Why won't this sketch work? Using a potentiometer with a motor shield

I'm trying to use a potentiometer to adjust the feedrate of steppers attached to an adafruit motor shield. The pot seems to have no effect.

#include <AFMotor.h>

//Setup steppers
AF_Stepper motorY(48, 2);

//setup other variables
int feedrt;
int potpinY = 0;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);           
  motorY.setSpeed(feedrt);  
}

void loop() { 
  
  feedrt = analogRead(potpinY);
  feedrt = map(feedrt, 0, 1023, 0, 179);
  motorY.setSpeed(feedrt);
  motorY.step(100, FORWARD, MICROSTEP);
  
  
}

Try printing out your pot value to see if it is changing.

Interesting, it's not. It's at maximum all the time. Why didn't I think to check that?

I've used a pot for servos and other things and never had a problem. Thanks for the tip. I'll see if I can figure out what I've done here.

You have probably wired it up incorrectly. The wiper terminal goes to the analog input.

No, that's not it. Like I said I'm pretty familiar with using a pot. Even before I ever had an arduino I had electric guitars, lots of them. Besides, I checked with a meter and I was getting a nice variable voltage with my meter, just not on the serial monitor. Maybe my arduino sustained some damage when I burned out that H-Bridge, because the sketch is right as well. Is that possible, for just one part of the IC to be affected? I have an olimexino stm32 that could stand in should this be in need of a new microcontroller. I also have a brand spanking new Mega2560 that I haven't used yet

Is that possible, for just one part of the IC to be affected?

Yes that can happen quite a lot with pin abuse.

I haven't had time to verify whether my Atmega328 is damaged or not. The only way I know to check it is to hook it up to my Mega and see if it works there. I got a box of solar cells today, so I'm a bit preoccupied 8) But, just looking at my sketch, will it work? Anyone else using a motor shield?

I'm thinking of doing what I did last time I did something like this and just building a simple driver board and hooking that directly to a parallel port being controlled with EMC2. It worked perfectly, this motor shield business seems to be making things harder, not easier.

But, just looking at my sketch, will it work?

Who can tell, it uses a library that you have not provided a link for. It looks reasonable enough.

I was getting a nice variable voltage with my meter, just not on the serial monitor.

Then it is either not connected or you pin is shafted. Try using another analogue pin.