Use a Potentiometers to Control Range When Circuit Bending

Video Transcript

BENDERELLA: Okay. So another type of component is the potentiometer. It's also called the pot for short, and it sort of like a switch in the sense that you're changing the current that's going through the different terminals. But the difference is, instead of being an absolute either/or, break or make the circuit, it's got [INDISCERNIBLE]. It basically has a resistance in there, so it allows you to kind of gradually allow current to flow in sort of different levels of the gradient. So, and that's why the volume knob on your stereo, right? You don't have zero volume or full volume. You have this range that you can control and so you use a potentiometer for that, okay? So basically what a potentiometer is, it has kind of a pot here and then there is a shaft that turns. None of these have any handles on them. You can buy the little knobs or the little handles that stick on them and these don't have any on them right now because they're easier to install this way, right? You drill a hole the diameter of the shaft, you put it in, and then you stick your hand along. Clip that shorter if you want to with saw or a bolt cutter or something. But anyway, potentiometers, there are a lot of different kinds rated it, kind of different ohms and different--there is also 2 different ways that potentiometers work; one is called the linear taper and the other is called an audio taper. It basically has to do with the sensitivity of the potentiometer, how much sort of play you have before it goes fully from one setting to fully another. If you look at the potentiometer, it has three poles on it or--not three poles but it has three contacts on it. and so basically if you were to connect a wire between this one and that one, the further it is, the further you turn it to that side, the more current is going to be flowing between those and the less current will flow between these two, but then the further you turn this side, gradually through a gradient, now the more current will be flowing between these and a less current between those two.

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