Simpson volt meter, repurpose the meter?

[berkleystudios]

I was looking around on eBay for some older style meters for some comp builds and  stumbled upon several inexpensive Simpson Volt meters. Is it possible to repurpose them to be reused for some sort of vu meter. I feel like this would be really simple. Not sure if I'm missing anything but I feel like if I made my own scale they should work fine.


Something like this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/111395724857


Thanks guys!

Adam

 

[joaquins]

  If you only want the vumeter you may have some trouble, two reasons, one is the scale, you probably don't know before you buy the own scale of the dial, but it's probably the lowest scale for current, so there you have it.
  Other thing to have in mind is mechanics, I bought a really cheap one, not old, just to have an analog voltmeter in case a pot miss behavior, it could be useful, or that stuff, and when I opened it to put a battery (9V, as expensive as the voltmeter itself) the dial was built in the case, not an independent part that I could take out and use as vumeter, which would be nice because they were so cheap at the hardware store for big vumeters and with a nice scale would be nice to have.

JS

 

[PRR]

> some sort of vu meter

A really bad "VU" meter.

The meter does not come out of the case. (This is good for a portable meter, bad for re-hacking.) You might look at "VTVM"s; many of these did use a removable meter.

In either case the ballistics are ALL WRONG. They are for steady or slow-vary readings, NOT speech/music. Depending on brand and intended application, they may be slow to respond, or over-shoot badly, or both.

It can be painful to watch. The needle clearly isn't showing what you hear.

My limited experience with such hacks is that pretty soon the needle comes out of its bearings and now it is useless.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The Simpson 260 was a trusted old soldier VOM... blasphemy to defile it for eye candy...

If you want a real VU meter get one, or a sorta real VU meter with at least proper legend.

JR