Led bar-graph driver

Posted on May 20, 2012

Under: LED Circuits

The circuit uses CA3290 BiMOS dual voltage comparators. Non-inverting inputs
of A1 and A2 are tied to voltage divider reference. The input signal is applied to the
inverting inputs.

LEDs are turned "on" when input voltage the reaches the voltage on the reference
divider.
LED VU Meter
Published:2012/10/19 0:38:00 Author:muriel | Keyword: LED VU, Meter | From:SeekIC

The circuit below uses two quad voltage comparators (LM339) to illuminate a series of 8 LEDs
indicating volume level. Each of the 8 comparators is biased at increasing voltages set by the voltage
divider so that the lower right LED comes on first when the input is about 400 millivolts or about 22
milliwatts peak in an 8 ohm system. The divider voltages are set so that each LED represents about
twice the power level as the one before so the scale extends from 22 milliwatts to about 2.5 watts
when all LEDs are lit. The sensitivity can be decreased with the input control to read higher levels. I
have not built or tested this circuit, so please let me know if you have problems getting it working.
The power levels should be as follows: 1 LED = 22mW 2 LEDs = 42mW 3 LEDs = 90mW 4 LEDs =
175mW 5 LEDs = 320mW 6 LEDs = 650mW 7 LEDs = 1.2 Watts 8 LEDs = 2.5 watts