Nothing smelled / looked burned. I am wondering if the amperage was too much for the pot. If I stick my multimeter on the outputs, when the circuit was working and a long time ago, and placed it on AMPS I could register a total of 1.0A on the outputs. This is with just my multimeter connected to it. Is there a way to re-make the connections inside if I open the pot? I really don't think that any of the carbon inside is gone because if I connect my multimeter, set to ohms, on a center terminal and one of the outside terminals I get 0.0 ohms (my meter displays OL if there is no connection). If I stick the multimeter on the center terminal and the other outside terminal I get 2.5K ohms. To me, I might be wrong, that seems like everything is connected fine inside I just don't get any variable.