On 5/12/13 12:38 PM, Al Wolfe wrote:
Years ago we were taught that it was poor engineering practice to use
pots to trim a DC value, especially if any appreciable current was to be
drawn from the wiper. (Probably true for any kind of signal on a pot) It
seems that current through the wiper would eventually erode away the
material under the wiper. This is true especially for set-and-forget
applications. If the wiper is used only as a voltage reference and very
little current drawn then it is probably OK for most situations.

<snip>

Probably the best design is to use fixed resistors for most of the
voltage divider circuit and the variable element be a small fraction of
the total divider resistance.

Al



This is what those EEPROM based electronic trimpots are great for. (assuming you fit within the other limitations of use). Basically, they're an array of FETs on a resistor network, and even with the power off, they have the same value.

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