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TN-73 VU meter Driver leakage current problem

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Niklas B.:
I wanted to build an analog VU meter to put on my stereo setup (and to maybe sell some on ebay). So i looked for driver circuits, because i have about 0 experiance with driving such devices, and found http://objectivesounds.co.uk/articles/driving-vu-and-other-ac-meters/ and based my design around Figure. 6

My eagle design

But the problem is that the 500uA meter its designed for goes instantly out of range :bullshit:.
The reason is the leakage current in stand by is about 2mA. The only thing I can do about that is to increase R6 to some rediculus value of about 500K 1G \$\Omega\$ where I can get it dow to about 1-10uA but completely removes thw ability to make adjustments with the trimer.
I have put hours of testing inot this and can not for the life of me figure out what is wrong, is it the design, one of the components or even the PCB? I don´t know, please help I´m going crazy looking at this

Also if someone has some time and is in the mood for looking over a design by someone who is at the moment only a hobbyist but is planing to make it his profession here is the full drawing and layout


(R7,9,10,11,12 are unpopulated, shorted or populated depending on my input signal)

Messtechniker:
Been using the attached circuit for years and built quite a few :palm:. Maybe you can take some ideas - especially as to the precision rectifier (blue ICs) - from it.

Niklas B.:
thanks
I´ll look into that

TimFox:
In your first drawing, with the TL072 op amp, what is the DC voltage on the non-inverting input with respect to your ground symbol?  A positive voltage there will give a positive voltage at the TL072 output, which will flow through the diodes, the meter, and down the variable resistor to ground.  With 3k total resistance, your 2 mA "leakage" current corresponds to 6 V at the input.  Typically, when driving a floating ammeter from a diode bridge, one should capacitor couple the amplifier output to the bridge (there are several ways).  See  http://www.mcmlv.org/Archive/TestEquipment/HP400.pdf  , the manual for the -hp- 400 series of vacuum-tube AC voltmeters, where the meter is fed from a circuit with two diodes and two capacitors in the feedback loop equivalent to yours.

Niklas B.:
so if I understood corectly i schould do something like this

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