Pot life span

I was wondering...what is the lifespan of a pot? Will it eventually go dead (0 ohms resistance) and fry my hardware?

I use a 50k ohm pot for my p4c800e-dlx vdimm mod and droop mod.

Hope this thread helps us folks~

It won't eventually go dead. So little current flows through it in a voltmod situation that heating effects would be negligible, so it won't wear out.

What you do have to be careful of is the pot wiper drifting over time, and slowly giving a higher or lower voltage - not so much an issue with multiturn wirewound pots, but very much so with single-turn ones.

Thanks, for some reason I was looking at the spec sheet and I got a little worried that the pot would simply fail after a while.

Wizardmax said:

Thanks, for some reason I was looking at the spec sheet and I got a little worried that the pot would simply fail after a while.

Click to expand...

If it ever does fail which is possible. It would simply be an open circuit or no connection. The only way to get 0 Ohms resistance is when it is working right. The resistance can also drift a little bit with time like L337 M33P posted. You can also use a fixed safety resistor in series, so you can never set the pot too low in resistance. A safety resistor is a good thing if your working on something expensive.

the pot is what give the resitance to increase the power right? so when it frys it wil give 0 resistance so it will give it all the power it can muster right?

Dukemurmur said:

the pot is what give the resitance to increase the power right? so when it frys it wil give 0 resistance so it will give it all the power it can muster right?

Click to expand...

No, if it breaks there is no connection. Inside there is something like below;

O===============O <-----Resistive element L & R Connec.
...............|| <----------Center connection Slider
...............O

If the slider is more to one side then less resistance between those two connections. If the resistive element breaks then no connection. You can only have 0 Ohms or no resistance if it's working. If it breaks no connection, just an open circuit.