May 28, 2015

• Protecting a TV

  

  For those who have children and flat screen TV's, this post may help you.   For us, the added component of autism tends to lend itself to some periodic meltdowns.  These meltdowns can result in some damage occurring in the home, including the destruction of property... like a TV.

  Protecting a TV, or even other electronics, has become a priority in our home.   Many Autism Parents may understand the challenges we have to overcome to make things happen in this area, so I won't dive into all the background discussion.  The point of this post isn't to dwell on any issues, but to provide a solution, right?

  So let's get down to it...

  We already lost a TV due to a meltdown.  An object was thrown, and the TV screen was hit.   And as it is with many TV's now, the screen busted and the TV became unusable.
  Cost to repair a TV with this sort of damage is about the same as buying a new one.

  We debated at the expense, but decided on replacing the TV with another one.   Their are some routines that benefit our son, and us, by having a TV available in his room.

  But, we wanted to protect the next TV and looked online for anything that could be a protective cover... a screen... a TV Shield if you will.
  Most TV cases or protective covers start at a price of over $100 or more.   The average price we found was around $150, depending on the size of the TV.

  Here's an picture of what a shield would look like... (rather simple, really)

  

  Suffice it to say, paying out $180 for a sheet of acrylic made no sense.   After all, we both worked in the retail industry and knew what some stores payed for formed plastics at a wholesale cost.

  In our online research (thanks to google and youtube), we found that some folks contacted a local plastics company to create a TV shield.   This is essentially a sheet of acrylic that is placed in front of a TV to help protect it, as shown in the above picture.

  I remembered a company that is local to us, in Norfolk, VA, called Norva Plastics.   Looking on their website they also specialize in creating outdoor cases TV's for restaurants, and also protective/safe cases for hospitals and elsewhere.   I figured they should know what may work, and how best to install one on our TV.

  So, I called them up.   They asked for the dimensions of the TV I'm looking to protect.   This means making sure I measured beyond the screens edge, and even the depth of the top of the TV, where the plastic would rest on top.

  A few notes on this conversation:

  1.  The depth of the TV we purchased was shown as 3.5 inches.  This was the full depth of the TV, however we need the protective screen to rest about an inch in front of the TV, and we really didn't need to go straight back to the wall with the full 3.5 inches.   We opted for a 2 inch lip at the top of the plastic, which allowed for the one inch gap between the TV and the screen, and another inch for ... get this... velcro to attach the screen to the top of the TV.
  2. we also needed 1" spacers at the bottom of the shield to help maintain the space between the TV and the shield.
  3. the acrylic we opted for isn't glare resistant, but that was available.  It's thickness isn't too flimsy, but it does bend and flex.   The 1 inch gap is needed to help ensure that if it gets hit, the shield doesn't bust the TV.

  
  

  

   

  It took about a week for the order to be completed, and I drove on over to the company to pick it up.   Cost?  about $70.  more than half of the cost of ordering it from any of the companies we saw online.
  Of course, cost will vary depending on the size of TV, along with any extra shipping costs...but the goal was to save money on this  - and we did.

  I needed to dry mount the shield onto the TV to mark where to drill holes for a couple of spacers.   Once the holes were drilled, I removed the protective plastic cover (the white and clear stuff in the pic), and screwed in the spacers.   Then I applied the velcro to the TV and Shield... made sure it's set... and it's attached.

  Feel free to check out Norva Plastics at  http://www.norvaplastics.com/.   Tell them Joel from Autisable sent you.

  • 10:26 am
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