Hello all!
As some might remember, I was making a VU meter for an audio amp some time ago. I've since had time to play with it and I have a great result.
I dunno about anyone else, but the first time I made this, It was pretty crap. The LEDs were unresponsive, flickering and just really bad. BUT: I've fixed it all up- with only a few components and no ICs! (except for the LM3915, of course)
Heres how you do it. ::
Right, so you have your Not-so-great VU meter circuit with everything attached, but not working all too well.
1) put a non-polarized cap on pins 4&5 - I've used a 563 (56n)
2) place a 1N4004 or similar rectifier diode forward to the signal input (pin 5)
ie:
(pin 5)------|<------(new signal input)
3) put a 1uF MKT/Ceramic cap directly after the diode. Add a 210k resistor (value not critical) accross the cap.
Now the signal input wire is connected to the other end of the cap.
And there you have it! much, much better performance!
Check out the
Results on Youtube!
(btw, anyone know what the capacitor & resitor actually do in technical terms?)