This circuit uses just one IC and a very few number of external components. It displays the audio level in terms of 10 LEDs. The input voltage can vary from 12V to 20V, but suggested voltage is 12V.

The LM3915 is a monolithic integrated circuit that senses analog voltage levels and drives ten LEDs providing a logarithmic 3 dB/step analog display. LED current drive is regulated and programmable, eliminating the need for current limiting resistors.

The IC contains an adjustable voltage reference and an accurate ten-step voltage divider. The high-impedance input buffer accepts signals down to ground and up to within 1.5V of the positive supply. Further, it needs no protection against inputs of ±35V. The input buffer drives 10 individual comparators referenced to the precision divider. Accuracy is typically better than 1 dB.

The LM1036 is a DC controlled tone (bass/treble), volume and balance circuit for stereo applications in car radio, TV and audio systems. An additional control input allows loudness compensation to be simply effected. Four control inputs provide control of the bass, treble, balance and volume functions through application of DC voltages from a remote control system or, alternatively, from four potentiometers which may be biased from a zener regulated supply provided on the circuit. Each tone response is defined by a single capacitor chosen to give the desired characteristic.
Features:


* Wide supply voltage range, 9V to 16V
* Large volume control range, 75 dB typical
* Tone control, ±15 dB typical
* Channel separation, 75 dB typical
* Low distortion, 0.06% typical for an input level of 0.3 Vrms
* High signal to noise, 80 dB typical for an input level of 0.3 Vrms
* Few external components required

Note: Vcc can be anything between 9V to 16V and the output capacitors are 10uF/25V electrolytic.

It is very interesting and convenient to be able to control everything while sitting at your PC terminal. Here, a simple hardware circuit and software is used to interface a 7-segment based rolling display.

The printer port of a PC provides a set of points with some acting as input lines and some others as output lines. Some lines are open collector type which can be used as input lines. The circuit given here can be used for interfacing with any type of PC’s printer port. The 25-pin parallel port connector at the back of a PC is a combination of three ports. The address varies from 378H-37AH. The 7 lines of port 378H (pins 2 through 8) are used in this circuit to output the code for segment display through IC1. The remaining one line of port 378H (pin 9) and four lines of port 37AH (pins 1, 14, 16, 17) are used to enable the display digits (one a time) through IC2. The bits D0, D1 and D3 of port 37AH connected to pins 1, 14 and 17 of ‘D’ connector are inverted by the computer before application to the pins while data bit D2 is not inverted. Therefore to get a logic high at any of former three pins, we must send logic 0 output to the corresponding pin of port 37AH. Another important concept illustrated by the project is the time division multiplexing. Note that all the five 7-segment displays share a common data bus. The PC places the 7-segment code for the first digit/character on the data bus and enables only the first 7-segment display. After delay of a few milliseconds, the 7-segment code for the digit/character is replaced by that of the next charter/digit, but this time only second display digit is enabled. After the display of all characters/digits in this way, the cycle repeats itself over and over again. Because of this repetition at a fairly high rate, there is an illusion that all the digits/characters are continuously being displayed. DISP1 is to be physically placed as the least significant digit. IC1 (74LS244) is an octal buffer which is primarily used to increase the driving capability. It has two groups of four buffers with non-inverted tri-state outputs. The buffer is controlled by two active low enable lines. IC2 (75492) can drive a maximum of six 7-segment displays. (For driving up to seven common-cathode displays one may use ULN2003 described elsewhere in this section.) The program for rolling display is given in the listing DISP.C above. Whatever the message/characters to be displayed (here five characters have been displayed), these are separated and stored in an array. Then these are decoded. Decoding software is very simple. Just replace the desired character with the binary equivalent of the display code. The display code is a byte that has the appropriate bits turned on. For example, to display character ‘L’, the segments to be turned on are f, e and d. This is equivalent to 111000 binary or 38 hex. Please note that only limited characters can be formed using 7-segment display. Characters such as M, N and K cannot be formed properly

Normally analogue-to-digital con-verter (ADC) needs interfacing through a microprocessor to convert analogue data into digital format. This requires hardware and necessary software, resulting in increased complexity and hence the total cost.

The circuit of A-to-D converter shown here is configured around ADC 0808, avoiding the use of a microprocessor. The ADC 0808 is an 8-bit A-to-D converter, having data lines D0-D7. It works on the principle of successive approximation. It has a total of eight analogue input channels, out of which any one can be selected using address lines A, B and C. Here, in this case, input channel IN0 is selected by grounding A, B and C address lines.
Usually the control signals EOC (end of conversion), SC (start conversion), ALE (address latch enable) and OE (output enable) are interfaced by means of a microprocessor. However, the circuit shown here is built to operate in its continuous mode without using any microprocessor. Therefore the input control signals ALE and OE, being active-high, are tied to Vcc (+5 volts). The input control signal SC, being active-low, initiates start of conversion at falling edge of the pulse, whereas the output signal EOC becomes high after completion of digitisation. This EOC output is coupled to SC input, where falling edge of EOC output acts as SC input to direct the ADC to start the conversion.
As the conversion starts, EOC signal goes high. At next clock pulse EOC output again goes low, and hence SC is enabled to start the next conversion. Thus, it provides continuous 8-bit digital output corresponding to instantaneous value of analogue input. The maximum level of analogue input voltage should be appropriately scaled down below positive reference (+5V) level.
The ADC 0808 IC requires clock signal of typically 550 kHz, which can be easily derived from an astable multivibrator constructed using 7404 inverter gates. In order to visualise the digital output, the row of eight LEDs (LED1 through LED8) have been used, wherein each LED is connected to respective data lines D0 through D7. Since ADC works in the continuous mode, it displays digital output as soon as analogue input is applied. The decimal equivalent digital output value D for a given analogue input voltage Vin can be calculated from the relationship

Here is a circuit for using the printer port of a PC, for control application using software and some interface hardware. The interface circuit along with the given software can be used with the printer port of any PC for controlling up to eight equipment .

The interface circuit shown in the figure is drawn for only one device, being controlled by D0 bit at pin 2 of the 25-pin parallel port. Identical circuits for the remaining data bits D1 through D7 (available at pins 3 through 9) have to be similarly wired. The use of opto-coupler ensures complete isolation of the PC from the relay driver circuitry.
Lots of ways to control the hardware can be implemented using software. In C/C++ one can use the outportb(portno,value) function where portno is the parallel port address (usually 378hex for LPT1) and 'value' is the data that is to be sent to the port. For a value=0 all the outputs (D0-D7) are off. For value=1 D0 is ON, value=2 D1 is ON, value=4, D2 is ON and so on. eg. If value=29(decimal) = 00011101(binary) ->D0,D2,D3,D4 are ON and the rest are OFF.

Below, the source code useing C.
/*program to control devices using PC parallel port
The devices are controlled by pressing the keys 1-8
that corresponds to each of the 8 possible devices
*/

#include
#include
#include
#define PORT 0x378 /* This is the parallel port address */

main()
{
char val=0,key=0;
char str1[]="ON ";
char str2[]="OFF";
char *str;
clrscr();
printf("Press the approriate number key to turn on/off devices:\n\n");
printf("Here Device1 is connected to D0 of parallel port and so on\n\n");
printf("Press \"x\" to quit\n\n");
gotoxy(1,8);
printf("Device1:OFF Device2:OFF Device3:OFF Device4:OFF\n");
printf("Device5:OFF Device6:OFF Device7:OFF Device8:OFF");

while(key!='x' && key!='X')
{
gotoxy(1,12);
printf("Value in hex sent to the port:");
key=getch();
switch(key){

case '1':

gotoxy(9,8);
val=(val&0x01)?(val&(~0x01)):val|0x01;
str=(val&0x01)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",val);
break;

case '2':

gotoxy(21,8);
val=(val&0x02)?(val&(~0x02)):val|0x02;
str=(val&0x02)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",val);
break;

case '3':

gotoxy(33,8);
val=(val&0x04)?(val&(~0x04)):val|0x04;
str=(val&0x04)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",val);
break;

case '4':

gotoxy(45,8);
val=(val&0x08)?(val&(~0x08)):val|0x08;
str=(val&0x08)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",val);
break;

case '5':

gotoxy(9,9);
val=(val&0x10)?(val&(~0x10)):val|0x10;
str=(val&0x10)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",val);
break;

case '6':

gotoxy(21,9);
val=(val&0x20)?(val&(~0x20)):val|0x20;
str=(val&0x20)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",val);
break;

case '7':

gotoxy(33,9);
val=(val&0x40)?(val&(~0x40)):val|0x40;
str=(val&0x40)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",val);
break;

case '8':
gotoxy(45,9);
val=(val&0x80)?(val&(~0x80)):val|0x80;
str=(val&0x80)?str1:str2;
printf("%s",str);
outportb(PORT,val);
gotoxy(1,13);
printf("%x",(unsigned char)val);
break;

}

}


}