Construction of potentiometers
A potentiometer (colloquially called a "pot") is constructed using a semi-circular resistive
element with a sliding contact (wiper). The resistive element, with a terminal at one or
both ends, is flat or angled, and is commonly made of graphite, although other materials
may be used instead. The wiper is connected through another sliding contact to another
terminal. On panel pots, the wiper is usually the center terminal of three. For single-turn
pots, this wiper typically travels just under one revolution around the contact. "Multiturn"
potentiometers also exist, where the resistor element may be helical and the wiper may
move 10, 20, or more complete revolutions, though multiturn pots are usually constructed
of a conventional resistive element wiped via a worm gear. Besides graphite, materials
used to make the resistive element include resistance wire, carbon particles in plastic, and
a ceramic/metal mixture called cermet.
One form of rotary potentiometer is called a String potentiometer. It is a multi-turn
potentiometer operated by an attached reel of wire turning against a spring. It is used as a
position transducer.
In a linear slider pot, a sliding control is provided instead of a dial control. The resistive
element is a rectangular strip, not semi-circular as in a rotary potentiometer. Because of
the large opening for the wiper and knob, this type of pot has a greater potential for
getting contaminated.
Potentiometers can be obtained with either linear or logarithmic relations between the
slider position and the resistance (potentiometer laws or "tapers").
Manufacturers of conductive track potentiometers use conductive polymer resistor pastes
that contain hard wearing resins and polymers, solvents, lubricant and carbon – the
constituent that provides the conductive/resistive properties. The tracks are made by
screen printing the paste onto a paper based phenolic substrate and then curing it in an
oven. The curing process removes all solvents and allows the conductive polymer to
polymerize and cross link. This produces a durable track with stable electrical resistance
throughout its working life.[citation needed]
PCB mount trimmer potentiometers, or "trimpots", intended for infrequent adjustment.
Linear taper potentiometer
A linear taper potentiometer has a resistive element of constant cross-section, resulting in
a device where the resistance between the contact (wiper) and one end terminal is
proportional to the distance between them. Linear taper describes the electrical
characteristic of the device, not the geometry of the resistive element. Linear taper
potentiometers are used when an approximately proportional relation is desired between
shaft rotation and the division ratio of the potentiometer; for example, controls used for
adjusting the centering of (an analog) cathode-ray oscilloscope.
Applications of potentiometers
Potentiometers are widely used as user controls, and may control a very wide variety of
equipment functions. The widespread use of potentiometers in consumer electronics has
declined in the 1990s, with digital controls now more common. However they remain in
many applications, such as volume controls and as position sensors.
[edit] Audio control
Sliding potentiometers ("faders")
One of the most common uses for modern low-power potentiometers is as audio control
devices. Both sliding pots (also known as faders) and rotary potentiometers (commonly
called knobs) are regularly used to adjust loudness, frequency attenuation and other
characteristics of audio signals.
The 'log pot' is used as the volume control in audio amplifiers, where it is also called an
"audio taper pot", because the amplitude response of the human ear is also logarithmic. It
ensures that, on a volume control marked 0 to 10, for example, a setting of 5 sounds half
as loud as a setting of 10. There is also an anti-log pot or reverse audio taper which is
simply the reverse of a log pot. It is almost always used in a ganged configuration with a
log pot, for instance, in an audio balance control.
Potentiometers used in combination with filter networks act as tone controls or
equalizers.
Television
Potentiometers were formerly used to control picture brightness, contrast, and (in NTSC
receivers) color response. A potentiometer was often used to adjust "vertical hold", which
affected the synchronization between the receiver's internal sweep circuit (sometimes a
multivibrator) and the received picture signal.
Transducers
Potentiometers are also very widely used as a part of displacement transducers because of
the simplicity of construction and because they can give a large output signal.
Computation
In analog computers, potentiometers are used to scale intermediate results by desired
constant factors, or to set initial conditions for a calculation. A motor-driven
potentiometer may be used as a function generator, using a non-linear resistance card to
supply approximations to trigonometric functions. For example, the shaft rotation might
represent an angle, and the voltage division ratio can be made proportional to the cosine
of the angle.
