Hey guys, I just picked a potentiometer up today and I was a little confused about what each terminal was for. I've attached a photo of the pot. I understand the output of the pot is the 2 terminals close together, but the 3 terminals on the base of the pot are confusing me. Do I just need to input power in to either of the three terminals?

Can I cut off the two side terminals and input power to the middle terminal? Thanks.

 

This looks like a dual purpose part, a pot with a On/Off Switch. Think about how many appliances you've had that you turn the volume down all the way, and click it and it turns off.

The bottom 3 leads are probably the pot itself, the middle connector being the wiper.

This is an educated guess, of course.

 

Hi, thanks for the reply. I've attached the spec sheets for this component. The circuit diagram looks as though the 2 terminals close together are the pot and the other three terminals are for the switch.

I do not need the functionality of the switch. I'm only asking because I'm trying to replace an old pot with this one and the input terminals on the existing PCB are odly positioned. One is a horizontal slot and the other is a vertical slot..... (--) and (|)

I've attached a photo of the PCB which I'm trying to replace the pot for. Any help would be great, thanks.

 

You're right. You might be able to remove the switch from the body entirely, but it looks like you're going to have to use wire to adapt that sucker in there.

 

Hey guys, thanks for all the help. I installed the new pot (with a little creativity) and it works perfectly now. I'm pretty happy, only thing is I removed the switch so it doesn't turn off completely, it just gets to the lowest dimming setting.