12 Position 3dB Stepped 10K Pot

This is a design for 12 position stepped 10K pot that has 3dB steps. The table below shows
the step number, the target loss and the actual calculated resistance required to obtain that
loss. The R column is the required resistance between steps rounded to the nearest E24
preferred value. The final column is the calculated actual loss obtained using the resistor
values in the R column. As you can see the error is very small.

Step Target Loss dB Resistance R Actual Loss dB

1 0 10K 3k0 0

2 3 7079 2k0 3.09

3 6 5022 1k5 6.01

4 9 3547 1k 9.10

5 12 2511 750 12.02

6 15 1777 510 15.10

7 18 1258 360 18.07

8 21 890 270 21.02

9 24 630 180 24.16

10 27 446 120 27.14

11 30 316 100 29.9

12 33 223 220 33.16

The schematic of the switch is shown overleaf. As this switch needs to work like a pot we
want maximum gain when the switch is fully clockwise which is usually position 12. So the
input is connected to position 12 and the resistors are added between successive steps
down to position 1 and finally one more resistor is added from position 1 to 0V. So the
resistor values are as follows:

R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12

3K0 2K0 1K5 1K0 750 510 360 270 180 120 100 220

If you add up a;; the resistor values, the total comes to 10010 ohms.
Issue Record

0.1 November 2nd 2016. Initial Issue