Greetings! I'm looking for a pot with detents, or stops, or "clicks", so that it might have some number of different settings that you could assign numbers to. And each stop would still have a different spot on the resistance scale.
I thought that would just be a "detent pot" but when I looked those up they're $10 a piece and have multiple gangs of pins. That seems complicated... I just want a pot with clicks.
Does anyone know what the term is I'm searching for? I suppose I could use a rotary switch with a bunch of different resistors, but I've got to assume someone has integrated this idea into a single component by now!
Thanks!
Dave
PS: Imagine you provide a choice of 8 colors. A pot with 8 click stops, each with a different resistance value, could be used. But I can't find such a thing!
In my 50 years around eletronics I don't think that I have ever seen what you are talking about. It may exist, I just haven't seen it. This seems like a good place for a rotary encoder. They are very cheap and almost as easy to use as a pot.
For those that haven't seen it, the stereo in my Tesla P100D goes to 11. A nice touch, I thought! And when other car stereos are as loud as they can go, mine can always go one more.
I think the point is that he wants to attach a calibrated scale to it, the very converse of what a rotary encoder does. So a switch with resistors would be the proper way to do that.
But it is - in this digital age - a very peculiar requirement and if he ever returns to us we might just find out why he wants this, whether it is in fact, another XY problem.
Settings would usually be stored in EEPROM and a rotary encoder with a push combined with a display, enables entire menus to be navigated.
I'd love to hear more about your project! I made a selector switch with this circuit board, and this 10 position switch, and some resistors. It's kinda pricey - about 5 bucks all told, but it works like a charm, and the feel of it is schweet!
Paul__B:
I think the point is that he wants to attach a calibrated scale to it, the very converse of what a rotary encoder does. So a switch with resistors would be the proper way to do that.
But it is - in this digital age - a very peculiar requirement and if he ever returns to us we might just find out why he wants this, whether it is in fact, another XY problem.
Settings would usually be stored in EEPROM and a rotary encoder with a push combined with a display, enables entire menus to be navigated.
I did not read the data sheet, but I assumed that a 10k pot with 11 detents would stop at 1000 ohms, 2k, 3k... and you just read it with an AI, if >= 250 && <=349 you value is 3 <50 = 50 and <50 = 0
so you would have 11 values similar to an 11 position switch.
a grey/absolute scale encoder would always result in the same value when set at, say 40 degrees rotation.
an incremental encoder with detents would just just allow you to move in steps. knob postion would not always align to any value.
A rotary switch could have resistors between each postion and offer the same result as the detent pot.
one click = the addtion (or subtraction) of one fixed resistance. read with analog in, you can assign a number to that position,
You get clicks as you turn them, and you can turn them endlessly.
It does not change a resistance for you but it is the kind of thing used on radios for volume control.
Paul__B:
But it is - in this digital age - a very peculiar requirement and if he ever returns to us we might just find out why he wants this, whether it is in fact, another XY problem.
Is most certainly is an XY problem the OP selected a device and ruled out other devices and we're not talking about the application but rather about how to make a device work without knowing what it is supposed to do
davepl:
For those that haven't seen it, the stereo in my Tesla P100D goes to 11. A nice touch, I thought! And when other car stereos are as loud as they can go, mine can always go one more.
No the (max) volume will be the same, but yours takes longer to get there, such is progress.
in SapceBall1 Lord DarkHelmet orders them to go from lightspeed to Ludicrous Speed
in the process, it goes through ridiculous speed
sometimes there is an 11 on the 1-10 scale.
in the original post, the OP said he chose to not use the 10 position switch because he assumed that it would need to use 10 pins. as was pointed out and also showed in a rendering in a pusdeo pencil-cad, (nice job Chris) shows that only 2 wires are needed for the multi-position switch. That cad drawing shows 11 resistors, so if there were 12 detents, it would have 1 more !
srnet:
No the (max) volume will be the same, but yours takes longer to get there, such is progress.
No, you see, this one goes to 11. When other car stereo have reached their maximum output, this stereo always has one more, or about 9%, that it can additionally go. So inferior stereo amps will be limited to the output of 10.
davepl:
No, you see, this one goes to 11. When other car stereo have reached their maximum output, this stereo always has one more, or about 9%, that it can additionally go. So inferior stereo amps will be limited to the output of 10.
If the potentiometer is using a wiper the number of detents is pretty irrelevant. The output from click 11 could be the same as from click 21. They only really matter if the switch is moving between fixed resistances.
