Potentiometer Inquiry Circuit SOLVED

I am teaching Electronics online this fall to 300-level college students. A simple hardware experience with a potentiometer is defeating me as a circuit design in CircuitLab. I found the example Ohmmeter circuit and I think I have it set up correctly, but no go...

Would love some help.

Carol Strong

by strongc
July 13, 2020

I see it currently says "8.000 kV" on both VM1 and VM2, but that's only because it's saving the result from the last time a DC simulation was run.

If I open your circuit and go to "Simulate" -> "Run DC Solver", it updates both to "2.500 kV". Is that what you're expecting?

by mrobbins
July 13, 2020

2 Answers

Answer by mrobbins

@strongc How about this for a DC Sweep simulation?

ACCEPTED +1 vote
by mrobbins
July 13, 2020

This is by far a better and simpler solution than what I was setting up. Sometimes holding a piece of equipment in your hands doesn't translate easily to a circuit, even if it is something as simple as this.

Thanks so much for your help!!

BTW, sorry for taking so long to get back to you when you sent a response so quickly. I was down for 2 days with a migraine and knew that, even if I looked at your answer, it wouldn't make any sense!

Again, thanks so much. Carol Strong UAH

by strongc
July 15, 2020

No problem. Glad I could help. By the way, this page: https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/potentiometers/ has a few other potentiometer simulations that may be easy to adapt for teaching material.

by mrobbins
July 15, 2020

Thanks! I'll check them out. It's really nice that you all respond so quickly. Right now with the rush to get ready for online courses due to the virus, just the slightest thing going wrong can cost us all tons of time.

My co-teacher Dr. Themis Chronis suggested your system for my course this fall and I am so happy he did. I'm about 2/3 of the way through prepping example circuits for the labs in the course. Yay!

by strongc
July 15, 2020

Answer by strongc

Huh, I was looking for a DC sweep that would show the relationship between the resistance between the topmost connection of the potentiometer to the tap and between the tap and the bottommost connection.

Is there a way to accomplish that or am I "whistling Dixie"?

+1 vote
by strongc
July 13, 2020

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