VU Meter XXL with LED Stripe

[olafk]

Hi,

when I saw the cheap LED stripes with the WS2812 controller from china, I had to build a VU meter. So here is the result. One meter with 60 RGB LED is a wonderful column of light.
All special components come from China. Completely without housing a channel costs not more than 25 dollars. Because I am not an electronics designer, only standard schematics have been used from datasheet of LM3950 and TL074 (buffer and half-wave-rectifier). The PCB is only a prototype board, further experiments can be made on it. The arduinos have pinheaders and all connections can be made with breadboard jumper cables. Nice small displays and rotary encoders are used to control the functions of the arduino nano clones.
Have a look at the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sdR1pwdGQo and the pictures. More palettes are available from arduino project site (FastLED-Library).

regards Olaf

 

[olafk]

Here a top view with all components (power supply for 5V LED, 5V controller, +-12V analog).





Do not forget. It is not really a VU meter but a pretty visual effect!

 

[olafk]

The analog circuits with layout and the arduino sketch:

 

[crsherm]

Would you mind sharing a parts list?