DIY Kit 127.

3 Digit LCD Digital Panel Meter

The 7106 chip is one of the long term survivors in the IC
world. It was launched in 1977 yet it has remained as
popular as ever.

Assembly is generally straightforward. Follow the overlay

to tell you where to put the components. Leave resistors
RA and RB until last.

The reason is that it contains in it all the active circuitry

for a 3 1/2 digit panel meter (DPM) in a single chip. It
was designed to interface directly to a liquid crystal
display (LCD). (It has a sister chip, the 7107, intended for
connection to light emitting diode displays.) So the chip
contains BCD to seven segment decoders, display drivers,
clock and a reference voltage as well as the necessary
analog to digital (a/d) circuitry to convert the input
voltage to a digital form. The a/d system also indicates the
polarity of the input voltage.

Start by inserting all the resistors first, followed by the

capacitors. Capacitors C1, C4 and C5 are mounted under
the IC so make sure they are pushed down close to the
PCB. Next comes the 40 pin IC socket for the 7106. Once
again be sure it is pushed right down before soldering.

Voltage is the most frequently measured electrical

quantity. In temperature meters, current meters, wind
speed meters and resistance meters what is actually being
measured is voltage, or more correctly, the potential
difference between two points. After calibrating the meter
for its particular purpose then the potential difference
measured will give an accurate digital reading of the
analog quantity being measured.

The LCD is mounted on two 20 pin socket strips. These

are made by cutting apart a 40 pin IC socket using your
side cutters. This allows the LCD to sit above the 7106
chip. Take care that these strips are at right angles to the
PCB otherwise inserting the LCD will be difficult.
Trimpot P1 can be fitted to either side of the PCB. Putting
it on the rear (solder side) of the PCB makes it easier to
adjust if the meter is mounted on a panel.
Lastly insert the 7106 into its socket, followed by the
LCD. Make sure you get them round the correct way. A
small triangle on the overlay marks pin 1 of each part.

With a few additional external passive components the

7106 chip may be made into an easy to use meter for any
of these purposes especially multiple range digital volt
meters.

All that remains is to determine the values of RA and RB

(described later) and soldering them in, along with a link
for the decimal point position if required. For the moment
just solder a link for RB.

Digital meters have many advantages over analog meters

that use a pointer and moving coil.

CALIBRATION
Connect 9V to the kit. All that remains is calibration. This
is easy. Connect a multimeter between pins 35 and 36 of
the 7106. Use alligator clips on the solder side of the
board. Use trimpot P1 to adjusted VREF measured
between these pins to 100mV.

1.

2.

3.

They are easier to read. In the majority of

applications it is better that the value displayed is
exactly the value being measured, for example,
13.6V. To use an analog display with its many
graduated scales (some going up and others going
down) and switches requires considerable practice.
But a simple LCD which reads '13.6' can be
understood by everyone.
DPMs built using the 7106 are physically stronger
and more robust than analog meters because they
have no moving parts.
The 7106 by its very nature can be adapted to so
many uses at such a low cost that it has actually
created markets for itself.

(You can also do this another way by applying a known

voltage to the input terminals and adjusting VREF for the
this reading so that VIN = 2 x VREF. This requires that RA
and RB are installed.)
Now decide the input voltage range you want to measure
according to the table on the next page.
WHAT TO DO IF IT DOES NOT WORK
Poor soldering is the most likely reason. Check all solder
joints carefully under a good light. Check that all
components are in their correct position on the PCB.

All of these factors add up to a better, cheaper product

which everyone can afford.
In this Kit we have supplied the 7106, the LCD and the
essential components and information necessary for you to
custom build it into a panel meter of your choice. The
PCB has a printed overlay on it so that the position of all
the components is clearly indicated and construction only
takes a few minutes.
The kit is constructed on a double-sided, through hole
plated printed circuit board (PCB). Protel Autotrax and
Schematic were used to design it.
ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS

Are the IC and LCD in the correct way. Check no pins are
bent up. This is very easy to do with a 40 pin IC and the
LCD display.
Is the battery flat?
CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION
The heart of the meter is the A/D converter built into the
7106. It uses a dual slope conversion technique. It relies
on the charging and discharging of an integrating
capacitor and having a counter count when the capacitor
voltage is above a set value. Since the capacitor discharge

PAGE 1

DIY Kit 127. 3 Digit LCD Digital Panel Meter

is linear the counter reading is proportional to the input
voltage. There are three phases to the process:

Reference Voltage. The analog input required to generate

a full scale output of 2000 counts is

Phase 1 - Auto Zero.

The auto zero capacitor is charged to the integrators
offset voltage. This voltage is subtracted from the input
signal during phase 2. The integrator thus appears to have
zero offset voltage.

VIN = 2 x VREF
Thus to set the meter to read from 0 - 199.9mV VREF is
set to 100.0mV.
VREF is measured between pins 35 & 36. The trimpot, P1,
is adjusted to get the correct reference voltage.

Phase 2 - Signal Integrate.

The signal input is averaged for 1000 clock pulses.
Phase 3 - Reference Integrate.
VREF is averaged back to zero volts. The number of clock
pulses counted to return to zero is a digital measure of
VIN.

To measure voltage greater than 200mV an input voltage

divider is required (see Figure 4). The general relation for
full scale sensitivity is now:

The Reference Voltage supplied to the 7106 at pins 35

and 36 should be between 100mV and 1V for most
purposes. This corresponds to a full scale reading of
199.9mV and 1.999V respectively. In this kit VREF is set
to 100mV but is adjustable from 89 - 107mV.
Let us discuss parts of the circuit in more detail and
investigate how to customize the meter for your purpose.
Decimal Point. A jumper selects the decimal point
position in the LCD. Displays are driven by applying a
symmetrical square wave to the back plane (BP.) To turn
on a segment a waveform 180 out of phase with the BP
(but of equal amplitude) is applied to that segment. To get
the decimal point the external circuit inverts the
BP output (pin 21) with a transistor and applies it to the
required decimal via a jumper. Pin 37 is used as the
negative supply for these externally generated segment
drivers.
Analog Section. C1 is the reference capacitor and is
unchanged for all ranges measured. INLO is tied to the
analog COMMON pin 32.
The integration capacitor C5 is suitable for VREF values
but the value of the integration resistor R1 should be
increased to 470K for a VREF of 1V.
System Timing. This is determined by the components
connected to pins 38, 39 & 40. Values are unchanged for
all ranges measured. The internal oscillator runs at 48kHz,
or 3 readings per second.
Auto-Zero Capacitor. This is C4 connected to pin 29. It
has some influence on the noise of the system and
recovery from overload input. For 200mV full scale a
0.47uF capacitor is recommended.

VIN (full scale) = 2 x VREF x RA / (RA + RB)

Figure 4. Input Attenuation for VIN > 200mV
For example, a 0 - 20V range can be obtained using a
100:1 voltage divider. This can be done by making RA =
300K and RB = 2.7M. The decimal point jumper is placed
at position '2' so a full scale display of 19.99V is
available. The following table shows the resistor values to
use for different voltage ranges and the position of the
decimal point jumper.
Range
200mV
2V
20V
200V

RA
10M
300K
100K
10K

RB
Wire Link
2.7M
10M
10M

DP jumper
2
4
3
2

Note: For the 20V and 200V range RB should be 9.9M

and 9.99M respectively. This introduces a slight error that
can be corrected by adjusting VREF slightly
(CALIBRATION method 2).
The 200mV range does not require a voltage divider on
the input but a 10M resistor is used for RA anyway. The
input resistance of the 7106 is so high that this resistor is
necessary to short out any static charge accumulating on
the input terminals.

PAGE 2

DIY Kit 127. 3 Digit LCD Digital Panel Meter

If R = 0.1 ohms then 200mV will be developed when the
current through it is 2A. This voltage is applied to the
meter which is set up for the 200mV range. Power
dissipation at the maximum reading is I2R.

Putting this all together we can construct a multi range

voltmeter as shown in Figure 5.

To measure a full scale of 200mA then R should be 1.0

ohms in order to generate 200mV input to the meter. For a
20 mA meter then R = 10 ohms.
A general multi range current meter is shown in Fig. 7.

Figure 5. Multi range Voltmeter

Non-standard Voltage Input. In many applications it is
required that the output of a transducer is converted by a
scale factor into some meaningful result. For example, a
load cell of a weighing system may have an output voltage
of 0.682V when it has 2.0 Kg weight on it. You want the
meter to read the range 0 - 1.99 Kg directly.
Set the meter (RA and RB) to have a 2V input range. This
gives a maximum input voltage of 68.2mV. Then adjust
VREF to 34.1mV (half the input voltage), put the decimal
point in the correct position by moving the jumper and the
panel meter now reads off 0 - 1.99 Kg directly from the
display.
Voltages Below 200mV. On the 200mV scale the least
significant digit represents 100 micro volts. To resolve
smaller signals it is necessary to use an op-amp prior to
the voltage input to amplify the DC voltage.
Current Measurement. The current must be converted
into a voltage using a shunt resistor. The voltage divider
resistors RA and RB are not used. The principal is shown
in Figure 6.

Figure 7. Multi range Current Meter

Resistance Measurement. The kit is not specifically

designed for this purpose, however, with some changes to
the board this function can be carried out. The principle is
shown in Fig. 8. The unknown resistance is put in series
with a known resistance and a current is passed through
the pair as shown. If they are of equal value the
integration and de-integration ramps will be of equal slope
and the display will read 1000. The maximum readable
ratio is 1.999. Since a ratio is being measured the
reference resistor need not be exact.
Displayed reading = Runknown / Rstandard x 1000

Figure 8. Measuring Resistance

Figure 6. Principle of Current Measurement

PAGE 3

DIY Kit 127. 3 Digit LCD Digital Panel Meter

WHAT TO LEARN FROM THIS KIT
The Kit shows how much of electronics today can be
contained in a single chip. Commercial low to medium
cost digital multimeters are nothing more than this kit,
some switches and passive components and a plastic case.
The main reason today for the failure of meters is more
likely due to switch contact and mechnical failure rather
than failure of the electronics itself.
Web Address & Email
You can email us at peter@kitsrus.com if you have
any problems or requests. See our Web page at:

http://www.kitsrus.com
The data sheet for the 7106 may be downloaded from the
Intersil website at

www.intersil.com
or you can get it from our website at

www.kitsrus.com/pdf/7106.pdf
You can get the pinout information for the LCD at

www.kitsrus.com/pdf/vi302_dp.pdf

PARTS LIST K127

Resistors (0.25W carbon)
820 grey red brown............. R3 ..................................1
27K red violet orange ........ R2,5,6 ............................3
47K yellow violet orange ... R1 ..................................1
100K brown black yellow.. R4 ..................................1
1M brown black green....... R7 ..................................1
Capacitors
100pF 101 ceramic ............. C3 ..................................1
100nF 104 monobloc......... C1,2 ...............................2
220nF 224 monobloc......... C5 ..................................1
470nF 474 monobloc......... C4 ..................................1
Semiconductors
BC547, NPN transistor....... Q1..................................1
7106 IC............................... IC1.................................1
3 Digit LCD A/D converter
Miscellaneous
Trimpot, 200.................... P1 ..................................1
Liquid Crystal Display........ LCD...............................1
3 digit, VI-302-DP-RC
IC socket, 40 pin.........................................................2
For mounting IC1 and LCD
9V battery snap...........................................................1
PCB, K127 .................................................................1

You may get a detailed Application Note for the 7106 at

www.kitsrus.com/pdf/7106_an1.pdf

PAGE 4