Article on Replacement of potentiometers in todays electronic

Hope that gets you started. Mikek

In brownwares I only see actual pots where the voltage is too high or there is another reason, such as high end audio.

schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com...

Ever seen a potentiometer in a remote control? In todays monitors? In a mobile phone? An MP3 player?

petrus bitbyter

schreef in bericht

Still very common in amplified speaker sets to use with computers or MP3 players. Cheap alarm clock radios still use pots. Google on "digital potentiometer". I just got got "About 1,540,000 results". Most of the chips for that are just over a buck. Some of those are for rotary controls but some others are for up/down buttons. Some of these chips appear to be made to drop in place of variable resistors, while some others seem to be integrated into amplifiers. If you've already got a uC it can be done without such a chip using two input lines w/ buttons. Expect production levels of carbon potentiometers to stabilize at a very low level (specialty item) because of fewer uses. One big plus is that lots of these digital potentiometers work with remote control input.

Sometimes a trimpot is just the thing. Like when it would take more software than it's worth. Or you need to scale a gain and it would take an MDAC or a DPOT to do it. Or when you need bandwidth: some pots are good for 1 GHz or so.

Turning a pot with a screwdriver is an excellent human interface.

I've got a decent stash of 10 turn posts. Some of the cheap PCB variety. But a few are the 10 turns with attached verniers. Long live analog!

They do make Chinese knock offs:

On a sunny day (Mon, 6 Jan 2014 23:16:14 +0100) it happened "petrus bitbyter" wrote in :

I have a very nice small digital multiband shortwave radio with the latest chips, station memories, and it has a pot wheel on the side for volume.

I was contemplating just such a pot wheel with switch in something I am designing, due to lack of space (height), could become a touch screen too, and that brings me to an other advantage: No power needed.

Well not exactly, i saw a motorized pot controlled by a remote control. (Medium grade stereo). Is this close enough for you?

?-)

Well, microprocessors these days are so cheap and powerful that it can make sense to replace bulky (and often balky) pots with software in some designs. a microP can read capacitance sensors or rotary encoders or from a touch screen if you need to, say, change volume or tune a radio.

Even there (high-end audio), it's digital with perhaps a rotary encoder to make people happy. ...or by "high-end" did you mean "audiophool" class? ;-)

MP3 players? My iPod doesn't have a pot. ;-)

"Digital potentiometer" is one of the devices one uses to avoid pots. ;-)

G > Google on "digital potentiometer". G > I just got got "About 1,540,000 results".

krw > "Digital potentiometer" is one of krw > the devices one uses to avoid pots. krw > ;-) I assume they don't all work exactly the same. How many of them work like voltage dividers and could be subbed in for older pots? There are others that are not just voltage dividers, right? It occurs to me that some are probably designed to work with rotary encoders rather than simple up/down buttons, too. Through a uP they can function as either linear or audio taper, I suppose. Do any have setpoints that don't get lost each time the device powers down?

MCP4021

On a sunny day (Wed, 8 Jan 2014 03:08:06 -0800 (PST)) it happened Greegor wrote in :

Often it I just math in a micro, with the multiplication factor driven by some input[s]. Or for example for LCD back light up/down, you just reload a register in a PWM peripheral, or for output voltage update a DAC.

Stored in on board EEPROM every time a parameter changes.

Limited times it will remember for example volume, or station frequency, or some voltage or current, volume, whatever, 100,000 times perhaps.

Pots are still often the most user friendly solutions, for example use pots in my lab power supply.

Do not confuse cheap (software up-down buttons, menus), with quality (pots). But pots can be bad too, cracking, noise, range, resolution.

Then there are virtual pots and sliders, mouse interface, PC mixer for example.

And now touch sensitive... Soon brain wave controlled, or thought controlled.. already on the market as head-bands, etc etc.

Voice control, software will take an ever bigger part of all that, and be ever more complicated as it tries to re-create the human brain for recognition.

But real potentiometers are nice and will stay too.

Robert, You follow-up is empty :-( ...Jim Thompson

"Greegor" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com...

Oh, there are still pots and there will be pots for quite some time. But when I have to ring a bell for every pot that was replaced by electronics I would be deaf long before I was done.

petrus bitbyter

I have a JVC radio + CD player in my office that has a motor driven pot for the volume control when you use the remote ;-) ...Jim Thompson

"Jim Thompson" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

A good old analog pot cannot be beaten that easily. Not for serious audio that is ;)

petrus bitbyter

A good old analog pot cannot be beaten that easily. Not for serious audio that is ;) petrus bitbyter

And now legal in Colorado. Mark