nail and hammer it into the wall until they find a solid stud. obviously this is a last resort ... but it certainly works.

also, 3/4 plywood is pretty thick...but i'm not so sure it'll support a plasma by itself. i can just see the plywood "shearing-apart" or something...

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Sorry for the confusion: Peerless is a brand of plasma mounts. Pretty nice, pretty heavy duty and (IMHO best of all) their website is very helpful. I bought mine from thenerds.net, mostly because they had it in stock and could do fedex nextday within my price range.

The install was simple, and the manual is available on the peerless site for you to check out before ordering.

-V

 

[DustinT]

this was my biggest concern as well.

I know that we have a very solid wall in there because we have tried mount pictures and what not and found it to be solid, and i assumed it was 3/4" since that is what i found elsewhere... until i found that tongue and groove. if i find that it is tongue in groove in this wall (although i doubt it because the wall is an internal one, only 6" wide) then it will probably be strong enough.

Vince, thanks for the info, i'm going to look those folks up.

Dustin

 

[DustinT]

actually, do you have a web address for them?

thanks,

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

http://www.peerlessindustries.com/

 

[DustinT]

thanks!!

 

[Charlie Campisi]

The other thing you could try is one the old school stud finders. Instead of using sonar or whatever the current ones use, they used to sell (fairly cheap, like $5) stud finders that used a magnet and a little meter. Instead of looking for the stud, it looked for the drywall screws. Much more crude and time consuming, but once you found a stud, you could check 16 or 24" either side to confirm, or drill a hole to see if you hit it right. I think I saw one of these stud finders at home depot a couple years ago. They may still carry them.

 

[John S]

3/4" Plywood? I would not even worry about hitting the studs to tell the truth. That stuff is pretty darn solid, and should support a ton of weight.

 

[Ted Lee]

i dunno john...

plasmas are pretty heavy and (from the few mount kits that i've seen) the wood screws are super-beefy and long --- definitely designed to go only into a wood stud.

how would you mount to plywood anyway? toggle bolts?

 

[John S]

Not sure... I'm just thinking of all the weight we put on backboards in communications closets, and Dmark locations, in the data and voice world. They are 3/4" and the backboard itself is mounted to the the studs. I'm looking over at ours right now and thinking there has got to be hundreds of pounds hung on the thing with standard only slightly beefy wood screws. Nothing special at all.

3/4" is pretty thick ply....