We have recently completed our first ad notam mirror television installation. The installation was for the Ellerman House Hotel in Bantry Bay, Cape Town.
This is a short introduction detailing what it took to install this mirror television.
Discussions started with architect Michael Dennet in March 2012. During our first meeting I was joined by Christiaan Beukes of Sphere Custom Design. He had been appointed as the automation specialist and was going to be providing the high definition video feed for the mirror television. We were informed that the client had seen our mirror televisions overseas so he knew the quality of ad notam mirror televisions. With this peace of mind he knew what to expect. Over the coming months and various consultation meetings the final decision to have a mirror size of 1700mm x 1100mm was made. For an ad notam DFU 650 – 65″ Display Frame Unit this was the smallest size mirror that we could use. Final details regarding the installation were to be finalised closer to the installation date as Angus Taylor was working on a cladding design to surround the mirror. The material of choice for this cladding would be Hematite. To make sure that our mirror finish would match the Hematite we had a 100mm x 100mm Magic Mirror sample shipped overnight down to Cape Town for comparison.
With the confirmation that the polished Hematite and the Magic Mirror were a suitable match the order was confirmed. Manufacturing lead time for the ad notam Magic Mirror and DFU is six weeks. Shipping time ex works in Germany to our point of installation in Cape Town is also six weeks.
In the week leading up to the installation I visited the site to mark out the location of the DFU and Magic Mirror on the wall.
Once this was completed Angus’ team of sculptors came in and started to mount the metal support frame that was going to fix the Hematite cladding to the wall.
A “Tv Stunt Double” had been installed into the frame for the cladding, making sure that the space allocated for the mirror did not change.
The last item for installation that I needed to find was glass carrying handles. Surprisingly these are harder to find in Cape Town than I expected. I managed to locate a pair of Veribor three suction handles. These have a carrying capacity of up to 120kg. This load bearing capacity is far beyond our requirements for this installation (23Kg mirror weight) or for any installations that have lined up. With that in mind, I would prefer to use tools that exceed my requirements than having some issues on site without being able to do the job correctly.
Logistically the ship carrying the order arrived on the Monday before the first event at Ellerman House. The crate was unloaded from the shipping container on the Tuesday. Customs cleared the goods on Wednesday. Thursday afternoon it arrived on site. Friday evening, once the installation area had been cleared of all building materials, the installation took place. The mirrors are shipped vertically on a palette with the DFU screen strapped to the timber crate.
Due to the reinforcing of the crate, it took 6 of us to carry the mirror down the 4 flights of stairs to the bar area.
Upon opening the crate we get our first view of the Magic Mirror. Factory fitted Glass on Mirror mounting system has is visible.
For the event on the Friday evening we mounted the ad notam screen and mirror with an 80mm gap at the bottom. This gap was left so that we could connect an HDMI cable from the screen to a MacBook Pro to play videos while guests were in the bar.
The next morning I took a quick photo of the installation with the screen switched off. This shows how reflective the mirror is.
Above the screen installation, behind the Hematite cladding. The ad notam power supply unit is installed. The Crestron DM Room Controller is located here too. This handless the High Definition video signal from the Creston digital media switch.
The final installation.
It took just over an hour cleaning the mirror with a spirit based cleaner and micro fibre cloths. The utmost care was taken once the mirror so that no scratches or marks were left behind.
Professional photos of this installation are in the Portfolio section of this website.