What type of pots would you like to see available - HAVE YOUR SAY!

[Bendables]

As you may be aware I sell components on both eBay and my own website.  Some of the parts are generic parts you can get from Rapid cheaper.  This is why I am not trying to flog these parts to people here but instead hoping that with your combined input I can make more interesting products available that we can all use.  

Since circuit bending is quite specialist I have needed the money generated from selling the more general parts in order to fund the investment of the more interesting parts - which are much slower to sell and take up a lot of space in my house!  I am looking to expand on the range of potentiometers, knobs and connectors which I sell and have already started adding a few unique products.  The aim is to stop selling the general products since companies like Rapid do a good job of this - but have on standby some nice pots, knobs and connectors which we can all use in our projects.

Here is a brief survey about potentiometers.  I am changing the values and types I sell and looking for some input.  Perhaps there are values you just cannot find, perahps you hate using split shafts but don't like going to maplins, or maybe you would like to see pots with solder tag terminations?  I look forward to hearing peoples comments and hope to be able make some of these options available to circuit benders over the next few months : )

Take the <a href="http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HKLMM_d68e4368" >Online Survey</a>

[Bendables]

Any last takers for the questionaire?  I am going to close it in a few days. Thank you to those that completed it.

[Bendables]

Thanks again for those that completed questionaire. 

In light of people's comments I will be stocking anti-log pots in various values and all common linear/log values with plain round shafts.  After which time I may also make 12mm pots available too.   

Unfortunately the lead time is several months per order (and I have recently placed one) so these will not be in stock for a least 3/4 months, but I will let you know when they arrive.  If you can make use of split shaft pots we have recently added 50K and 500K to our log values and 250K to our linear values.

alex.

[Circuitbenders]

when you say 50k and 500k do they actually measure on a multimeter as 50k and 500k?

A lot of so called 50k and 500k pots seem to actually measure at 47k and 470k.

[Gordonjcp]

47 and multiples thereof is a "preferred value".  Most common is the E12 series, although higher precision resistors may use E24.

In practical terms, 47k vs. 50k makes no real difference.

[deathbender]

A lot of so called 50k and 500k pots seem to actually measure at 47k and 470k.

Lol, not to speak of some of the 1M pots i have here which actually are 970-980K...

[Circuitbenders]

It does seem that pots labelled as 500K from the US are exactly the same thing as pots labelled as 470K bought in the UK. I've only rarely seen so called 500K pots in the UK.

[Gordonjcp]

Lol, not to speak of some of the 1M pots i have here which actually are 970-980K...

For fairly obvious reasons, most pots have pretty high tolerance - as much as 25% for el-cheapo ones!

[deathbender]

as much as 25% for el-cheapo ones!

Luckily most of the time it's not that bad... but sometimes i come across some resistors with a very high tolerance... mainly in the lower Ohm/Kohm ranges...

[Gordonjcp]

Well another thing to remember is that high-value resistors (more than a few hundred k) will start to drift high in value as they get older.  You see this a lot in CRT monitors and televisions, where the picture becomes either uncontrollably bright or uncontrollably dark because the resistor network that feeds the first anode has gone out-of-spec.

[Bendables]

Hi - alpha pots have 20% tollerance so yeah 470k, 500k not a lot of difference, though obviously a 470K pot is going to have a range of 423k to 517, where as 500k are going to have a range of 450k to 550k which might make a difference depending on the maximum and minimum resistance values required.

I have tested them before and found that the range has been well within 20%, but I guess had I tested several hundred rather than a handful then there would be the odd one that was 20% out.

These pots can be manufactured in increments of 1K (not sure how Rapid manage to get 470R), so 471K for instance would pointless because if you needed it to be that precise then you would be wasting your time with carbon track pots, but it does give me the option such as in this case whether I want them in multiples of 5 or 0.5, or 47 or 4.7 etc.

The reason I stock 500K instead of 470K, or 50K instead of 47K is because they are the values that people ask me for, either when they are replacing a pot in a piece of hardware or sometimes when they are following schematics which I guess are from US websites or books.  It just makes sense for me to sell them in these multiples.

[SineHacker]

sorry to dig this up if this is an older thread but, if ou're selling in the UK, can you get decent priced dual gang pots? I just don't want to pay £2.50 for something with a plastic chassis. I'm buying them cheap from Hong Kong but I hate waiting 2 weeks, it ruins my life!!!

...but then it is like quarter of the cost of anywhere else

[Circuitbenders]

Don't maplins do a small range of dual pots for about 80p?

[SineHacker]

Don't maplins do a small range of dual pots for about 80p?

so they do 

[ne7]

Maplins def. do - only prob is going into the shops in the south of the UK seems a little fruitless as they only seem to carry really random selections of bits n bobs - tho i did manage to grab a dualgang 100k one the other day for about 90p which was -really- useful just wish they had more stock in store, tis a shame as its very useful being able to pop in and grab random bits over the counter!