[sdiy] Parts in Slovenia

[Colin Hinz]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004, john mahoney wrote:

> > ... when building ray's synth, i ordered from jameco together
> > with john mahoney , and the price difference on things like pots is pretty
> > big....
>
> Yeah, and there was a little lesson in that for Ruud and me. The Sound Lab
> synth uses 15 linear taper pots. Upon receiving the parts, Ruud saw
> something wrong: "These are audio taper pots, marked 'B' taper, which are
> practically useless to me. They should be marked 'A' taper."
>
> What the...?! Man, was I mad. Did Jameco send me the wrong parts?! Remember,
> I'm not too experienced in this stuff.
>
> Well, now we know: A=linear and B=log in Europe, wheras the designations are
> reversed in the US. (I'm saying Europe / US, but what is it, really: Old
> World / New World? Everywhere but the Americas / the Americas??)

Whoa, I should have figured this out as well. I've got an assortment of
pots from all over, and their taper seemed to bear no relation to the
"letter" designation. Now I know why.

I'm tempted to build a motorized contraption that would be used
(along with an oscilloscope) to determine a pot's taper -- an
electromechanical curve tracer, if you will. It would also be useful
for checking linearity too, I suppose.

- Colin Hinz
  Toronto, Canada