Chris Fitzsimmons delves into the cut-throat world of bracketry, to look at ultra-slim mounting solutions. Just which is the thinnest bracket? And more importantly, is it always the right choice?
In the world of displays and loudspeakers marketing often descends into “bigger, better, brighter, louder”. However, in recent months much of the buzz around mounting solutions has been quite the opposite. A spate of claims of “slimmest mount” from various vendors has lead us to investigate the trend, and find out whose mount really is the slimmest, and indeed what’s driving this diet frenzy amongst bracket makers.
Of course the “bigger, better, brighter” claims of display vendors are not the whole picture. The fourth quality of a desirable display these days is thinness. The advent of technologies such as LED back-lighting and OLED is enabling screen vendors to make thinner and thinner screens. And who wants a nice thin screen mounted on a big, ugly piece of ironmongery?
Not many, according to Paul Dawes, director of marketing for Peerless / BBG: “Any ultra-slim display purchased will require a mount to complement it and make the investment worthwhile.” Meanwhile, SMS’s product and project manager, Richard Svahn, identifies two key application areas for the ultra-slim mount: “Private home and hotel installations, especially with the ultra thin LED backlit displays, are requiring these mounts to be specified.”
Chief’s EMEA product marketing manager Robert de Jong believes boardroom’s to be a further key market. All of these applications are ones where aesthetics are a key design consideration, but speed of fitting can be another benefit. One thing most of the ultra-slim brackets have in common is being easy to fit. This means that jobs where speedy installation is important are another candidate for specifying such compact solutions.
So just how slim is slim? Vendors usually state the depth of a bracket as the distance from the wall to the back of the display once it’s fixed. Paul Dawes states that a typical bracket is between 25mm and 170mm deep, depending its type, and the display to be mounted.
Peerless’s slimmest available mount at the moment are the Slimline range, which come in at 8mm deep. Depending on the model, the range can mount displays from 32” to 65” in size. Mode-AL’s thinnest off-the-shelf solutions are the MA-OEM-10 and –30 brackets for displays up to 70” in size. These measure 24mm deep from the wall to the back of the display. However, according to marketing manager Laura Bonafort, the company can make custom solutions down to 8mm deep.
Chief’s smallest products are the Thinstall and No-Profile solutions. The Thinstall range offers a 9mm stand-off distance for the no-tilt version, or 19mm for a bracket enabling 12 degrees of tilt.
Smart Media Solutions (SMS) produces the Flatscreen Polytech, which is 12mm deep. The company also includes a useful spacer fitting in the package. This stands the display a further 25mm off the wall, for use in situations where the display has rearfacing connections.
Premier Mounts has a few different products in the ultra-slim bracket. Its PTFM-3765 and WTFM-3750 models are both 9mm deep, for screens from 37-65”. The PTFM model also includes a flat HDMI cable and a pair of right and HDMI connectors to make cabling easier. There is also the PRF, which is a 12mm deep VESA mount.
Fitting in at the 31mm mark, is Top- Tec's Jupiter VESA Plasma & LCD wall mount. It's a two part fitting, with a wall plate component and a second piece that screws onto the display before mounting. It can hold a screen up to 60" in size.
The Universal close fixing plasma mount for Timms measure a slightly larger 38mm however it will support all but the largest displays (up to 60”) and is the most cost effective unit the company builds.
However, at the time of writing, it appears that Unicol is top of the tree. The company’s marketing director, Robert Seward states that its slim line model Excalibur comes in at 7.5mm winning by the thickness of a coat of paint.
So, you can buy an 8mm or thinner mounting solution, great, but nothing comes without compromise. It’s worth
examining what are you going to be giving up when you specify something that small. Chief’s Robert de Jong gives his opinion: “The feature set for slim wall mounts typically is less than for standard models. The challenge for manufacturers is to still engineer, within those low profile dimensions, lateral shift, tilting and cable management features that are needed just like with any other flat panel installation’.
Limited access to the rear of a screen can also be a problem, so de Jong also advocates including a kick-stand at the bottom of a bracket which will hold the display off the wall somewhat, making it easier to install cables. This feature is offered by both Peerless and Chief in their slim mounting solutions.
Unicol’s Seward identifies another compromise: “When you make a mount this slim, you still have to put bends or folds into it for strength in order to cover a range of screens – in this case these types of screens are lighter and we have limited the range to 50” maximum or 40kg. This allows us a comfortable safety factor.”
Just how slim can we get? There are a couple of limitations to consider. One of the most important is cooling the display. It is important to leave enough room for any cooling solution to “breath”. Adequate air circulation behind the unit is part of this, and must be maintained in order to avoid compromising the life of the display and prevent overheating. Whilst modern displays radiate much of their heat through the front, some might reasonably argue that less than a centimetre of clearance already approaches this threshold.
Cable management can be an issue, but most professional displays, especially the super slim ones have bottom facing connection arrays, which provide easier access and reduce the amount of space required for cable clearance.
The final restriction is really a material based one. Steel is the material of choice, and physics just gets in the way of how thin you can use it, or what structural features need to be included.
According to Unicol’s Robert Seward other material choices are unattractive due to high set up costs: “Plastic of carbon fibre are other options, but tooling-up costs are relatively expensive and there could be durability problems with plastic and cost issues with carbon fibre.”
Interestingly on the development front, Italian’s Euromet appear to be considering an alternative to steel: “We are investing in new materials, and a new concept for wall mounts,” stated managing director Christiano Traferri.
Ultra-slim brackets are an interesting new class of product, responding directly to the evolution of the display itself. They are a particularly keen example of aesthetic considerations over-riding the traditional features driven development approach of the professional market. Just be careful when choosing one, that you don’t sacrifice too many of the features that have made installing brackets faster and easier than ever.