Variable resistors? Stun Gun.

[LifeForce4]

I was think if I don’t want to make the zap really strong but want to be able to a just the power of it. I was thinking I might be able to put one or two variable resistors on it if there are such things. I have looked but looking for something that you don’t really know what your looking for is hard.

My questions are:
Are there such things as variable resistors? It sounds like there might be.
What are they called? I checked jamesco, and digikey but no luck I might just be searching wrong.

Thanks,
Kyle

 

[Ravi]

Hi Kyle, Yes there are variable resistors. By using it you can adjust the resistance within a given range. (resistors provide us with a means of controlling the current and/or voltage present in a circuit). These are available in variety of forms,most popular of which are the carbon track and wirewound petentiometer (a 3 terminal variable resistor). Carbon potentiometer are available with liner and semi-logarithmic law tracks and in rotary or liner/slider formats. I would like to give few hints & tips of variable resistors.

Carbon track variable resistors suffer from noise and track wear. This makes them unacceptable for critical applications such as instrumentation, low-noise amplifiers etc. To give better control over output levels in audio applications, use log law potentiometers for volume controls. Carbon track controls should never be used for performing adjustments of output voltage in power suppliers as intermittent slider contract can sometimes result in the full output voltage being applied momentarily to the load ! (my experience)