Environmental Effects on Precision Potentiometers

Current trends in design of military equipment have imposed on precision potentiometer manufacturers the necessity of meeting rigid environmental requirements. To fulfill these requirements, the authors' company inaugurated a test program to determine causes and effects of severe environmental conditions on precision potentiometer performance. This paper is based on results obtained during three years of this program. The goals of this program were: 1) to determine the effects of increasingly severe environments on performance, 2) to determine what design changes were required to give the desired performance. Special test techniques applicable to precision potentiometers were developed and potentiometer characteristics affected by each environment were determined. Where design improvements in current models were found to be inadequate, the design of a new line of potentiometers using improved techniques and materials resulted in the desired im- provement.