10/16/2019 Potentiometer: Definition, Types, And Working Principle

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Potentiometer: Definition, Types, And Working Principle

Last updated January 31, 2019 by Electrical4U

What is a Potentiometer?
A potentiometer (also known as a pot or potmeter) is defined as a 3 terminal
variable resistor in which the resistance is manually varied to control the flow of
electric current. A potentiometer acts as an adjustable voltage divider.

How Does a Potentiometer Work?

A potentiometer is a passive electronic component. Potentiometers work by varying
the position of a sliding contact across a uniform resistance. In a potentiometer, the
entire input voltage is applied across the whole length of the resistor, and the output
voltage is the voltage drop between the fixed and sliding contact as shown below.

A potentiometer has the two terminals of the input source fixed to the end of the
resistor. To adjust the output voltage the sliding contact gets moved along the resistor
on the output side.

This is different to a rheostat, where here one end is fixed and the sliding terminal is
connected to the circuit, as shown below.

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This is a very basic instrument used for comparing the emf of two cells and for
calibrating ammeter, voltmeter, and wa -meter. The basic working principle of
potentiometer is quite simple. Suppose we have connected two ba eries in parallel
through a galvanometer. The negative ba ery terminals are connected together and
positive ba ery terminals are also connected together through a galvanometer as
shown in the figure below.

Here, if the electric potential of both ba ery cells is exactly same, there is no circulating
current in the circuit and hence the galvanometer shows null deflection. The working
principle of potentiometer depends upon this phenomenon.

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Now let’s think about another circuit, where a ba ery is connected across a resistor via
a switch and a rheostat as shown in the figure below.

The resistor has the uniform electrical resistance per unit length throughout its length.
Hence, voltage drop per unit length of the resistor is equal throughout its length.
Suppose, by adjusting the rheostat we get v volt voltage drop appearing per unit
length of the resistor.

Now, the positive terminal of a standard cell is connected to point A on the resistor and
negative terminal of the same is connected with a galvanometer. The other end of the
galvanometer is in contact with the resistor via a sliding contact as shown in the figure
above. By adjusting this sliding end, a point like B is found where there is no current
through the galvanometer, hence no deflection in the galvanometer.

That means, emf of the standard cell is just balanced by the voltage appearing in the
resistor across point A and B. Now if the distance between point A and B is L, then we
can write emf of standard cell E = Lv volt.

This is how a potentiometer measures the voltage between two points (here between A
and B) without taking any current component from the circuit. This is the specialty of a

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potentiometer, it can measure voltage most accurately.

Potentiometer Types
There are two main types of potentiometers:

Rotary potentiometer
Linear potentiometer

Although the basic constructional features of these potentiometers vary, the working
principle of both of these types of potentiometers is the same.

Note that these are types of DC potentiometers – the types of AC potentiometers are
slightly different.

Rotary Potentiometers
The rotary type potentiometers are used mainly for obtaining adjustable supply
voltage to a part of electronic circuits and electrical circuits. The volume controller of a
radio transistor is a popular example of rotary potentiometer where the rotary knob of
the potentiometer controls the supply to the amplifier.

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This type of potentiometer has two terminal contacts between which a uniform
resistance is placed in a semi-circular pa ern. The device also has a middle terminal
which is connected to the resistance through a sliding contact a ached with a rotary
knob. By rotating the knob one can move the sliding contact on the semi-circular
resistance. The voltage is taken between a resistance end contact and the sliding
contact. The potentiometer is also named as the POT in short. POT is also used in
substation ba ery chargers to adjust charging voltage of a ba ery. There are many
more uses of rotary type potentiometer where smooth voltage control is required.

Linear Potentiometers
The linear potentiometer is basically the same but only difference is that here instead of
rotary movement the sliding contact gets moved on the resistor linearly. Here two ends
of a straight resistor are connected across the source voltage. A sliding contact can be
slide on the resistor through a track a ached along the resistor. The terminal connected
to the sliding is connected one end of the output circuit and one of the terminals of the
resistor is connected to the other end of the output circuit.

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This type of potentiometer is mainly used to measure the voltage across a branch of a
circuit, for measuring the internal resistance of a ba ery cell, for comparing a ba ery
cell with a standard cell and in our daily life, it is commonly used in the equalizer of
music and sound mixing systems.

Digital Potentiometers
Digital potentiometers are three terminal device, two fixed end terminals and one
wiper terminal which is used to vary the output voltage.

Digital potentiometers have various applications, including calibrating a system,

adjusting offset voltage, tuning filters, controlling screen brightness, and controlling
sound volume.

However mechanical potentiometers suffer from some serious disadvantages which

make it unsuitable for applications where precision is required. Size, wiper
contamination, mechanical wear, resistance drift, sensitivity to vibration, humidity, etc.
are some of the main disadvantages of a mechanical potentiometer. Hence to overcome
these drawbacks, digital potentiometers are more common in applications since it
provides higher accuracy.

Digital Potentiometer Circuit

The circuit of a digital potentiometer consists of two parts, first the resistive element
along with electronic switches and second the control circuit of the wiper. The figure
below shows both the part respectively.

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The first part is an array of resistors, and each node is connected to a common point W,
except the endpoints A and B, via a two-way electronic switch. The terminal W is the
wiper terminal. Each of the switches is designed using CMOS technology and only one
of the switches out of all is in ON state at any given time of the potentiometer
operation. The switch which is ON determines the potentiometer resistance and the
number of switches determines the resolution of the device. Now which switch is to be
made ON is controlled by the control circuit. The control circuit consists of a RDAC
register which can be wri en digitally using interface such as SPI, I2C, up/down or can
be manually controlled by push bu ons or a digital encoder. The diagram above shows

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that of a push bu on controlled digital potentiometer. One bu on is for “UP” or

increasing the resistance and the other for “DOWN” i.e. decreasing the resistance.

Generally, the wiper position is at the middle switch when the digital potentiometer
off. After power is switched on, depending upon our requirement we can increase or
decrease the resistance by a suitable push-bu on operation. Besides, advanced digital
potentiometers also have an inbuilt on board memory which can store the last position
of the wiper. Now this memory can be of the volatile type or permanent type both,
depending upon the application. For example, in the case of volume control of a
device, we expect the device to remember the volume se ing we used last even after
we switch it on again. Hence a permanent type memory such as EEPROM is suitable
here. On the other hand for systems which recalibrates the output continuously and it
is not necessary to restore previous value, a volatile memory is used.

Advantages of Digital Potentiometers

The advantages of digital potentiometers are:

Higher reliability
Increased accuracy
Small size, multiple potentiometers can be packed on a single chip
Negligible resistance drift
Unaffected by environmental conditions like vibrations, humidity, shocks and
wiper ontamination
No moving part
Tolerance up to ±1%
Very low power dissipation, up to tens of millwa s

Disadvantages of Digital Potentiometers

The disadvantages of digital potentiometers are:

Not suitable for high temperature environment and high power application.
Due to the parasitic capacitance of the electronic switches, there is a bandwidth
consideration which comes into the picture in digital potentiometers. It is the
maximum signal frequency that can cross the resistance terminals with less than

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3 dB a enuation in the wiper. The transfer equation is similar to that of a low-

pass filter.
The nonlinearity in the wiper resistance adds a harmonic distortion to the
output signal. The total harmonic distortion, or THD, quantifies the degree to
which the signal is degraded after crossing through the resistance.

Applications of Potentiometer
There are many different uses of a potentiometer. The three main applications of a
potentiometer are:

1. Comparing the emf of a ba ery cell with a standard cell

2. Measuring the internal resistance of a ba ery cell
3. Measuring the voltage across a branch of a circuit

Comparing EMF of Ba ery Cells

One of the main uses of a potentiometer is to compare the emf of one ba ery cell with a
standard ba ery cell. Let’s take a cell whose emf is to be compared with a standard
cell. The positive terminal of the cell and the same of the standard cell are joined
together with the fixed end of the potentiometer resistor. The negative terminal of both
cells is joined with the galvanometer in turn through a two-way switch. The other end
of the galvanometer is connected to a sliding contact on the resistor. Now by adjusting
sliding contact on the resistor, it is found that the null deflection of galvanometer
comes for the first cell at a length of L on the scale. After positioning the two-way
switch to the second cell and then by adjusting the sliding contact, it is found that the
null deflection of galvanometer comes for that cell at a length of L1 on the scale. The
first cell is a standard cell and its emf is E. The second cell is an unknown cell whose
emf is E1. Now as per above explanation, we can write

As the emf of the standard cell is known, hence emf of the unknown cell can easily be
determined.

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Measuring Internal Resistance of A Ba ery Cell

In this process, one ba ery is connected across the resistor of a potentiometer through
a galvanometer as shown in the figure below. One resistance of known value (R) is
connected across the ba ery through a switch. First, we keep the switch open and
adjust the sliding contact of the potentiometer resistor to make the galvanometer
current zero. Once the galvanometer shows zero deflection from its null point we take
the position of the sliding contact tip on the resistor scale. Say this is L1.

Now we make the switch on. At that condition, a circulating current starts flowing
through the ba ery cell as well as the resistance (R). As a result, there is a voltage drop
in the ba ery itself due to its internal resistance. So now the voltage across the ba ery
cell would be a li le bit less than its open circuit voltage or emf of the cell. Now again
we adjust the sliding contact on the transistor to make the galvanometer current zero
and once it becomes zero that is zero deflection is indicated in the galvanometer, we
take the position of the sliding contact tip on the resistor scale and say it is L2.

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The internal resistance of the ba ery cell can be found out by using this below shown
formula.

Where r is the internal resistance of the ba ery cell.

Measurement of Voltage by Potentiometer

The principle of measuring voltage across a branch of a circuit with help of a
potentiometer is also simple. Here first we have to adjust the rheostat to adjust the
current through the resistor so that it causes a specific voltage drop per unit length of
the resistor. Now we have to connect one end of the branch to the beginning of the
resistor and other end is connected to the sliding contact of the resistor through a
galvanometer. Now we have to slide the sliding contact on the resistor until the
galvanometer shows zero deflection. When the galvanometer comes to its null
condition we have to take the reading of the position of the sliding contact tip on the
resistor scale and accordingly we can find out the voltage across the branch of the
circuit since we have already adjusted the voltage per unit length of the resistor.
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Rheostat vs Potentiometer
A potentiometer gives variable voltage. A rheostat gives variable resistance. The
potentiometer is a three terminal device whereas a rheostat is a two terminal device.
Construction wise both of the devices look similar but their principle of operation is
entirely different. In potentiometer two end terminals of the uniform resistance are
connected to the source circuit. In rheostat, only one terminal of the uniform resistance
is connected to the circuit and the other end of the resistance is kept open. In both
potentiometer and rheostat, there is a sliding contact on the resistance.

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In potentiometer, the output voltage is taken between fixed and sliding contact. In
rheostat, the variable resistance is achieved between fixed and sliding terminal. The
resistance of potentiometer gets connected across the circuit. The resistance of rheostat
is connected in series with the circuit. The rheostat is generally used to control the
current by adjusting resistance with the help of sliding contact. In potentiometer, the
voltage is controlled by adjusting the sliding contact on the resistance.

tat, the variable resistance is achieved between fixed and sliding terminal. The
resistance of potentiometer gets connected across the circuit. The resistance of rheostat
is connected in series with the circuit. The rheostat is generally used to control the
current by adjusting resistance with the help of sliding contact. In potentiometer, the
voltage is controlled by adjusting the sliding contact on the resistance.

Potentiometer Driver Cell

The potentiometer measures voltage by comparing the measuring voltage with voltage
across the resistance of the potentiometer. So for operation of potentiometer there must
be a source voltage connected across the potentiometer circuit. This cell to provide this
source voltage to drive the potentiometer is called driver cell. The driver cell delivers
the current through the resistance of potentiometer. The product of this current and the
resistance of the potentiometer provides full scale voltage of the device. By adjusting
this voltage one can change the sensitivity of the potentiometer. This is normally done
by adjusting current through the resistance. The current flowing through the resistance
is controlled by a rheostat connected in series with the driver cell. This is to be
remembered that the voltage of the driver cell must be greater than the voltage to be
measured.

Potentiometer Sensitivity
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The sensitivity of a potentiometer implies what the small voltage difference can be
measured by the potentiometer. For same driver voltage if we increase the length of the
potentiometer resistance, length of the resistance per unit voltage gets increased. Hence
the sensitivity of the potentiometer gets increased. So we can say sensitivity of a
potentiometer is directly proportional to the length of the resistance. Again if we
reduce the driver voltage for a fixed length of potentiometer resistance, then also
voltage per unit length of the resistance gets decreased. Hence again the sensitivity of
the potentiometer gets increased. So the sensitivity of the potentiometer is inversely
proportional to the driver voltage.

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