Cascading LM3914's

Hi Guys, I am building a circuit that measures vacuum and displays it on a LED bargraph and was wondering if anybody has any experience with the LM3914 led driver IC, specifically, building displays with multiples of 10 led's. I have the data sheet and have built a 30 led display in dot mode, but I may need to go to either 40 or 50 led display to improve resolution but cannot find any info on what is needed so it could be scaled correctly. The data sheet has a lineararity circuit, which I thought would be satisfactory for using as span adjustment, but in hind sight, am not so sure. This is designed to be set and left. I want something that can be adjusted as needed. I hope I have given you enough info for you to help. Stephen

Reply to
Stephen Robinson
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I doubt the internal accuracy of the comparators in the LM3914 is good enough to do more than about 30 steps with any reliability. You might be better to use an A/D converter and digital display, like eg the ICL7216 or similar. You can get good digital panel meters from Lascar Electronics.

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Regards,

Adrian Jansen           adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net
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Reply to
Adrian Jansen

"Stephen Robinson" wrote in news:4277605c$ snipped-for-privacy@quokka.wn.com.au:

Stephen, you did not say if you want to make more than one or if you are doing the project for fun, but a cheap $10 digital multimeter is a good cheap way to incorporate into test or calibration equipment. It already has a reasonable A/D and display, and is really cheap.

Reply to
Geoff C

Ok..Thanks. I will have a look at that. 30 leds MIGHT be enough. WIll try it and take it from there.

Stephen

Reply to
Stephen Robinson

I'm making it for me and for fun, but will probably offer my results to a couple of mates who want to build one as well. I thought about using a digital display but I need 2 displays to compare two vacuums and I suspect the display would not update fast enough. I use multimeters in my job. Thanks for the input.

Stephen

Reply to
Stephen Robinson

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