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What charge does the wiper of a potentiometer give? Negative or positive? I connect the left pin to the positive and right pin to negative. My potentiometer looks like this. The wiper is facing backward and the left and right pins are facing at to your right and left hand respectively. Take the potentiometer below 1K-1M in the picture given below

enter image description here

Sathvik
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    Depends on the position. What are you trying to do? – JaySabir Aug 17 '20 at 06:15
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    #Sathvik, Welcome and nice to meet you.Ah, let me see. It depends on what you mean by "Left" and "Right". Suppose you connect Left pin to negative/ground/0V, and Right pin to positive/1.5V of a battery, then the wiper should give 0V~1.5V, or 1.5V~0V, depending on if you turn the knob Clockwise or CounterClockwise. Perhaps you can give us link to, or a photo of your potentiometer. Or you can read the following catalog and let us know which potentiometer in the catalog looks like yours: https://fr.aliexpress.com/category/205006085/potentiometers.html. Cheers. – tlfong01 Aug 17 '20 at 06:16
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    @tlfong01 Anotyher good comment-answer. These are as good as many of the answers which others give. Posting such as an answer makes them more accessible and more permanent. – Russell McMahon Aug 18 '20 at 07:19
  • @Russell McMahon, Many thanks for your nice words. I often hesitate to give an answer, because I am not sure if I understand the OP's question. – tlfong01 Aug 18 '20 at 07:28
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    @tlfong01 That has *some* merit :-) - but look at the other two answers. You all seem to have taken the same meaning as I would have - right or wrong. – Russell McMahon Aug 18 '20 at 07:48
  • @Russell McMahon, I didn't catch you. What do you mean by "You all seem to have taken the same meaning as I would have - right or wrong"? Do you mean that all 4 guys understand what the OP means? BTW, one other reason I hesitate to answer quickly, is that I need to confirm which pot the OP is using, eg. A type or B type, rotary of linear slider. 1W or 100W. Does the OP has a multimeter and knows how to use it? I sometime chat with the OP as long as 5 pages, over two weeks, before I decide that I can give an answer the OP thinks good. But then if I think. / to continue, ... – tlfong01 Aug 18 '20 at 08:19
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    @tlfong01 I meant that we all had the same understanding - and that we may all be right or all be wrong :-). But I think we are right. || I understand the 'ask many questions and understand the true question" approach. I lean that way AND/BUT the site ethos tends to discourage this approach. [I don't make the rules]. I tend in comments where much more input is needed to ask a list of questions which need to be answered to get a proper understanding - and then usually give some guidance after that. – Russell McMahon Aug 18 '20 at 12:39
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    @tlfong01 ... | Too many comments and the comments are liable to be moved to chat - which does not do later visitors much of a service as few are liable to follow the chat link. – Russell McMahon Aug 18 '20 at 12:40
  • Well, if the site ethos tends to discourage "asking many questions to understand the true question (or true problem)", then there is a dilama, because I don't wish not to tell the newbie what he doesn't know but should know. I think he will be angry if he later found out that I was not telling him the truth or only part of the truth, or actually is telling him a lie. / to continue, ... – tlfong01 Aug 18 '20 at 13:23
  • In other words, I would prefer not to tell him anything, ie I just don't answer. I often give an answer but after the answer I would say something like "I don't wish my answer to mislead you that I encourage suing this thing, because there are better stuff, ..." This what you say "give some guidance afterwards". But actually I have a better workaround. You might like to skim my two recent answers to understand my workaround. – tlfong01 Aug 18 '20 at 13:24
  • There your are, my two (TLDR) example answers using the workaround: (1) https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/505318/how-to-properly-use-a-relay-module-with-jd-vcc-from-arduino-raspberry (2) https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/515225/spi-slave-randomly-missing-bits-in-response. Cheers. – tlfong01 Aug 18 '20 at 13:26
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    @tlfong01 Some of my answers are 'quite voluminous' - probably not ever as long as yours :-). [eg](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/18559/3288) – Russell McMahon Aug 19 '20 at 07:46
  • @Russell McMahon, your example answer is not voluminous at all, as indicated by the big number of up votes which I think many readers, are like me, read through the whole answer, which I found it educational are useful. (I always wrongly thought that Arduino mini USB connector is better the Rpi or my Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro, micro USB connector, now I have a very different view. BTW, I do have a criteria for the length of my answers: *** As short as possible, but as long as necessary***. / to continue, ... – tlfong01 Aug 20 '20 at 02:42
  • So I think your example is a bit too short. This reminds me Einstein's explanation of his Theory of Relativity: If you are sitting next to a pretty woman, you find time goes very fast, otherwise annoyingly too slow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KFvoDDs0XM. Cheers. – tlfong01 Aug 20 '20 at 02:45
  • @Russell McMahon, from time to time I find a new question which I have already answered a couple of time in other forums but there might be updates and improvements, or a all-in-one answer to make bsed on old and partial answers. In this case I would give a comprehensive answer straightaway, though I still ask the OP at the same time to clarify any possible confusion, or I am not available to reply in time to the OP's comments (away during weekend etc) / to continue, ... – tlfong01 Aug 20 '20 at 03:50
  • This is an example: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/517428/thm3060-rfid-reader-setup-issues. Comments and counter suggestion welcome. Have a great weekend. Cheers. – tlfong01 Aug 20 '20 at 03:50
  • And another "***Don't ask too many questions***" comment I received today, just for your reference: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/116245/rpis-i2c-bus-maximum-device-loading-fan-out. This time actually I am not asking questions, but ***giving a big picture of all possible solutions***, which the OP does not know that he does not know. Often the OP might tell me he already know this and that, but would like me to go deeper into one particular solution, then I would try to do that. – tlfong01 Aug 20 '20 at 07:44
  • (1) However, if I make too many comments before making an answer, the impatient elites would close the question, not letting me any chance of making even a low quality answer: Example: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/116259/synchronisation-of-the-reading-of-2-ads1299-by-the-raspberry-pi4, (2) I know the asker would be upset and never bother to come back, as described in your pretty short comment: / to continue, ... – tlfong01 Aug 21 '20 at 03:40
  • / ... https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/770/why-are-we-so-strict-with-closing-questions-cant-we-just-keep-them-open/772#772Don't you worry that me the naughty guy would be discouraged, because the more of my answers get closed, or down votes, the happier I would be, as this reminds me of my grandmother's advice I learned when I was 8, ... (long story to tell later). . (3) To get around the porlbem of no chance to answer because answer closed, I can give a short answer first, then followed by boringly long comments and chats, Eg:/ to continue, ... – tlfong01 Aug 21 '20 at 03:46
  • https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/116298/way-to-get-signal-strength-from-an-rfid-reader/116300#116300. End of my long series of comments on my thinking of why, when, what, how of my comments, chats, and answers. – tlfong01 Aug 21 '20 at 03:47

2 Answers2

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The "charge" will be somewhere inbetween your negative & positive. It's a voltage divider.

Kyle B
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It's relative.

Relative to L, the slider would be more negative as it moves from L to R.

Likewise, relative to R, the slider would be more positive as it moves from R to L.

enter image description here

vu2nan
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