230V in the naked monitor
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Hi
I got an old flatscreen monitor that fits quite well into a magic mirror. The only problem is, it has an integrated power supply. That means the 230V AC (Germany) go right into the monitor that I have to free from its case, leaving bare metal. Which makes me feel extremely uneasy touching it or leaving it hanging from the wall (I know it shouldn’t be a problem, but still I really don’t like the idea).
Any electricians / experts among you, what do you think? Is it safe to use a monitor with internal 230V power supply without the case? -
Good luck!
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i would not recommend it without having some form of isolation for the power supply.
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Hi,
doesn’t every monitor have the power supply inside somewhere? I think, all the ones I have, do. Did you check, whether the bare metal that you could touch is grounded? You can do this for example, with a multimeter, by checking if current flows through it, after connecting the outer metal case and the ground of your plug (number 2 on the left side of this wikipedia image. If so, you should be pretty safe, however of course I am not a qualified electrician and all information is supplied without liability.
This is how mine looks and it is definitely safe to touch the outer case.
Best regards!
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@Jopyth said in 230V in the naked monitor:
doesn’t every monitor have the power supply inside somewhere?
Mine has an external power supply like those for laptops.
So I don’t have to remove the cover of the thing that converts 230 V to whatever.
I was looking for this feature to be more flexible in terms of heat prevention. -
@done Ok, in this case I have no idea. But if it is about the heat, I would probably prefer a hot thing over an electrocuting thing around my walls and the mirror.
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Do you have got a picture ?
Normaly the metall which you can touch (even after removing the plastic shell) should have no contact with high voltage, as far as i know. The powersupply is normaly in an isolated shell because otherwise your screen will be rosted
The other thing is the heat which leaves the monitor espacially with an internal power supply - anything higher than 45-50°C i would not accept especially when you think about the other parts of your mirror. -
Thanks for your ideas!
@Jopyth mine looks quite a lot like yours. I took some photos and will post them on the weekend, but I won’t have any time this week.
I also had the idea to check with the multimeter, but I didn’t know what exactly to connect to.
I know that theoretically the metal shouldn’t carry a high voltage and be grounded anyway, but I still fear that something bad might happen, especially when the already-old monitor ages even further (I know, nobody can guarantee anything, but still it’s good to discuss the matter)
Heat is another problem I didn’t think of at all yet, I’ll check that as well when I have time. -
Alright, here’s the picture
I checked with a multimeter, the whole case is connected to ground. That won’t be a problem then.
But the monitor gets HOT, I can barely touch the part on the back that has little holes in it. I really need to think of a solution to that.
