Much to my surprise, the LM3916N-1 VU meter/LED driver is discontinued. There is a seemingly unlimited supply on eBay. Are these counterfeit or are they leftover stock? There are many products that use the LM3915 and LM3916 ICs. Even Jameco is selling a meter that uses them. It would be interesting to know what they're doing for supply.

My guess is that they're probably discontinued since an LED meter can be made with a microcontroller. I'm still surprised.

 

Much to my surprise, the LM3916N-1 VU meter/LED driver is discontinued. There is a seemingly unlimited supply on eBay. Are these counterfeit or are they leftover stock? There are many products that use the LM3915 and LM3916 ICs. Even Jameco is selling a meter that uses them. It would be interesting to know what they're doing for supply.

My guess is that they're probably discontinued since an LED meter can be made with a microcontroller. I'm still surprised.

It will take a while for the billion overstock parts in circulation are bought. Then, it will take a while for all of those planned projects to actually get used in an actual project. If they don't get used, some old Guy's kids will be selling off the single pieces in eBay.

 

Hi,

If you cant get one for some reason, you can always go to a microcontroller solution which would probably give you a LOT more options as well.

 

LM3914, LM3915, LM3916 discontinued? No problem. Replace it with a microcontroller (MCU).
Been there, done that.

The advantage of using an MCU is that you can display any pattern, linear, non-linear, flashing LED pattern you desire.
For example, you can have a solid bar and still flash the last LED to show an overload condition.

Also, since many times the information is already digitized, you can input the data via serial UART, SPI, I2C, etc. or you can still use analog input if you wish with internal ADC.

 

LM3914, LM3915, LM3916 discontinued? No problem. Replace it with a microcontroller (MCU). Been there, done that.

Would you be willing to share your code and schematic?