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| Logarithmic pot |
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| akis:
Is there a way to use a simple, passive circuit, with very few parts, to turn a linear, or a badly made "log" pot, into an audio pot? From some charts I have seen it seems we are looking for something like the below: --- Code: ---potentiometer position experimental log scale 0 0 1 0.2 2 0.6 3 2 4 5 5 10 6 20 7 33 8 54 9 80 10 100 --- End code --- |
| Prehistoricman:
You can add a resistor from the tap to either end of the pot to affect the curve. See pics. The graph shows the behaviour of a pot with a resistor 10% of its value to ground. X is the pot setting, Y is the tap output. |
| Whales:
+1 for "10%" recomendation. I have read suggestions of 50% elsewhere, but some analysis I did a while back showed 10% was a better fit. IIRC: this gives you about 20dB of db-linear audio range (used as an attenuator, although I think I was also putting a resistor above?). The last few degrees at the far edges of the pot will be distorted and give you a lot more than this. |
| Prehistoricman:
--- Quote from: Whales on January 05, 2020, 09:15:53 pm ---+1 for "10%" recomendation. I have read suggestions of 50% elsewhere, but some analysis I did a while back showed 10% was a better fit. IIRC: this gives you about 20dB of db-linear audio range (used as an attenuator, although I think I was also putting a resistor above?). The last few degrees at the far edges of the pot will be distorted and give you a lot more than this. --- End quote --- Resistor above would make an anti-log taper. And yes, you're right about the edge distortion. Here's a quick excel plot of a real log taper against this hack. But a real log pot will probably contain two linear sections of different resistivity to roughly approximate the ideal log taper (source: internet, no validation has been done). |
| basinstreetdesign:
Yes I've done a least-squares fit between the ideal exponential curve and what you get from a fixed resistor in parallel with a linear pot as Prehistoricman says. The optimum value (least error) is at resistor = 11.6% of pot. This assumes that there is no other load and the source impedance is zero. It looks like this: --- End quote --- |
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