Is my connection correct

Thread Starter

cczone

Joined Dec 17, 2008
23
I think the potentiometer is connected as a rheostat, however i see 3 pins are involved, so basically is potentiometer connection. Is the connection correct according to the circuit?
Thanks for confirmation.
 

KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
Alberto,

If I'm not mistaken removing the jumper and using only one end terminal and the center tap (grounded) will give you exactly the same resistance results as leaving the jumped in place. Remember that the jumper is a 0.0Ω resistor in parallel with the resistance from the tap to the lower end of the potentiometer. This means no matter where the tap in placed the resistance from the tap to the bottom terminal will be 0.0Ω, and the effective resistance of the jumpered pot will be the resistance from the tap to the top terminal. 'Theoretically' there is no reason to jumper the tap to one end to make a variable resistor. 'Practically', there is. Pot wipers are not perfect electrical contacts, and as they are moved over the resistance element in the pot, they can actually jump, and loose contact with the element. When they loose contact, the the resistance between the wiper and the end terminal becomes infinite. In some circuits this can be disastrous. But, if the wiper is jumpered to one end and if the wiper looses contact, the worst case is that the circuit will see only the total end to end resistance of the pot, not an open circuit.

Ken
 
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