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Why is my LM3914 circuit not measuring my voltage?

I have set up this circuit:

http://www.electronics-project-design.com/batteryt...

and the voltage source is an LED which is receiving light from another LED. I can use a multimeter to measure a voltage of ~3.5V but it has tiny current. Trying to use an op amp, not sure why nor how they work...followed instructions on here

http://www.electronics-project-design.com/batteryt...

fig 4-8 Non inverting Op Amp

Update:

Sorry,

http://www.ti.com/lit/ml/sloa076/sloa076.pdf fig 4-8 is the design im using

741CN is the op amp. getting less than a volt. powersupply is a 9V battery

1 Answer

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  • 8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Many possibilities. Your first step should be to test that the LM3914 circuit is working by connecting a known good battery to its input.

    You repeated the same link twice so I can't see what op-amp circuit you are using. An op-amp wired as a non-inverting buffer (aka. voltage follower) should work but what op-amp you are using and what power supply you are running the op-amp from are important pieces of information you are not giving us.

    Since you have a multimeter, what is the output voltage of the op-amp?

    Edit:

    OK, it starts to make sense:

    * The 741 is not a single-supply op-amp. It won't work correctly in that circuit because its output can't swing down to ground. You would need to connect its negative supply pin (pin 4) to a negative voltage.

    * Resistors Rg and Rf are probably pulling down the voltage on your LED.

    You can fix both these problems by using a single-supply op-amp such as a LM358 in the voltage follower configuration shown in fig. 27. Note that the LM358 has 2 op-amps in one package. You only need to use one.

    http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm158-n.pdf

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