I’m a complete electronics noob so this is going to be trivial for you guys. I’m trying to remotely control a custom golf cart thingy using the Jrk 21v3, a Futaba and a wiper motor. I had a trial setup working with a single-turn pot but I need the range of a multi-turn. It seems I keep frying them. I suspect I’ve mixed up my connections to the FB, 5v and GND pins. I attached the pot spec sheet. Here’s a few pics of the setup when I was using the single-turn pot. Only difference now is that I’m using the multi-turn. It would be great if someone could just tell me which color wire goes where (I know, lame, but I’m in a rush!) The picture of the RC setup of the Pololu product page doesn’t show where the wires go (hint, hint Pololu).
3590-1.pdf (362 KB)
Hello.
I am sorry you are having trouble getting your potentiometer working with your jrk motor controller. I looked at the schematic in the datasheet you uploaded. If you wired your multi-turn potentiometer the same way you wired your single-turn pot, it looks like your multi-turn potentiometer red wire is the wiper, and white and black wires are the other two ends of pot. Once you know which terminal does what, basic knowledge of how a potentiometer works would help you understand how to connect it to the jrk (I recommend reading through the Wikipedia page on potentiometers).
There are two ways to connect a potentiometer to the jrk, and judging by the pins you are trying to use, it sounds like you are using your potentiometer for feedback. In that case, you should connect the wiper (red wire) to the FB pin. Then, the other two wires are basically interchangeable, but to simplify things and more or less stick with conventional wire coloring, let’s use black as your ground wire (connect it to GND pin on the jrk), and connect the white wire to the AUX pin. This will supply a voltage across the white and black wires, and the red wire will be the voltage divider output. (This is what the jrk will read to figure out how far the potentiometer has rotated.)
By the way, your application sounds like it could potentially be dangerous. Please note that we generally do not recommend using our products in applications where their failure might result in injury or significant property damage.
-Jon
Thanks for the help! I’ll give that a shot and let you know how it worked.
Mike
