On 10/28/2012 9:07 PM, Black Iccy wrote:
Long time since I've posted on Usenet.
What I want to do is give some public address system
operators (in a hotel actually), a clear and easy
visualisation of just how loud they have got things
running. A VU meter situation.

What they should be able to do is see, from a distance,
a meter which preferably will have a 270 degree travel arm

Small meters just won't cut the mustard. Ideally, too,
I envisage driving the meter from the amp speaker supply
so that's why I'm not employing electronic level display systems.
Trying to keep things as simple as possible.

It occurs to me that what I really should use is something
like a car's tachometer movement. I know modern units have
internal electronics etc. They would be un-necessary and
unusable so I'd be stripping them out.

In general, what are the movements?
Still D'asonval ?
What sort of FS sensitivity - 1 mA FS?
Anyone played with these things?
Thanks.

I built an LED VU meter years ago. Like 5 green LED's, followed by 2
yellow LED's, followed by 3 red LED's, with them lighting sequentially
with volume level, green to red, fluctuating with the level.
Theoretically, one of these could be any size you want. I'm sure if you
do some searching on LED VU meters, you'll find something.

Dan