I have the tower portion built and am wondering what schematic is best for it. I have looked around and people keep referencing the following instructable:
I am worried about whether this will supply enough juice to the LED in each of the ten panels of frosted plexiglass. I have searched the forums and have found a bunch of schematics for Vu meters, but I believe most were for smaller scale displays. So anyone know of a schematic that has been applied to a larger scale VU?
I doubt that Instructable circuit will do the job as is, although it could be the basis for your schematic. How many LEDs per panel? What is the LED current/voltage spec?
I just want one pretty high output led per panel. I am pretty novice but since the forum has dealt with lots of lm3916 threads I was hoping someone had an idea. I imagine in my case I would want to go AC so that i can do a wall plug in for energy requirements of bright leds. I just cant recognize a schematic on my own that would meet demands
You can use almost any LM3916 schematic you find.
The lm3916 can use a supply up to 25 volts.
You can use many LEDs in series to get more light. The supply voltage needs to be mores than 2 volts above the LED voltage. Example: if you have 1.5volt red LEDs, then 10 LEDs need 15 volts to work therefore a supply voltage of 20 volts will work fine. This way you have 10 times the light.
The Instructable was designed by a little kid who knows nothing about electronics:
1) The output current to the LEDs is determined by the resistance from pin7 to ground. Use 470 ohms for a current of 25mA.
2) Pin8 should be connected to ground without R4.
3) The LM386 amplifier is a power amp. It should be an opamp.
4) R5 and R3 form a volume control with a very small adjustment range. Use a real volume control instead.
5) An important supply bypass capacitor is missing.