Potentiometer "Quick Connectors"?

[Jack.Straw]

I've always soldered wires directly to my pots, but lately i've been doing a lot of experimenting/learning and would like a way to quickly rearrange pot connections. Are there any type of female connectors that work well with the majority of panel-mount style pots?

Thanks for your help & happy holidays, -scott

[Jazz P Bass]

Potentiometer leads

The leads on pots can be a little bit fragile.
If you crack the trace, the pot is shot.
I would solder wires to the pot & clamp them down.
At the other end of the wire (use different colors) you can place your disconnects.

[Jack.Straw]

ya, that makes sense... thanks Jazz P!

[kepeb]

i keep meaning to put together a bigger board with a few pots and screw connectors, mostly for guitar effects but can be used for anything really. works great next to a little breadboard.

check this one

theres loads of cool ideas for projects on that site too

[tedmich]

I contemplated using these Futaba /Hi-Tec/JR(S) servo extensions, male to female, 4" long 22 AWG stranded wire with black, red, white silicone insulated leads to attach my pots to my PCB. I'd cut em in half and have one soldered to the board, one to the pot. They're not that cheap at $2.60 each (allelectronics.com) each but would let me swap out the PCB without having to pull pots.

[J M Fahey]

My "jack of all trades" is the ubiquitous and *very* cheap .1" premounted post strip.
As you can see, 3 posts are *perfect* for TO220 transistors; 5 for regular 16mm pots (leaving even posts unused), and 6 for TO218 and similar transistors.
I don't actually use them with *connectors* (I mistrust them) but as handy soldering posts (the poor man's "Hiwatt turrets").
The idea is avoiding PCB butchery (torn pads and tracks) by heavy-handed "technicians" trying to repair my amps.
These posts are soldered to the PCB on one side, which is never touched; the other free, end can stand a lot of abuse.
When pins match, they are soldered paralleled ; the relatively long contact area is strong.
In TO218's, each transistor heavy pin fits between two posts, solder capillarity fills the gap.

[Steve Conner]

I don't actually use them with *connectors* (I mistrust them) but as handy soldering posts (the poor man's "Hiwatt turrets").

I like that idea! It would be great for prototyping transistor circuits where the components are too small for a real turret or tag board. And you can claim to have a "PTP wired" transistor amp

Mistrust of connectors is a good point. Many faults in electronic equipment are in fact caused by bad connectors: they're one of the unholy trinity of things that engineers would love to do away with, the other two being switches and pots. It's more reliable to just solder everything together, but the downside is that it makes servicing a nightmare.

I remember one day when a rep came round to sell us some 6.4" TFT LCD panels. He brought a demonstrator that ran off 12V DC. We connected it to our bench power supply to see the LCD working, and then as we were standing around discussing the picture quality, the PSU suddenly turned itself up to 54V! Smoke and flames spewed from the demo TFT panel.

We had bought that PSU a few months before, and when I opened it up, one of the wiring looms between boards was loose. Pushing the connector back in restored the proper output voltage. It must have been jolted loose in shipping.

[J M Fahey]

Well, believe it or not, my first SS amps were actual eyelet board PTP wired.
I had started with tubed amps , of course (1969) and it was a natural for me.
When I started using those fancy, newfangled 741 Op Amps , I had to buy them in round metallic cases , which had 1" long flexible pins.
Of course DIPs were out of the question.
I'm attaching a picture of a PTP wired 1972 vintage 200W into 2 ohms power amp; the loudest amp available in Argentina in those days.
It is still working, with its original RCA 2N3055H .

[tedmich]

I've always soldered wires directly to my pots, but lately i've been doing a lot of experimenting/learning and would like a way to quickly rearrange pot connections. Are there any type of female connectors that work well with the majority of panel-mount style pots?

Thanks for your help & happy holidays, -scott

I had remembered a TO220 (3 pin) board mounted socket which is very handy and matches up to many small PCB mount pots (BI Tech's conductive plastics as an example). It was a little buried at Mouser but its made by Molex (part #10-18-2031) and costs $1.24 each

10-18-2031 Molex Headers

drawing:
http://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/sd/010182031_sd.pdf