Motorized potentiometer on lab power supply - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Manu404
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 03:32:58 pm
content: Hi *,My first post on the forumI'm just an electronic hobbyist but I've got a question about the "Lab Power Supply" project.If we forget the requirement, is it a good idea to replace the classical potentiometer by a motorized pot. which may be easily driven after by a microcontroller ?I think it is a less-intrusive way to add the functionality, nop ? We can design a classical power supply and just add the remote controller trough the motorized pot. ...BàvEmmanuel(Sorry for my grammar, I'm from Belgium)

author: Kevin.D
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 06:08:07 pm
content: Building a mechanical engineers power supply ?. But yeah go for it ,you will have the only one ,you could also replace any switches or transistors with remote control relays and solenoids .

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 06:35:33 pm
content: Quote from: kevotronic on August 24, 2012, 06:08:07 pmThe idea of motorized pot maybe sounds funny to you, but its not when you have this kind of pot here.Photo of a precision 15 turns potentiometer with 0.02% linearity compared to a soda can.

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 06:37:23 pm
content: Why would you want that? Same thing can be done directly using a DAC of some kind,.much faster and cheaper.Only good reason for motorized pots is/was audio application to prevent the distortion from semiconductor based attenuators.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 06:38:30 pm
content: Seems awfully expensive and large compared to a basic DAC. I don't see any electrical reason why it wouldn't work, though.

author: Manu404
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 06:54:28 pm
content: It's "just for fun", just testing and trying to find funny things to do.And cogs with a precision DC motor to motorize the big "precision 15 turns potentiometer with 0.02% linearity" ?

author: Jon Chandler
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 06:57:52 pm
content: Actually, if it's like the motorized volume control on some amplifiers, it would be pretty neat. It can be controlled by a PC or micro, but manual control just means reaching over and turning the knob.A

author: pickle9000
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 09:15:05 pm
content: It would be easy to isolate from the controller, depending on the pot and motor you could get very high resolution.In any case if it's for fun why not. I'm sure you'll learn something.

author: poorchava
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2012, 09:40:13 pm
content: Um... sell the pot, buy a power supply for that money?But srsly: this kind of thing is good for audio, when you want ability to turn the pot with remote as well as by hand. in power supply it doesn't have sense. If you really want to use that pot, you can use a stepper motor to turn it. One hell of an electromechanical DAC. If it's hard to turn you will either need a large stepper or some gear ratio.