Electronics HOW to make a LEFT and RIGHT analog VU meter

Discussion in 'Modding' started by imac13, 31 Dec 2003.

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  1. imac13

    imac13 What's a Dremel?

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    anyone here know how to make a analog vumeter?

    anyone know where to get analog VU meter. and roughly how much ?????

    how to connect up to the sound card

    and one know of website???
     
    imac13, 31 Dec 2003
    #1
  2. glennd_05

    glennd_05 What's a Dremel?

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    Google it. there are tons of info on VU meters. for schematics just search "VU Meter Schematics"

    -glenn
     
    glennd_05, 31 Dec 2003
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  3. A13n0rma1

    A13n0rma1 Wannabe

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    Wrong forum my good man, you want modding > modding.

    BUT. Since your username IS imac something and somestuff...

    AND you're asking about a VU meter...

    Whatcha gonna do? :D
     
    A13n0rma1, 31 Dec 2003
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  4. metarinka

    metarinka What's a Dremel?

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    what exactly are you gonna monitor. you can probably buy the vu meters from say radio shack or online, then they simply have forward V rating probably around 1.9 v for smaller units. If you know your peek input (say 3 v for a hdd Led) then you would find the correct resistor and wire up the vu meter. should be simple enough
     
    metarinka, 31 Dec 2003
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  5. cderalow

    cderalow bondage master!

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    can we say wrong forum captain?


    perhaps electronics....

    :idea:
     
    cderalow, 31 Dec 2003
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  6. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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    made it so... eddie_dane
     
    eddie_dane, 31 Dec 2003
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  7. Smilodon

    Smilodon The Antagonist

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    no, you didn't :p
     
    Smilodon, 31 Dec 2003
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  8. TheAnimus

    TheAnimus Banned

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    4 ideas,

    1 microcontroller (my personal favouarte, as always!)
    would just be one chip, somerthing like a PIC16F870 would be able to power a lot of LEDs, if you need an insane degree of accuracy a 16F877 could power 30 unique states!.

    2 Op-Amps for each frequancy, then to LED. for 10 LEDs 10 op-amps, yukie way tbh

    3 Op-Amp for a certain frequency, then use one of those analouge to digital line drivers

    4 good old Parrallel Port + Winamp plugin, easy as selling 3rd rate junk to a Mac user.
     
    TheAnimus, 31 Dec 2003
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  9. cpemma

    cpemma Ecky thump

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    Can nobody (except metarinka) read? :sigh: The man wants some analogue vumeters - that's needle meters, not pretty lights :rolleyes: and to plug into his sound card.

    As metarinka said, first find your meters, which can be anything from about 50uA up to 1mA FSD, then it's a case of adding rectifier diodes to convert the AC music signal to DC and finding a couple of resistors so full volume from the card output sends the needles full-scale. Using the speaker output might have less effect on sound quality than using the line output.

    If you want accurate vu-meter scaling, that gets more complex.
     
    cpemma, 31 Dec 2003
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  10. TheAnimus

    TheAnimus Banned

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    I thought by anologue and sound card, he wanted to pick up of the anologue data from his sound card, rather than say output the data from winamp.
     
    TheAnimus, 1 Jan 2004
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  11. Malvolio

    Malvolio .

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    Malvolio, 1 Jan 2004
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  12. TheAnimus

    TheAnimus Banned

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    forgive my ignorance over analouge electronics, but i thought a UV meter was showing just the amplitude?

    If so y not just buy an ordinary needle meter, you might need to amplify the power fluctations + bias, so it says nicely within scale.
     
    TheAnimus, 1 Jan 2004
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  13. imac13

    imac13 What's a Dremel?

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    but anyone here got the circuit diag or not ???
     
    imac13, 2 Jan 2004
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  14. cpemma

    cpemma Ecky thump

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    A VU meter just has decibel scaling instead of a linear scale. The hard part is calibrating it (if you want the readings to mean something like sound level).

    IIRC the LM3915/6 datasheet shows a front-end op-amp circuit that could be used with needle meters, but, for a simple indicator, a bridge rectifier across the speaker output and a series resistor to re-scale the meter will do, and with a sensitive meter it won't affect sound quality.
     
    cpemma, 2 Jan 2004
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  15. imac13

    imac13 What's a Dremel?

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    so do you know how to link up to my pc ???
     
    imac13, 3 Jan 2004
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  16. cpemma

    cpemma Ecky thump

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    cpemma, 3 Jan 2004
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  17. imac13

    imac13 What's a Dremel?

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    imac13, 4 Jan 2004
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  18. cpemma

    cpemma Ecky thump

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    Google is your friend. :search:
     
    cpemma, 4 Jan 2004
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  19. Toby

    Toby What's a Dremel?

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    I have an analoge meter that used to be part of a voltmeter and its 200ua what does this mean? and does this give me any indication of how i will be able to power it from a 3v mobo hd led header ie what are the calculations i have to make in order to find the right resistor
     
    Toby, 8 Jan 2004
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  20. Pandalet

    Pandalet What's a Dremel?

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    200uA (two hundred microAmps) is (at a guess :lol:) the maximum current rating, i.e. the meter measures currents between 0 and 200uA. (Most) meters are passive devices which don't need a power supply - they just need the input line carrying the current being measured and the corresponding ground line.

    This means that you would hook the meter to your sound line (either a mono line or half a stereo line) with some scaling hardware - I haven't the foggiest what sort of current range one gets out of a sound card, but I'm fairly sure it goes negative (in DC terms), so you probably want to scale it so that your maximum deflection is at 200uA and minimum at 0.

    I can think of (most of) a way to do this with opamps, if that helps any :). It would be easier with a voltage meter, tho.
     
    Pandalet, 8 Jan 2004
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