Explainer

A potentiometer turns a physical movement into an adjustable electrical value. Its wiper slides along a resistive track, changing the resistance between the wiper and either end. Connect the ends across a supply and the wiper gives you an adjustable fraction of that voltage.

The key ideas

  • A potentiometer has three terminals.
  • The wiper moves along a resistive track.
  • It can provide an adjustable voltage-divider output.

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Original recording: TikTok, 2023-01-30.

Video transcript

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Automatically transcribed from the original recording. Small transcription errors may remain.

Imagine that you're listening to your tunes on your 80s boombox and you want to adjust the volume. Well, how do you do that? Well, you turn a knob, right? Well, that knob is actually called a potentiometer. And just like how it controls the volume of your boombox, it controls the flow of electricity and electronic devices. So potentiometers have been around since the early 1900s and they've been helping us fine-tune electronic devices ever since. They work by using a resistive element like a strip of metal and a wiper that moves across it. The wiper acts

like a tap that controls the amount of electricity flowing through the resistive element. Now if you were to look very closely at the electronic components that make up a potentiometer, you're going to see three terminals. One is going to be for the input voltage, one is for the output voltage, and then we have the wiper. The resistive element is connected between the input and output terminals, and the wiper is connected to the output terminal. So as you turn the knob, the wiper moves across the resistive element and changes the resistance. This change in resistance controls the amount of electricity flowing from the input

to the output terminal. So the next time you're adjusting the volume on your boombox or your car stereo or turning the temperature dial on your oven, take a moment to think about this little knob that's making it all possible. It's a crucial component in the world of electronics and without it, our lives would be a lot less tunable.