Motorized slide potentiometers, or "flying faders", are incredibly cool. They are most commonly found on large mixing boards at high end recording studios, used to allow fine control of audio levels while permitting pre-set positions to be recalled in real-time.

They consist of a slide potentiometer, and a motor that can convert rotational motion to linear motion, and either a capacitive touch sensor or current sensor to allow interaction with the fader while it is moving (the sensing prevents motor stalling or stripping of gears).

This guide will show you how to use the motorized slide pot with touch sensor in your projects -- this can be anything from lighting control, to MIDI synths, to animatronics, or home automation!

Parts

Video of a motorized slide potentiometer sliding back and forth. A white finger pushes the knob to the middle of the track, and it resumes sliding back and forth.
This linear slide potentiometer comes with an added kick - its not just a plain old slide pot!...
$24.95
In Stock
Angled shot of black rectangular microcontroller "Feather RP2040"
A new chip means a new Feather, and the Raspberry Pi RP2040 is no exception. When we saw this chip we thought "this chip is going to be awesome when we give it the Feather...
$11.95
In Stock
Feather wired to L9110 chip, driving a DC motor back and forth
Run two solenoids or a single DC motor with up to 800mA per channel using the super-simple L9110H H-bridge driver. This bridge chip is an 8 DIP package so it's easy to fit onto any...
$1.50
In Stock
Overhead shot of dozens of different sized and colored packs of tactile switches.
When designing your next PCB, if you're not sure what sort of tactile switches you can fit, or how they would look, this Tactile Switch Assortment with 25 Different...
$19.95
In Stock
Angled shot of full sized breadboard.
This is a 'full-size' premium quality breadboard, 830 tie points. Good for small and medium projects. It's 2.2" x 7" (5.5 cm x 17 cm) with a standard double-strip...
$5.95
In Stock
Bundle of Premium Silicone Covered Male-Male Jumper Wires - 200mm x 40
These premium male-male jumper wires are handy for making wire harnesses or jumpering between headers on PCBs. They're 200mm (~7.8") long and come loose as a pack of...
$9.95
In Stock
1 x Hook-up Wire Spool Set
22AWG Solid Core - 10 x25ft

This guide was first published on Aug 02, 2022. It was last updated on Mar 28, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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