#183 

Mixing desks used to use motorised pots (may be thy still do), but they had positional feed back. so that the desk knows where all pots are, so allowing the sound engineer to play with the mixing setup on the fly but also save session settings. the linear sliders look great when the desk it setting them back to last saved settings. still a great video Ralph.

Every maker, worth the name, has seen high end hi-fi equipment with these remote rotating volume controls and immediately thought "I have to have that on one of my projects". Its not a completely logical response, a digital control would perform the same purpose but makers are not completely logic; they have a soul. Thank you for this video. Well, I write thank you, but now I have to clutter my brain with 40 year old dream projects; thanks a bunch. I expect that like me, your eye clinic appointments have all been cancelled. So, do take it easy, while you have no medical back up. Most of all stay healthy. with great power comes great responsibility and we need you.

Ralph, I've just purchased one of these and did a bit of experimenting with the three pin relay socket and concluded that the socket supplies permanent 5v, permanent ground, and switched ground at the pin marked on. Switching being accomplished by the NPN transistor as you mention. Therefore by connecting a 5v relay between 'ON' and '5v' it will operate when the ON/OFF is pressed on the IR Control and the red led goes off. I have also wired a 5v green led in parallel with the 5v relay and I now consider this as the ON led rather than the red led which is better considered as a 'standby' indicator. I say this because the module remains active and responsive irrespective, whether the red led is on or off. But the green led now indicates the relay is operated. So if you use a relay capable of switching 240vac and suitable current you can now switch power to your audio system. Sounds good but: If the 9v power supply to the module is interrupted whilst in standby mode and then comes on again it goes automatically into the relay operated state. Not good if its the middle of the night and your audio system comes on. So I have used a reed relay on the 9v power in line which releases on power failure and has to be re- activated by a reset button. Therefore the module can be left powered on in standby (Red led on/ Green off). You can press on/off on the IR Remote and your Audio system is activated by the relay (Green led on). If you get a power cut, the module will remain idle until you reset it. Bangood are now selling them at £7.

Hey Ralph, nice to see another video. I hope things are going well with you and the rest of your household. Being in lockdown for at least 12 weeks, I thought I'd have so much more time to get on with some projects, but my health has certainly not wanted to co-operate. Although, slowly we've built my workbench back up on a new desk, I just need to find my bench power supply and I think i'm back in business... Working on 3 projects at the mo - One demo board for deciding which type of screen is best for projects (such as ease of viewing, size of text, power consumption and cost) another is a minature milliamp meter to detect current in small circuits and finally something to try and help my memory using RFID tags as 'task tokens' that I can use to register when a 'task' has been completed - I'm very forgetful! So I could have a remote thing show me at the end of the day what i've missed, or my partner could maybe see the data from his phone and offer a gentle reminder? I like the look of this analog volume control, might get one if there's a way to intergrate it in to my sound system. I saw someone mention earlier about TV adverts being too loud - Some TVs have a feature called AVLS (Auto Volume Level System IIRC!) that tries to make the volumes consistant... or you could do what I used to when I watched TV and pipe the audio through a low power PC, and use something like Equalizer APO on an input and use a VST compressor. Anyway, I think i've waffled enough, really glad to see you up and about. Stay crunchy and stay safe!

So if that Spider gets an assistant they will be able to give us some presentations on hexadecimal eh 🤣🤣

Put a tape flag on the shaft like is done in stepper motor demos. With the smart charger, can you detect any traffic or voltage level on the USB D+ D- when it is plugged in?

The socket is called a *JST* connector -- I see the volume control from the US at: $15.40 at Banggood.

Thank you for this video, just what I was looking for. One question, could this remote volume board be powered by 5v usb to dc cable and make a new connector (with plus and ground)? I will only adjust the volume, nothing else.

I have one of these motorized pots in my parts bin, and 2 more in a couple of curbside carryout stereo amplifiers on a shelf. I haven't found a use for the pots yet, but they are quite common on old amps. I save old amps primarily for the massive magnetics, the pots and extras are just a bonus. I don't watch TV but IMO it would be interesting to use one of these in combination with a DSP and software to detect changes in audio compression. Every time a stupid commercial comes on that exploits compression to amplify the audio, I'd like to have a device to lower if not mute it entirely. That's one project I want to try if I ever manage to graduate to playing with a dsPIC33 or one of the TI DSP thingies. Thanks for the upload. -Jake

I am very sure that I did not pass DC current through the pot. The mechanics of the unit worked well. The audio part of it went from no sound to all sound at the very end of travel. Oh well Ralph some do and some don't. Mine don't. Thanks for your interesting and informative videos. Keep em coming.

Keep healthy Ralph! Doesn't your mom(mum) live in Germany? Are you able to visit her, or is there no travel between countries? Best of luck & health to you and yours.

Great video as usual. Stay safe

Hi Ralph, A pot with a DC motor, a bit "agricultural" I thought, but if it's a decent quality pot then yeah, why not. I agree with you about the board being a reject, the wording from the seller " not important " says it all ! but having a switch is great you can use it for whatever you like, it's good to have options...cheers!

There is something familiar about the layout and form on the remote controlled volume, I believe I've seen it somewhere before. When BanngGood give an answer like that, it would seem that all the boards has the same faulty transistor connection. Good update on The Smart Charger. On those cheap components the tolerances can be a bit on the wide side. Could explain the "bad" connection. Could also be the that either male or female connector is dirty. A pain to clean. I am looking forward to hear about your experience with the tube amplifier, I read somewhere that some of then have an odd ringing when bumped.

wow, I want this. just ordered one, €10.11 shipped.. I want to hack it, use the pot to control my tube guitar amp volume. (get one more and make some sort of preset thingy with an arduino) is it a stepper motor?

Hi Ralph, very good video. Do you have this problem with the potentiometer so far? Because I have the same module and now it produces scratchy noise whenever I turned the volume up/down. I have no idea how to clean it using contact cleaner.

Ralph, instead of this motorized pot, why not use a digital pot like the ones from your Video #88? Combining that with a rotary encoder for manual adjustments would be smaller and have no moving parts. It would also have the virtue of being easy to use with a second digital pot when controling stereo volume/balance.

Ralph. Good video. I bought four of these for inclusion in a high-end-pro-audio mic pre-amp. Big problem is, the ON/OF button doesn't actually turn the unit off. Pres '-' or '+' , even with the remote PCB apparently turned off, simply changes the pot setting. Not much good if you can isolate a single preamp in a rack of 16 or whatever. I also don't get the rest to the mute position on power up. Any thoughts, comments? Thanks. Mike

Good day, my Friend. Very interesting video, once again. Thanks for the Update on your phone charger. I have the same problem with a Samsung S3 my wife is using as her « Sleep Machine » (noise maker). I was waiting for this update and somewhat final version. I will very much consider building this project, but with a Nano (much smaller). Have a great day and we'll talk soon, I'm sure. Thumbs up, my Friend.

Hello Ralph, nice video. At first I was saying to myself. Why does the transistor turn on when you shut the unit off ?? But then I went back a bit and saw that the on/off is independent of the motor. Take care, thanks for this video.

Is there a way to disable the return to the 9 o'clock position?

The range of that IR should be around the standard 10 meters (30 feet), right Ralph? You commented about it being at the back of your workbench which would, I assume, be less than a meter so definitely should operate at that distance.

Can you show us what kind of microscope can produce such a lovely picture, pretty please?

Hi Ralph, very interesting video, just received mine today, but not clear how to connect the audio signal. Thanks

Cheers mate. Watching video right now.

Ralph, I bought this device. I had to resolver something to make it work. But I only get volume at the very end of its travel. Aggravating. I disassembled the pot after unsoldering it from the pcb. There is a burnt spot on the wafer. From new. They put these things together with rejects, eh. So... I bought another one....same thing. What a rip off. Ok. So Ralph what does it take to get volume from one end to the other end of travel. Like a stereo. With just any pot. Not remote. Just work the volume right. Every one I ever make does that.

Is there any way to cancel/bypass that annoying (for me) function to return to minimum at power on? Thanks

That faulty transistor : - LMN3 my dear Watson.

Thanks Ralph

Why is there 8 inputs and 8 outputs? Should it not be 4? Right + & - and Left + & -

Id love to use one of these to make a digitally recallable analog EQ for pro audio applications

could you do this with a simple rc servo? cheap as chips.

Do they have 9 volts AC for running it from a distance or something? Like door bells use 24v ac for distances? Seems a lot harder to source than 5/9/12 volts DC.. 24volts AC and 120v AC is the only thing normal houses have somewhere.

9 volt AC, not easy to find, although dc to ac exist, battey packs (ups) for servers do just that, but have not seen smaller versions that deliver low voltage AC. The spider got electrocuted, a real bug in the system !

Do spiders use Spiduino?

u can try pt 2258 ic for volume control

No knob? I keep telling you to get a 3d printer.

Ralph I dont know why but your videos often have commercials that last 3 minutes or way more. I am sorry but I have to skips those. I really aim to leave the adds running. Just now I got a super long add for a pen! Anyway how is the spider doing? :P

Board is now £12.64!!

"ON"......... Probably "NO" Normally Open (not energised state), standard relay terminology.

Hello र Sir

What they call "relay control" must be for a speaker muting circuit.

Volume control board is cheaper than buying a separate Alps potmeter.