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HOME / PRODUCT CATEGORIES / PTH ICS / DIGITAL POTENTIOMETER - 10K
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Digital Potentiometer - 10K
COM-10613 ROHS
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DESCRIPTION DOCUMENTS
Potentiometers are incredibly useful, whether you’re controlling the volume on
your stereo or the ‘mood lighting’ in your room. The problem with traditional
potentiometers is the fact that your microcontroller doesn’t have an easy way to
interface with them. Digital Potentiometers solve that problem by allowing you to
control a voltage splitter with digital signals.
Wire it up just like a potentiometer and use serial signals to ‘turn the knob.’
Another handy feature of digital potentiometers is that because they aren’t
controlled mechanically, they don’t have a pre-determined sweep profile.In other
words, depending on the way you write your code the potentiometer can ‘sweep’
in a linear fashion, a logarithmic fashion, or according to any other profile you
like. Digital potentiometers can also be used in conjunction with rotary encoders
to consolidate large banks of potentiometers into one ‘smart’ rotary control.
Digital Potentiometer - 10K Product Help and Resources
SKILLS NEEDED
Core Skill: Soldering
This skill defines how difficult the soldering is on a particular product. It might be a couple simple solder joints, or require special reflow tools.
Skill Level: Rookie - The number of pins increases, and you will have to determine polarity of components and some of the
components might be a bit trickier or close together. You might need solder wick or flux.
See all skill levels
2
Core Skill: Programming
If a board needs code or communicates somehow, you're going to need to know how to program or interface with it. The programming skill is all about
communication and code.
Skill Level: Rookie - You will need a better fundamental understand of what code is, and how it works. You will be using beginner-
level software and development tools like Arduino. You will be dealing directly with code, but numerous examples and libraries are
available. Sensors or shields will communicate with serial or TTL.
See all skill levels
2
Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping
If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and
know the ins and outs of electronics.
Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in
addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
See all skill levels
2
COMMENTS 41 REVIEWS 3
4.3 out of 5
Based on 3 ratings:
3 of 4 found this helpful:
Working great!
about 3 years ago by Bobby Leighton verified purchaser
Once I understood how a ‘SPI’ device works with micro-controllers, Arduino in particular everything was great. It
was a pain to get going, not having a starting point, so i was thinking about making a small getting started
tutorial just to link here…but I am hoping someone at ‘Sparkfun’ beats me to it! :O)
1 of 3 found this helpful:
Digital volume control!
about 3 years ago by Chiel verified purchaser
ok these are pretty great. especially for their price.
If you need to controll voltage splitters like volume controll befor a audio circuit this is pretty much a great and
easy to use device. just connect a simple SPI connection to it and your ready to go! also works great as a slow
DAC.
Only downside is that if you are planning to use these to controll a stereo signal you will need to hunt down the
dual-channel version. there is slight variation between individial Digital-pots making it less ideal to use 2 of
these single-channel rather then 1 dual-channel. Sparkfun should start carrying those.
Works great
about a year ago by Member #399240 verified purchaser
Works great, I found a super helpful tutorial for this chip with the arduino here:
http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/MCP4131-digital-potentiometer-circuit.php As well as a more
in depth library here: https://github.com/jmalloc/arduino-mcp4xxx/blob/master/mcp4xxx.h
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