Stereo VU Meter

Stereo VU Meter
This is it. It's a STEREO LED LEVEL METER. It's the cheapest and best bar graph display available and best of all, it uses readily available components. You only need a handful of LEDs, 22 transistors, some resistors, diodes and a set of electros - it doesn't require any chips. You may be wondering why we didn't choose the LM 3914 or LM 3915 bar-graph LED driver chips. Now, a chip such as the LM 3914 is scarce at the best of times. Can you imagine what would happen if we used it in a project? Ninety per cent of the readers would miss out. This means we must confine our projects to readily available components and avoid rare items, no matter how inviting they look. We compared a LED level meter using the chip with our unit and the difference was negligible. Both had the same quick response-time and about the same readout values on the line of LEDs for the same input signal. But the big difference is in the cost of construction. By using transistors, you will save $4 over the cost of two chips. If you don't mind the additional time required to fit the extra components, the $4 is a valuable saving and by using discrete components, you can build it from parts you may already have in stock.
The Stereo VU Meter PC board with the components fitted. Only the battery and speaker are external, connected to flying leads. A close up of the completed unit. The overlay makes construction easy. Make sure the left-hand row of resistors starts with 47k at the bottom and 4k7 at the top.
The BAR GRAPH section of the Stereo VU Meter circuit. The "front end" section is below:
The BOOTSTRAP circuit connects to the LED bar graph via A B C. Only one BOOTSTRAP circuit is provided on the board. It is capable of driving both bar graphs in a mono mode. For a stereo readout, you will need to build another bootstrap circuit. This will give a STEREO SOUND LEVEL INDICATOR. The Circuit The circuit basically consists of two identical channels feeding two rows of LEDs. A highgain bootstrap frontend is also provided to allow the board to be coupled to an inbuilt speaker/microphone which will give a mono readout of the sounds being picked up. A mini trim pot is provided to set the sensitivity. This makes the project completely portable and it can be used as a SOUND LEVEL meter in a disco or other noisy situation. To give a read-out in dB it would require calibration. The simplest method of calibration would be to compare it with a commercial unit and give each LED a value in dB. If you build another bootstrap circuit, a portable stereo sound detector can be made. It will be able to compare sound level in different parts of a room or compare the relative outputs from 2 speakers. As designed, each stereo section can be connected across the terminals of a speaker and the unit mounted in some prominent place for an eye-catching display. HOW THE CIRCUIT WORKS The VU METER consists of 3 sections: 1. BOOTSTRAP CIRCUIT 2. BUFFER TRANSISTOR 3. STAIRCASE VOLTAGE DETECTOR The BOOT-STRAP circuit is very successful at allowing a dynamic microphone in the form of a 2in speaker to detect small sounds and have them amplified sufficiently to be fed into a normal amplifier. The BOOTSTRAP is rather unique in its operation. It uses 2 directly coupled NPN transistors wired in a similar mode to cascade to give an enormous gain. In our prototype we measured this to be about 1,000 times! In the quiescent condition, the transistors in the bootstrap circuit are slightly turned on. This means they will accept a few millivolts from the speaker and turn the circuit on harder or turn it off. During quiet conditions 2 millivolts is developed across the speaker due its resistance of 8 ohms. Take the case where the speaker produces 2 millivolts which is in phase with the quiescent voltage. This will turn the lower transistor slightly off. The collector voltage will rise and in doing so, take the base of the top transistor with it. The top transistor is partially an emitter-follower. Under normal circumstances, the collector voltage of the top transistor would rise about .2v. This will make the emitter voltage of the top transistor rise .2v (which is normal for an emitter follower). Now the top 22u electrolytic will transfer this .2v to the join of the 10k and 2k2 resistors and cause the top transistor and turn it ON further. This action feeds around the transistor until the transistor can rise no more. The top 22u was previously charged and some of its voltage is lost through the 2k2 resistor. This reduces the base voltage and the transistor begins its downward excursion. I have taken the extreme case. If the first transistor does not turn on to quite the same extent, the emitter-follower will rise until the loss from the top electrolytic prevents the transistor from rising any more, and it begins to fall. The lower 22u prevents this swing from appearing on the base of the lower transistor. It acts as a damper. The output from the BOOTSTRAP can be as high as 2v p-p and this is ample to drive the buffer stage. In fact the signal needs to be attenuated by a pot so that the range can be set according to the amplitude of the input signal. The 470R resistor in series with the pot is only needed when the VU Meter is connected directly across speaker lines. The BC557 is not an emitter follower. Don't get confused. It is wired as a normal common emitter stage for a PNP transistor. Thus it will provide a high gain in this situation. The AC voltage appearing at the wiper of the 100k trim pot will pass through the 4u7 electrolytic and become rectified by the 1N4148 diode. With no signal present, the voltage on the base will be 9v. As the input signal increases, the voltage on the base will drop to 8.35v and this is sufficient to turn the transistor ON fully. The voltage on the collector will range between 0v and 8.5v. This voltage is stored in the lower 4u7 and applied to the chain of 8 diodes. The 4u7 dictates the decay rate and gives the LEVEL METER its rapid attack, slow decay characteristic and allows even brief peaks to be detected. To reduce the decay time you can increase the electrolytic to 22u and this will keep the LEDs illuminated for a longer period, similar to the commercial units.
Between each diode is a high value resistor. As the voltage rises to about .6v, the first transistor turns ON. At this stage the voltage on the cathode of the first diode is 0v since the .6v has been dropped across it. The voltage needs to rise to about 1.2v before the second transistor turns ON. This continues down the line with each transistor turning ON at its allotted voltage level. The set of 330R resistors limit the current through the LEDs to a safe value and the base resistors serve as a voltage dropper so that the base will not be forced to go higher than .6v. The number of transistors which can be operated in this Staircase arrangement is limited by the battery voltage available since each transistor and diode will take .6v from the voltage. TESTING To test the stereo VU meter, connect the two links as shown on the board and connect the dynamic microphone (speaker). Solder a battery snap to the board and connect a 9v battery. This project is now a self-contained level meter and will give a dual readout of the sound detected by the speaker. We are using a small speaker as a microphone as we have had a great deal of success with its sensitivity. No calibration is required. You only need to position the pick-up (spkr) near a radio or stereo that is playing at normal listening level and adjust the sensitivity controls. These are the two 100k mini trim pots in the buffer stage. First you must set each one so that the top led is just illuminated when a loud passage is being received. Then you need to trim the two displays so they produce equal readouts for the same information.

Stereo VU Meter

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