thanks for all the replies. but i still need to know, is it able to work?
to me the schematic of the internals of the ic looks like it doesn't out put any voltage when the output is "high", right? a "high" just shuts off the output transistor and lets the pull up resistor feed to the next component in the circuit, right?
like audioguru said i went back and reread nationals data sheet, on page 7 it says the output doesn't have to be tied to Vcc, it can be anything from +2VDC to +30VDC. what i am doing is trying to use the lm339 to control a stepper motor driver board that needs to have 5VDC to change the motor direction.
so will it work to ;
feed 12VDC to the Vcc pin on the lm339
then feed 5VDC through a 3.3k resistor to the output pin
then to the stepper driver board control pin?
again thank you for your time and answers, cary