My New Camping TV

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A few years back I bought a 7" screen 12v TV and the best part about it was that it was multi regional meaning that it would work anywhere in the world but then the Battery died and I got it replaced but it never worked again,

So Last week I found a slightly bigger replacement that has a 9" Screen and a much higher resolution and it has a USB port and a Card reader port and it comes with FreeView Channels so when you hit the Auto Tune Icon it does it all it's self and depending where you are the more channels you get, Using the small supplied Magnetic roof Ariel I am getting 130 Digital TV Channels and 33 Radio Channels and 14 Data Channels So that's 177 Channels in All,

The reason behind getting it was one to replace my old one But most of all I have been trying to replace all my gear with low powered Items, Ever since I bought my ARB fridge I have been looking at ways to lower my power usage, Anyways when It is plugged in to AC via it's adapter it uses between 8.0 to 8.4watts because the numbers change so often between the two figures it actually uses 8.12watts per hour running on AC and when hooked up to a 12v Battery Box it uses between 6.2 to 7.7watts, This past week I powered it by one of my big batteries and running it up to 16 hours a day the battery lasted about a week taking the voltage down to around the 50% mark,

The Colour of the screen resolution Is perfect and equal to my big 48" Samsung TV where as my other TV's seem either too orange/redish and I have never been able to get them right, But this one is a Keeper for sure, I tried it out plugging a memory stick in to it and looking at a few photo's and it worked real good, it also comes with various leads and a small magnetic Ariel and a remote control as well as a small stand and at a cost of about $115.00 bucks it's well worth it,

My Big TV uses between 85 to about 125watts and my 16" portable TV-DVD player chews around 30.1watts which although is a 12v TV it has to be run via it's 240v adapter which means using an inverter because it has some crazy 9 pin plug that comes from the Adapter to the TV So that means using an Inverter, and using a small 300w inverter then bumps that 30.1 watts up to 40watts, Where as this new one has a normal Cigar Lighter cord and a separate AC Adapter plus it has a built in Li-Po Battery as well, So It has 3 ways of powering it.

Just as a word of warning If you are going to Buy/Use a TV when camping make sure it has a simple lead that plugs in to it with just an outer earth and the positive Inner Pin type socket because if the lead goes south it's easy to find a replacement, Anyways here it is.

J.

1561769505_my_little_tv.jpg
 
Hard Luck said:
What do you need 177 channels for?

Well when you have searched through 99.9% of them there just might be one there with something worth watching, It's a handy thing to have around when you have kids in tow, even more so if it's raining, :bomb: :mad: :argh:
 
Flowerpot said:
Redfins 'tv' is the only kind of tv I'd be looking at when camping too. :Y: :Y:
Kind of defeats the purpose of getting away from it all otherwise. :8

Yeah I agree but there are times when your not allowed to light fires or when the weather takes a turn for the worse so having a small TV is a good backup plan.
 
Awe having a TV sometimes isnt such a bad thing. You can watch the weather and news.

I dont watch FTA at home actually but will watch a little ABC and SBS if we are away for a spell. The likes of Botox biartches isnt my thing!

177 channels will include multibles of the same channel, SD and HD etc.

There are some great mobile apps to allow you too find towers and tune into these.

Also you can go VAST (satellite) with an old Austar/Foxtel dish and LNB. Just buy the topbox and register for the service. Real easy to tune the dish in.
 
Aussiedigs said:
Awe having a TV sometimes isnt such a bad thing. You can watch the weather and news.

I dont watch FTA at home actually but will watch a little ABC and SBS if we are away for a spell. The likes of Botox biartches isnt my thing!

177 channels will include multibles of the same channel, SD and HD etc.

There are some great mobile apps to allow you too find towers and tune into these.

Also you can go VAST (satellite) with an old Austar/Foxtel dish and LNB. Just buy the topbox and register for the service. Real easy to tune the dish in.

There is only about 10 HD channels on the FreeView channels here, I just counted all the channels and there is 197 in total, including 33 radio channels,

The thing I like about it is that it only eats just over 6 watts an hour, when my AUX battery is fully charged the little TV uses about 7.2 watts and it slowly drops to about 6.2 watts and most of the time it eats about 6.6 watts, after a week of leaving it on all day up until midnight each day it still never drained the battery and it was running for between 14 to about 17 hours a day +/-.

Here are just a few of them, and they are built in to every TV Set.

https://www.freeview.co.uk/tv-guide
 
Aussiedigs said:
Yeah 6W! Brilliant!

Yeah I think it would be good for anyone living off grid or in a camper for weeks or even months at a time, I thought my 12v 16" TV was good using 31watts + the inverter power but One hour of running it will power this one for almost 7 hours and the picture is sharper and the Colour is more natural.
 
A tiny solar panel would maintain that even in overcast weather, not that youd bother with something so small but itd take bugger all to maintain its consumption.
 
Use an ipad, all the tv channels have a app with their shows plus there is Netflix etc and you can easily download movies.
Bonus is it also gives you a brilliant mapping tool, car diagnostic tool etc etc
 
Shep said:
Use an ipad, all the tv channels have a app with their shows plus there is Netflix etc and you can easily download movies.
Bonus is it also gives you a brilliant mapping tool, car diagnostic tool etc etc

I only use android based gizmo's, Another thing that this TV can do is record programs or movies directly on to USB memory sticks Or I could download a heap of movies on to a hard drive or memory stick or SD Card and watch either one on this TV

I have a gadget / Ariel that turns my Phone or Tablet in to a TV but the thing I hate about using either a phone or tablet is that every time you update your apps you get a heap of other junk that keeps running in the back ground which chews up the memory, I originally had about 20 apps on my phone but now I got about 73 because of google keep adding add ons and now my phone keeps telling me I am running out of memory when I haven't down loaded anything, So now I have blocked everyone of the apps from updating,

The thing that I like about it being a proper TV is there are no updates or Hackers,

Running on AC this little TV has used 123 watts in 15 hours which works out to be 8.2 watts and on DC it only uses around 6 watts so in the same 15 hours it only chews less than 99 watts, and it has surround sound so I hooked it up to a set of surround sound speakers which chew 10.1 watts and the thing came alive.
 

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