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Identifying Trim Pots Resistor Values

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Gotrek

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Is there a way to visually determine a Pot's Resistance value, like vby the color of the knob or ???

I'm talking about it's specs, not what it's currently set too.
 
Heya Gotrek,

The POT should have an ink stamp, or embossment which states a number then K, M or ohms, or the Omega symbol, or R. This will be the value in Kilohms (K), Megohms (M), or ohms (Ohms or Omega symbol or R). For instance, 100K means 100,000 ohms or 100 kilohms. 100R means 100 ohms. 100 omega symbol means 100 ohms, 100 ohms means 100 ohms Etc.

If you can't find the stamp, or embossment, and you have access to a multimeter, you can touch one mulitmeter probe/clip to one of the outside terminals, and touch the other multimeter probe/clip to the opposite outside terminal. Make sure your multimeter is set to measure resistance. This will give you a reading, depending on what setting of resistance that you are measuring.

I haven't run across any pots that have a color coding system that demonstrates the value of the pot. If there is such a thing, I assume that the color code system for resistors is used (4 stripes, one being the tolerance). You can find the resistor color codes on google.com, or I can email you an excel spreadsheet which will calculate the value, given the colors.

I hope this answers your question.
 
Thanks, theres no Ohm marking on them all it says is 101:06 and 101:05 on another. Some have part numbers but I looked them up without luck, guess I'll wait till I change the fuse in my Multimeter
 
Gotrek said:
Thanks, theres no ohm marking on them all it says is 101:06 and 101:05 on another. Some have part numbers but I looked them up without luck, guess I'll wait till I change the fuse in my Multimeter

101 would probably be 100 ohm (10 + 1 more zero), 102 is 1K (10 + 2 more zero's), likewise 103 is 10K - nice easy way to understand it!.
 
Gandledorf said:
What is the general range for a pot? If I have a 10k pot, what are the min/max values for resistance?

It will go from roughly zero, to roughly 10K - bear in mind pots have pretty high tolerances, 20% is usual.
 
It's probably a good idea to test these unknown pots with a multimeter anyway. That way, you know for sure. Then if you get around to it, you can confirm if 101:05 has anything to do with the resistance. Good luck!
 
I did and you guys were right 101:05 was 100ohm But I stopped testing the ones with those makring when I found two that were 5.7k since I was looking for one that went from 0-5kohm and the 5.7k one will do just as well. Thats what you get for buying rat shak bulk pots :)
 
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