6 pin potentiometer wiring?

[shane_95]

I got a 6 pin potentiometer out of a Logitech subwoofer. Is there a way to wire it up to LED? If there is, how?

[vk6zgo]

Your question is quite confusing.
You really need to post a nice clear photo of the pot.

There are a lot of different types of LEDS,from the normal ones which we use for indicator lights on Electronic equipment,to the high power
ones used for lighting.
From your previous postings,I think you mean the latter types.
In that case,I would say that the current handling ability of ordinary pots of this kind won't be enough.
In other words,it will get hot,& fail.

[Simon]

I would strongly suggest Shane you start reading up on your theory. You obviously are passionate about electronics but you have been asking a lot of questions have don't have many details and seem more like whims than actual project ideas. Start out with a specific project and work out how to achieve it, even if it's just making circuits using the diagrams in the datasheet for IC's. If you have an end aim it will be easier for you to ask questions and for others to answer them.

[vk6zgo]

What Simon said!

[6502nop]

Ditto, but...
How many good tutorials have you run into that cover pots like this?

Now, then... {ahem}...

I got a 6 pin potentiometer out of a Logitech subwoofer

What you've probably got is a Dual potentiometer for stereo. They are "ganged" together so that each pot is moved at the same time for Left/Right control. The best way to be sure is to whip out your ohmmeter (you do have one, I hope?) and test the outer terminals of the two rows. This should give you your pot's value, which should match the code stamped on the body of the pot. The "wiper" is usually the center terminal. See attached PNG.

I said "probably" above, because of a few things:

 - Audio pots usually have what's known as a "loudness tap", and you should therefore see four pins per channel, or eight total.
 - Subwoofers are usually monophonic, so what's a stereo pot doing in there? My guess would be it's pulling the bass signal from both channels and filtering them into one.
 - This could be a digital encoder, which tells the control IC of the Sub to do things. If this is the case, a picture is certainly needed.

Lastly, to echo what the others are saying: In my day, there was no Google. No Internet. No computers, for that matter! No local guru to go to. If I wanted to know something, I hit the library or corner Rat Shack to brush up on my knowledge. It took a while, but I figured things out quickly enough. Nowadays, what used to take me weeks to get (datasheets, cross references, etc.), can now be had in a matter of seconds, thrown on a little reader tablet (Kindle), and sitting next to me as I assemble the circuit. Frickin' amazing! I know you're not asking how to build a Saturn-V or "Kisty-core" A-bomb (I can help you with those, BTW), but for crying out loud, could you at least make an effort to do a Google search or two?

nop
Google "6502+NOP" for some early programming...
Dewey decimal = 001.6x for computers and 621.x for electronics.
Kisty core secret ingredient = Scotch (cello) tape. No, I'm not kidding.

[alm]

How many good tutorials have you run into that cover pots like this?

http://tangentsoft.net/audio/pancomp.html

It wouldn't surprise me if it was also covered in the Art of Electronics.

[6502nop]

That link, like my last post, was more of an "overview", rather than a tutorial.

Overview = what it is/does/looks like.
Tutorial = why the @#$% any of ^that matters.

It's like the Make series with Colin (?). He does a good job telling you what these components are, but very little on how they should be used. I also found it surprising that an audio site explained the different tapering of pots, but failed to mention the "loudness tap", as I did.

The reason, I feel, that EEVblog has rocketed up the charts is that Dave goes the extra mile - er, kilometer - to explain the whys of things. Why you should buy a good meter (kabang!). Why you should design ground/power planes a certain way. Why you shouldn't call Microchip engineers "dickheads".

I also realized we didn't answer the main question of how to wire a pot to an LED. That's a loaded question, as we don't know:
 - Which LED(s)?
 - What's the power source/driver?
 - Why do you need a pot? PWM is the preferred method nowadays.
 - What, exactly, is shane_95 building?

nop

[alm]

I think most of this is beyond the scope of a mere tutorial, and requires some actual understanding of basic electronics. The step from 'a potmeter is a variable resistive divider' to 'how to regulate volume/light intensity' is not something I expect to be covered in a tutorial. It's hard to explain what a pot does in an audio (or LED) circuit without knowing about voltage dividers, source impedance and opamps. A general purpose electronics book aimed at beginners like Practical Electronics for Inventors would probably be the best place to start.

The simplest solution of employing a ~10k pot to regulate LED current would probably be to connect the wiper to the base of a transistor configured as a current source. That or driving some dedicated PWM-based LED driver IC (more expensive, much more efficient). Both require some understanding of electronics beyond 'paint by the numbers'.

[6502nop]

I'm wholeheartedly in agreement with you.

The problem I'm seeing is that novices are going from the "grab an Arduino kit and program a chip" to having to sit down to learn what all the things you attach to the kit actually do. And it's something they don't do, or want someone else to do for them.

There is no substitute for a good solid fundamental understanding of basic electronics, but as all of us who have it knows that it takes time and effort to learn. It just seems to me that today's "There's an App for that" generation just doesn't want to sit down and learn something for themselves.

Which leaves folks like us to try and explain, succinctly, a concept that took us weeks to master, and hand it to them in a paragraph or two. Thus, I like to give an overview first, then get into specifics if the OP still doesn't get it.

nop
Paint by the numbers? We used to call it "Eddy Electron" or "Randy Kilowatt".

[G7PSK]

The best thing that you can do Shane is get you multimeter set it to the ohms range and connect it to the pot. that you have and see what happens to the resistance as you turn the spindle on it, then try another pin on it and do the same, go through all the pin combinations that you can think of until you get a feel for how the unit behaves. Try to map in your head what is happening inside the pot and also draw it on paper and write you findings regarding the resistance relative to each pin down as well.

[Uncle Vernon]

What Simon said!

Wasn't the correct answer, "it's usual to connect two of the pins to the same place and the other four to different  places"?