I’m just beginning to look into these things and I agree. Thank you John Cooper and thank you chuck for saying the same thing that I was going to say. This video is extremely helpful.
Natural teacher at work here. I came here knowing what a potentiometer does ....always wondered the what & how? In ten minutes I learned so much targeted information! Wow, thank you, johnplanetz
I agree with the nice things already said about this video but I sincerly hoped for some advise on really disassembling different pots completely and even harder things like putting them back together without killing them. I have a few different methods and they work well enough to be 80% certain not to totally destroy it but I didnt come up with something that makes it easier and less of a pain in the a.. so far... any ideas? What I do is either drilling a tiny hole in the shaft and put a screw and a washer instead of the flanged end of the shaft or I re - flange the end while pressing down the pot, the ring with the wiper and sometimes also the disc that makes the whole thing somewhat stepped (dont know the exact expression for that, sorry)...I'd love to make a tool for fixing the pot etc in place before hitting the end to flange it, but I have no idea how...or what...I only know two hand are not enough to make it an easy operation and I hate assembling pots very very much...not as much as a dirty pot but still...a lot!!
Thanks for the video. I had problems with my cts pot but your video gave me confidence to open it up and fix it. Many thanks. I was nearly ordering new.
Thanks for the accurate, and well presented video on potentiometers. This video is SO MUCH BETTER than most of the others! The great thing about CTS pots is that they can dissipate more power than most of the other audio pots (except PEC) and they can be disassembled, and reassembled to to change shaft length or style and also change resistance elements of double ganged pots.
Thanks John. I went for a new push/push pot (might as well do a Gilmour mod if I've got to change the pot). Not put it on yet but the flow tests are completely different to my old pot, ie they're correct! What a relief, but interesting to know that a pot can die just like that. Love the idea of a troubleshooter vid if you're up for it. It'll save the world from restless nights and brain ache.
My physics teacher threw a potentiometer on the speakers for the announcements. Turns the volume down to minimum and continues lessons... best hack ever.
dude...you are really good at explaining things...normally, I'll watch a video like this and the person doing it is so steeped in the subject that they just cant or don't bother to explain it in a way that's easily digestible...awesome video
Thank You Sir! Bass guitar stopped working, checked everything with multimeter couldn't figure it out. Watched your vid, took mine apart and back together, tighter with the clips. I assume it just was a bad connection inside, works now and I understand pots!
You are awesome. Thorough. At 6:07, when introducing the audio/log taper, I found my mind starting to ask questions that this video wasn't necessarily covering...(jsut imagine showing a class this and imagining wehre some of the minds are going at this point. You might want to experiment with the video by having a complete novice sitting there while you rehearse the video, and getting their feedback. I realize that feedback comes here...of course.
Thanks for your thorough explanation on those potentiometers! I need them to build my own home-made racing wheel, hadn't a clue what they were. Now this solves half of the problem already!
@johnplanetz theyre both pots, tone pot has a capacitors, that's what makes it a tone pot...without the cap, it's just another volume pot (but doesn't work)
Very good videos. In one of your other videos showing an epiphone circuit being request, you have actually removed the pots and poked them through some aerated cardboard... But you didn't mention it ... That's actually a fantastically useful approach when wiring without a scratchplate... Keeps the work still and even allows you to draw the wiring between the lugs... The latter might help if you are just starting soldering.
Awesome vid,I had a super smooth 250k Volume pot in a Left Handed Ibanez RS135 that guitar did[very soon after buying] became sort of strat-like in looks,but not-before I stripped the 2mm resin[joking] and reshaped the body.I re-used the stock 250K volume pot.even after hacking a Seymour Duncan JB Humbucker-tilted,sounded superb,but that wonderful Vol. Pot. Wore Out 24 years later [great run!]In 2009 I eventually got from the US some 500k CTS Left Handed potentiometers-anyway man they're all irritatingly STIFF[no more"Cathedral"attempts since!],so Thank You for confirming why they is so!
Usually 2 linear segments are used to approximate the audio taper. It works well enough for most applications. Exceptionally high-precision log and audio taper pots are a thing of the past.
Your videos have been SO helpful. I've learned a lot about the technical and physical stuff that I thought I'd never learn. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom! I've been enjoying geeking out on these videos!
Ahhh very cool man!! TY for that video. I have a 16 watt tube amp I bought from Tube Depot and I'm on my 3rd Potentiometer. I keep getting the ones from Parts Express and they are total crap!! After watching your video now I have a better idea of where to look for a better POT . Thanks again!! Looking forward to watching more of your videos. Take care
yeah you can make the potentiometer control you pulse speeds kinda like how you would dim a LED.. Sort of like turning it on and off really fast to make it run slower instead of lowering the voltage!.
@johnplanetz Well, I just watched the video again and the the cts pot you disassembled has the copper tabs I am takling about! They clearly extend out from each outside lug onto the carbon trace. The older cts pots do not have this copper pad or tab or whatever you could call it at each end of the trace. I don't know if it makes any difference, I just noticed the change a few years ago. Thanks for your very neat posts!
What an excellent video. Yeah, I caught the 2 mistakes, but so did you. I've never had a clearer explanation of potentiometers. The video is high quality, too. Do you have a Udemy course? If not, you should. Thanks. -Rodi
other than the conceptual mistake pointed out in the video & by other commenters, this was very helpful in understanding how to properly use pots. If this had been explained before, my EE labs may have gone a little quicker!
@johnplanetz Well ive had a good result. I took the plunge, desoldered 2 of these pots that were sandwiched together, i guess 1 for each channel. Took them apart and carefully cleaned the carbon tracks and the contacts. I then very delicately tweaked the contacts to apply abit more pressure. Put it all back together and vola, its working perfectly! Thanks to your video.
@johnplanetz Right, i figured out later that i misunderstood also. but the real question is why is it expensive to create a log pattern? I don't see what would be so costly about laying a track that tapers from thick to narrow or doing a pattern like the one I messaged you.
I have noticed that new cts pots have small metal tabs at each end of the carbon trace so that when the wiper is at the end of its travel, the wiper is not touching the carbon at all. This gives the center lug a direct path to which ever side lug the wiper is turned to. On older cts pots the wiper is still going through a very small bit of carbon trace even when at the end of it's travel. It is enough to give about 10 to 20 ohms of resistance. Could this affect the sound?
I have a '78 Lincoln Continental with a dimming headlight switch. The pot that you can turn on the dashboard will dim all the clock and gauge cluster lighting. There is a "dead" spot on the pot where if I turn to that position (happens to be the max brightness). Now, if the original Ford part was like the CTS design and had the stiff bent contacts, do you think the reason there is a dead spot and slight intermittency in that area of the pot is because those stiff contacts are a little word out? I would like to replace it, but my car has an auto headlight dimmer and the headlight switch is built into the gauge cluster dimmer, so it is a hard part to find since not all models had autodim.
This is very usefull, Thanks. Ive got a fairly old Sony AV amp that has a bad volume control, it loses a channel and crackles when you turn the volume control. Would it be a similar potentiometer? I didnt know they were this simple. Think after watching this il give it a go and see if it'l clean up. Cant afford to lose the amp as it'l cost me a fortune to replace, its a great amp.
Basically a gas gauge works from a pot output. My replacement gauge is reading in reverse (empty tank shows full). Can I swap pot. connections 1 & 3 to correct read out?
Have you ever worked with a pot that has a wire coming out of the opposite end? Mine has 3 prongs plus a wire, and I'm wondering: what is the wire for? Thank you!
@dudu90tm i did read somewhere that is a volume pot.. i`m just sharing it.. though i never believed its a volume pot because i removed my cap, and the tone pot had no effect on tone or volume.. but doesn't matter anyway :D
by learning lab, do you mean those things that have the little springs you use to hold color coded wires down that are connected to circuit components, that say they can be used to make maybe 30 to 100 different things?
@johnplanetz- The p/n is still the same-013446, at least on the ones I have which are 250k. I noticed the change right about the time new cts pots started shipping with brass shafts instead of aluminum although I do have one with an aluminum shaft that has the metal or copper tabs at each end of the carbon trace. Just take a light and look in the pot and you can see little copper tabs extending out from each outside lug right on top of the trace. I like your vids by the way!
Message sent. I don't know how effective increasing thickness of the strip would be, since the signal should just be able to take the shortest path right? If changing the materials/conductivity along the strip is too expensive, I thought of a cheap way to approximate a log.
@johnplanetz - DUMB QUESTION... Do I need potentiometers? I never use my controls(I use a volume and an EQ pedal). I was thinking about running pickups+toggle+output. Btw, I use passive and active pickups. I wired a cheap tele copy w/o pots and couldn't hear anything bad... actually sounded better than before
I thoroughly enjoyed this video John. Thank you for making it. It was VERY well done. I've got a rheostat on a ceiling fan that only has two lugs. I think it's bad because the fan spins very slowly across the whole range of the rheostat. It's soldered into place so I'm going to take it out of the fan (circuit) and test it with my VOM. If I can tell it's bad I'll go to the local lighting store to see about a replacement. It should work much like the ones you tested in the video, correct?
i have one little problem, maybe you would know what may be wrong..? i've been replacing a pot into pushpull - at first i put it in the tone position, then changed the vol and put back the original tone pot, so now the vol is the pushpull and the old tone pot, but when there is a sound and i turn the tone knob i get a noise, which is absent when turning it with no signal. do you think that i damaged the tone pot when soldering? or there may be other problem?
Now this is what CZcams is all about! Great presentation, very clearly explained and extremely helpful. Many thanks!
you mean what CZcams "was" all about 😅
@@coinbird44 bro the comment is 12 years old
I do tutorials myself so I know what im talking about when I say this is a very well put together tutorial, more like a small seminar :)
great job
Yes! I’ve actually watched some of your vids on the Cakewalk X2 along with a few others. Very informative and thank you.
I’m just beginning to look into these things and I agree. Thank you John Cooper and thank you chuck for saying the same thing that I was going to say. This video is extremely helpful.
Natural teacher at work here. I came here knowing what a potentiometer does ....always wondered the what & how? In ten minutes I learned so much targeted information! Wow, thank you, johnplanetz
Been working with pots for a while now and this was still VERY informative and easy to watch. Thanks!
this is the best and simplest video on potentiometer....... thank u sir ........
I agree with the nice things already said about this video but I sincerly hoped for some advise on really disassembling different pots completely and even harder things like putting them back together without killing them. I have a few different methods and they work well enough to be 80% certain not to totally destroy it but I didnt come up with something that makes it easier and less of a pain in the a.. so far... any ideas? What I do is either drilling a tiny hole in the shaft and put a screw and a washer instead of the flanged end of the shaft or I re - flange the end while pressing down the pot, the ring with the wiper and sometimes also the disc that makes the whole thing somewhat stepped (dont know the exact expression for that, sorry)...I'd love to make a tool for fixing the pot etc in place before hitting the end to flange it, but I have no idea how...or what...I only know two hand are not enough to make it an easy operation and I hate assembling pots very very much...not as much as a dirty pot but still...a lot!!
FINALLY, someone who explains how these things work and how to tell the difference!!! Liked.
So beautifully explained and so easy to grasp. Thank you for this elegant presentation!
Thanks for the video. I had problems with my cts pot but your video gave me confidence to open it up and fix it. Many thanks. I was nearly ordering new.
Very well explained in layman's terms. Greetings from Kolkata, India.
I've been reading about Pots, but only after watching your video do I see and understand how they work. Thank you!!!
Yes! Now I know why the volume on my Quasar black and white tv ain't working. Thanks, JC.
Thanks for the accurate, and well presented video on potentiometers. This video is SO MUCH BETTER than most of the others! The great thing about CTS pots is that they can dissipate more power than most of the other audio pots (except PEC) and they can be disassembled, and reassembled to to change shaft length or style and also change resistance elements of double ganged pots.
Thanks John. I went for a new push/push pot (might as well do a Gilmour mod if I've got to change the pot). Not put it on yet but the flow tests are completely different to my old pot, ie they're correct! What a relief, but interesting to know that a pot can die just like that. Love the idea of a troubleshooter vid if you're up for it. It'll save the world from restless nights and brain ache.
My physics teacher threw a potentiometer on the speakers for the announcements. Turns the volume down to minimum and continues lessons... best hack ever.
Is for this I prefer linear for volumes and audio for tones, imo and taste this way you can get a better control over each one. Nice video!
Thx after your vid here i did managed to "repair" him. Thx. Works again flawless
dude...you are really good at explaining things...normally, I'll watch a video like this and the person doing it is so steeped in the subject that they just cant or don't bother to explain it in a way that's easily digestible...awesome video
Nice video - something I've often wondered about but had no idea how they worked. You explained it very well!!
Thank You Sir! Bass guitar stopped working, checked everything with multimeter couldn't figure it out. Watched your vid, took mine apart and back together, tighter with the clips. I assume it just was a bad connection inside, works now and I understand pots!
your vid posts are like a breath of fresh air for novices like me.
Thanks for posting
Thanks, Ive know how they work but your video and explanations really make it clearer in my head on how to wire pots to do different thing
You are awesome. Thorough. At 6:07, when introducing the audio/log taper, I found my mind starting to ask questions that this video wasn't necessarily covering...(jsut imagine showing a class this and imagining wehre some of the minds are going at this point. You might want to experiment with the video by having a complete novice sitting there while you rehearse the video, and getting their feedback. I realize that feedback comes here...of course.
Very pleasant voice - can very well listened (is important in tutorials:-) )
excellent explanations and demonstration on how the variety of pots work and how they're manufactured.
Great job, crystal clear explanation, thanks.
Thanks for your thorough explanation on those potentiometers! I need them to build my own home-made racing wheel, hadn't a clue what they were. Now this solves half of the problem already!
Thank you Mr. Cooper.
@johnplanetz theyre both pots, tone pot has a capacitors, that's what makes it a tone pot...without the cap, it's just another volume pot (but doesn't work)
Very good videos. In one of your other videos showing an epiphone circuit being request, you have actually removed the pots and poked them through some aerated cardboard... But you didn't mention it ... That's actually a fantastically useful approach when wiring without a scratchplate... Keeps the work still and even allows you to draw the wiring between the lugs... The latter might help if you are just starting soldering.
Thank you very much John Cooper.👍🏻🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Awesome vid,I had a super smooth 250k Volume pot in a Left Handed Ibanez RS135 that guitar did[very soon after buying] became sort of strat-like in looks,but not-before I stripped the 2mm resin[joking] and reshaped the body.I re-used the stock 250K volume pot.even after hacking a Seymour Duncan JB Humbucker-tilted,sounded superb,but that wonderful Vol. Pot. Wore Out 24 years later [great run!]In 2009 I eventually got from the US some 500k CTS Left Handed potentiometers-anyway man they're all irritatingly STIFF[no more"Cathedral"attempts since!],so Thank You for confirming why they is so!
Very precise and awesome presentation
Usually 2 linear segments are used to approximate the audio taper. It works well enough for most applications. Exceptionally high-precision log and audio taper pots are a thing of the past.
Your videos have been SO helpful. I've learned a lot about the technical and physical stuff that I thought I'd never learn. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom! I've been enjoying geeking out on these videos!
Ahhh very cool man!! TY for that video. I have a 16 watt tube amp I bought from Tube Depot and I'm on my 3rd Potentiometer. I keep getting the ones from Parts Express and they are total crap!! After watching your video now I have a better idea of where to look for a better POT . Thanks again!! Looking forward to watching more of your videos. Take care
Thanks for this excellent tutorial! It is a great help in diagnosing a volume control problem for a virtual organ!
@johnplanetz no i mean there r 3 legs 1= left 2=middle 3=right
i connect 1 to 2
and measure ohm at 3 and 1(1 that connected to 2)
Thank you a lot I'm fixing up an old ibanez blazer bass and i really need those nuts and washers for it .
Thanks for taking the time to do this for others. It was very informative and well done.
great vid!! so that's what A and B stands for!
Phily Cheezesteak A= audio, B= linear
it is so nice to see you are informing us on these simple things
Clean explanation. Makes sense to lay-folk like me. Nice work!
yeah you can make the potentiometer control you pulse speeds kinda like how you would dim a LED.. Sort of like turning it on and off really fast to make it run slower instead of lowering the voltage!.
@johnplanetz Well, I just watched the video again and the the cts pot you disassembled has the copper tabs I am takling about! They clearly extend out from each outside lug onto the carbon trace. The older cts pots do not have this copper pad or tab or whatever you could call it at each end of the trace. I don't know if it makes any difference, I just noticed the change a few years ago. Thanks for your very neat posts!
very clear Yoda. thankyou
Thanks for the video, pots make a lot more sense now.
What an excellent video. Yeah, I caught the 2 mistakes, but so did you. I've never had a clearer explanation of potentiometers. The video is high quality, too. Do you have a Udemy course? If not, you should. Thanks.
-Rodi
I appreciate this video. Fantastic, thank you.
other than the conceptual mistake pointed out in the video & by other commenters, this was very helpful in understanding how to properly use pots. If this had been explained before, my EE labs may have gone a little quicker!
Thank you I really had hard time understanding how pots work but now its piece of cake thanks to you :-)
hello, i want to say that i really appreciate your effort you put into these videos, these are really helpful!
great explanation simple and easy to understand...love electronics
@johnplanetz Well ive had a good result. I took the plunge, desoldered 2 of these pots that were sandwiched together, i guess 1 for each channel. Took them apart and carefully cleaned the carbon tracks and the contacts. I then very delicately tweaked the contacts to apply abit more pressure. Put it all back together and vola, its working perfectly! Thanks to your video.
@Tormy Van Cool - I buy Alpha, CTS and Bourns pots, from places like stewmac, pedalpartsplus, mouser, etc.
Great job. Sorry I'm late to join you. You're an excellent teacher. I hope you're doing it at a college somewhere.
Good narration
Hi John, thanks for making this video, very well explained and helpful.
Well explained my friend. Thank you
thanks this vid really helped because im a beginner
Learning. Thank you brother.
Bourns low friction pots rules when it comes to feel and tapper!
The old vintage CTS were pretty good but the new ones are WAY to hard to turn!
Excellent tutorial. Thanks for taking the time to help educate us all.
@johnplanetz Right, i figured out later that i misunderstood also. but the real question is why is it expensive to create a log pattern? I don't see what would be so costly about laying a track that tapers from thick to narrow or doing a pattern like the one I messaged you.
good stuff, man, artfully presented, professionally researched. Loves
cheers mate, this really helped with my coursework
thank mate you are spot on i had some cts pot 500k where well under not now i did what you said now they are over 500k now thanks
Fantasic Video please do a updated version
I have noticed that new cts pots have small metal tabs at each end of the carbon trace so that when the wiper is at the end of its travel, the wiper is not touching the carbon at all. This gives the center lug a direct path to which ever side lug the wiper is turned to. On older cts pots the wiper is still going through a very small bit of carbon trace even when at the end of it's travel. It is enough to give about 10 to 20 ohms of resistance. Could this affect the sound?
I have a '78 Lincoln Continental with a dimming headlight switch. The pot that you can turn on the dashboard will dim all the clock and gauge cluster lighting. There is a "dead" spot on the pot where if I turn to that position (happens to be the max brightness). Now, if the original Ford part was like the CTS design and had the stiff bent contacts, do you think the reason there is a dead spot and slight intermittency in that area of the pot is because those stiff contacts are a little word out? I would like to replace it, but my car has an auto headlight dimmer and the headlight switch is built into the gauge cluster dimmer, so it is a hard part to find since not all models had autodim.
This is very usefull, Thanks. Ive got a fairly old Sony AV amp that has a bad volume control, it loses a channel and crackles when you turn the volume control. Would it be a similar potentiometer? I didnt know they were this simple. Think after watching this il give it a go and see if it'l clean up. Cant afford to lose the amp as it'l cost me a fortune to replace, its a great amp.
This helped answer many questions I had..
No BS, pure gold! Thank you! Keep doing this! Rock ON!
Basically a gas gauge works from a pot output. My replacement gauge is reading in reverse (empty tank shows full). Can I swap pot. connections 1 & 3 to correct read out?
Have you ever worked with a pot that has a wire coming out of the opposite end? Mine has 3 prongs plus a wire, and I'm wondering: what is the wire for? Thank you!
Thanks for sharing your gift for teaching!
@dudu90tm i did read somewhere that is a volume pot.. i`m just sharing it.. though i never believed its a volume pot because i removed my cap, and the tone pot had no effect on tone or volume.. but doesn't matter anyway :D
by learning lab, do you mean those things that have the little springs you use to hold color coded wires down that are connected to circuit components, that say they can be used to make maybe 30 to 100 different things?
@johnplanetz- The p/n is still the same-013446, at least on the ones I have which are 250k. I noticed the change right about the time new cts pots started shipping with brass shafts instead of aluminum although I do have one with an aluminum shaft that has the metal or copper tabs at each end of the carbon trace. Just take a light and look in the pot and you can see little copper tabs extending out from each outside lug right on top of the trace. I like your vids by the way!
Nice work I really enjoyed your video!
well explained john
Thanks, I learnt a lot from this.
Yep. If my pot is not what I expected then I go try some different pot. Lmao my stupid humor. 🤣 Thanks for sharing 👍
Excellent Video, very complete!
Thanks you for amazing video👍
How are dimmer switches and potentiometers similar and how do they differ?
I'm a bit curious as to the possibilities using one or the other.
Well explained 🙏
What sticky material is used on the shaft prevents it from spinning fast?
What do I do if the threads on my tone pot move when I try to tighten the nut? (The entire thread portion is moving around the shaft...)
Bass broke so I figured I'd learn all about the parts, thanks for the details, I've been playing with the pots for days XD
Super Clear! Thanks----
Very well explained.
Thanks
Message sent. I don't know how effective increasing thickness of the strip would be, since the signal should just be able to take the shortest path right? If changing the materials/conductivity along the strip is too expensive, I thought of a cheap way to approximate a log.
So you can take apart a 250K CTS pot, replace the resistive element with that from a 500K CTS pot, and put it back together ?
@johnplanetz - DUMB QUESTION... Do I need potentiometers? I never use my controls(I use a volume and an EQ pedal). I was thinking about running pickups+toggle+output. Btw, I use passive and active pickups. I wired a cheap tele copy w/o pots and couldn't hear anything bad... actually sounded better than before
I thoroughly enjoyed this video John. Thank you for making it. It was VERY well done. I've got a rheostat on a ceiling fan that only has two lugs. I think it's bad because the fan spins very slowly across the whole range of the rheostat. It's soldered into place so I'm going to take it out of the fan (circuit) and test it with my VOM. If I can tell it's bad I'll go to the local lighting store to see about a replacement. It should work much like the ones you tested in the video, correct?
Thanks very much. You explained it very well :)
excellent explanation
great explanation of pots....nice one man...
i have one little problem, maybe you would know what may be wrong..? i've been replacing a pot into pushpull - at first i put it in the tone position, then changed the vol and put back the original tone pot, so now the vol is the pushpull and the old tone pot, but when there is a sound and i turn the tone knob i get a noise, which is absent when turning it with no signal. do you think that i damaged the tone pot when soldering? or there may be other problem?
Really cool video man. Thorough and simple.