you know the little led vu meters you get in mixing desks, and old stereos and stuff, are they the same circuits as would be used in ones, say 1 meter tall using 10 super bright LEDs? what about one 3 meters tall, using 100 super bright LEDs?

hopefully some electronics experts can give me some ideas

The base circuit will be the same, but you'll need some additional electronics to drive sufficient current to run more than the basic LED they come with.

I can come up with a circuit design for you if it's something you're serious about.

Chris

cheers chris! it something i was thinking about today, there used to be a company making them a few years back, i managed to email the guy last night, and he said he'd look out the info on it for me if he still has it. i'll let you know if i don't hear back from him in the next couple of days

but as you say, the base circuit will be the same?
the additional circuitry, would that be if i wanted say 10 LEDs to light up instead of just the 1? what if i wanted them to all light up individually? so instead of lighting up like 10-20-30-40, they lit up 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 (if that makes any sense)

thanks

Have a look at these chips:
LM3914 - linear scale
LM3915 - logarithmic scale
LM3916 - VU meter scale (readily available on eBay)

The datasheets are here and they show how to connect them up to use more leds.
Also do a Google search for 'Giant vu meter' or '100 led vu meter'. This should show up loads of results including YouTube videos of what others have done.

HTH,
Ed.

ah nice one thanks Ed
LM3916 looks like the one for the 10 led meter looks fairly straight forward too... I must be missing something lol. hopefully i'll hear back about the audio inputs an how that works soon