Circuitbenders Forum

Circuitbenders Forum => Parts, Components, Unbent machines & Junk => Topic started by: Dylan on November 14, 2009, 02:12:29 AM

Title: Smoking pots
Post by: Dylan on November 14, 2009, 02:12:29 AM

Uhh...not that pot. I just had a 500K pot hooked up with alligator clips and all of a sudden it was smoking. What the butt does that mean!? Obviously I'm not hooking that one up again, but I'm curious to why it happened.

Title: Re: Smoking pots
Post by: Gordonjcp on November 16, 2009, 12:48:44 AM

You put too much current through it.  When it's at the low resistance end of its scale, you can actually stick quite a high current through it.  They're really only designed to deal with a few tens of milliamps at most (unless they're hefty great wirewounds).

This is why using a variable resistor for a voltage drop crash is a stupid idea, and you should use a proper adjustable regulator circuit ;-)