Slide potentiometer - Basic electronics circuits

Slide potentiometers - sliding carbon track potentiometers are more recent, and were introduced on domestic electronic equipment in the 1960s. By mounting such controls vertically, it was made much easier for the user to associate the position of the control with the quantity (brightness, volume, contrast, colour) that it controlled. Since switches are never included with slide potentiometers, their use started the trend to separate mains switches.

A typical slide potentiometer uses a track length of 55 mm, with a mechanical travel of the wiper of 58 mm. Both log and linear tracks can be obtained in a resistance value range of around 10kΩ to 100 kΩ. Ganged assemblies, with a metal screen between units to reduce cross-talk, are available, and matching bezels and knobs also exist for these units.

Slide potentiometers are extensively used not only on domestic equipment but also on a large range of professional equipment, notably on audio studio mixers, faders and control consoles. Their use on graphic equalizers allows the user to see from the appearance of the settings on the control panel the shape of response that has been arranged, something that would be virtually impossible to gather from a set of rotary potentiometers which would also take up considerably more panel space.