I desoldered a slide potentiometer out of some electronic device I had at home
and wanted to hook it up to my Arduino Uno. The problem is, it has 6 pins,
although from the device's PCB I figured that only 4 are in use, still one more
than I'm used to.
It looks fairly similar to this 16mm Slide Pot 17 pot here.
I'm not so good with schematics yet, so if you could help me with it I'd be very grateful.
On the PCB it also seems as if a resistor is connected to one of the pins, although I don't
know to which one since I don't know which pins do what.
I tried connecting one of the pins to analog 0, two of ground or 5v (tried out both) to
another 2 pins on the pot and then either ground or 5v to the fourth pin. This either only
gave me the value 1023 or 0, depending on whether I had two pins connected to 5v or 0.
If I connect only one 5v, one 0v and one analog pin, the values float.
Is an additional resistor needed/ how do I have connect the pot?
it seems that some pins are actually connected together. probably 2 pins for each point, but it's only a guess.
do you have an ohmmeter ? if yes, it will tell you all you need to know . if "no", it will be hard to tell you which pins correspond to one side, middle, other side, without a reference
Sometimes these are dual pots and all 6 connections are needed, but for a mono
pot they may be commoned up internally. A multimeter is the sure-fire way to determine
the connections!
Set to resistance mode, and measure between the pins, see which ones are tied together (near zero resistance). A resistance of full scale (10k or whatever the pot is spec'ed at) means you're measuring between the two ends on a pot. A resistance of less than that means you're going between the wiper and one end.
How should one use a multimeter to determine the connections as suggested in the last post?
Well if you see the schematic of the dual pots and you put one lead of your meter on ANY pin and put the OTHER lead on any OTHER pin and get a resistance measurement, your on the same pot. (or , you could just look for pin numbers)