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Unread 01-03-2013, 13:24
MrRoboSteve MrRoboSteve is offline
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Re: First year using sensors. Any advice?

Digikey site takes a bit of getting used to.

Here's the search process I did to find a 10K potentiometer.

Click on Product Index

select Rotary Potentiometers -- Linear

narrows it to 2700 options

set resistance to 10k ohms and check the In Stock checkbox, then apply filters

now 245 options

you're likely going to mount it via a through hole, so select that mounting option and apply filters

now 97 options

now sort the result by price, low to high (ascending order)

ok, now to pick from the low priced options:

now look at the other product attributes that are available and see which ones you care about

do you care about how long the actuator is? Filter on Actuator Length
do you care about the shape of the actuator? Filter on actuator type
do you care about how it mounts? Filter on adjustment type

Go look at the pictures of some of the items if you can't figure out what the product attributes mean.

http://www.digikey.com/product-detai...308-ND/2408885 might be a good starting point. $0.84 each in qty 1.

If you then go to the manufacturer's spec sheet for those, you can see all of the options they offer, and work backwards from the manufacturer's part number if there's a different configuration you want.