Indicators of a Pot. Going bad

I am attaching my pots with tubing/hose clamps. I had to remount my traction loss pot so I had the JRK utility open with the plot window as well. I noticed that I had to rotate the pot quite a bit before any change showed in the plot window. I want to get as much travel as possible, so I plan to switch out the pot regardless. I only need about 90 degrees total rotation and my current pot cannot even give me that.

I am assuming the loss of rotation/JRK reading is an indicator of the pot going/gone bad. Are there cases where motors/JRKS just go bonkers during game play due to the pot going out?

Is the benefit of higher dollar pots associated with how well they hold up to the abuse?

How far is the pot shaft actually turning?
What sort of pot is it? Cheap 270 deg? 360 deg single turn continuous? Multiturn?

@bsft - cheap 270 deg ... But 2 other cheap 270's are working great on the seat back. The shaft feels smooth to turn, but the JRK plot goes from max to min by only using about 45 degrees (the middle 45 on the pot). I have not double checked the pot with my meter though.

you have probably buggered the pot, just toss another cheap one on to get you sorted.
I only run 360 deg single turns these days because of quality and they dont break if there is a mistake.

@bsft - so how is this for crazy time. I swapped out the suspect pot with a spare. I figured I would check the JRK plot before I mounted everything up. Same problem. I decided to use the pot I had just swapped out with my extra JRK. Problem solved! I guess my lesson learned in all of this ... don't always blame the cheap pot.

Now I am wondering why my JRK plot max's out so quick. Hmmm ...

Your pot will only use what you allow it to use when you set your min/max in the feedback tab of the jrk utility. For example, when you move the motor lever to max and set your feedback, and then move your motor lever to min and set your feedback, the potentiometer only shows a reading on the plot within the min/max that you just set (hopefully i'm making sense with this). Usually when I reset my min/max in the jrk config utility I will reset the feedback, save it, and then learn my new min/max so that I can see the "full range" reading of the pot. If you reset the feedback and save you should be able to turn the pot and see the numbers change through most of the pots range.

Let me know if this makes sense. There is a little learning curve to all of this but once you get the hang of things its a lot of fun and things just start to "click" . Building and learning about this stuff is frustrating at times but when you figure it out and you start getting some good profiles worked out you'll love it!!

@frankrizzo2 covered it, but make sure you find the centre reading of the pot as well. get a multimeter if need be. I found if I didnt have pots at centre, it would sometimes max out.
If jrk still plays up, post up the screen shots of the utility and there may be something in there that needs adjusting.

@frankrizzo2 - the reason I initially thought I had a bad pot was because after doing what you suggested - resetting JRK to full range and before learning the new min/max positions, my JRK plot went from min to max only using about the middle 40 degrees of pot shaft rotation.

At first, after a new pot yielded the same result, I thought perhaps I had clicked a tab somewhere in the utility that caused the JRK to only "look" in a certain range. After double checking all settings to my 2 functioning pot/JRK set ups and not finding a setup error, I swapped out the JRK and was then able to get over 180 degrees of pot shaft rotation before reaching the plot window min/max (before learning the operating min/max positions.

JRK could be stuffed in someway perhaps, try a firmware re-install reset on it and then see how it goes.

@bsft - we were both posting at the same time. I am not sure if my post is very clear, but what @frankrizzo2 was describing is what I expected to see and actually is closer to what I did see when I swapped out the JRK.

I will say that even with the swapped out JRK and no min/max learned, I never got close to the full 270 degrees in the plot window. I was just happy to have more than enough rotation for my actual lever travel.

I would be curious to know if you get close to a full 360 degrees rotation in your plot window (before lever positions are learned). Obviously I don't expect you to reset a current good setup, but if you have a spare pot/JRK just hanging out with you, maybe you could plug it in and just turn by hand.

no I dont have a jrk handy.
ok with pots, generally on a motor, you usually use about 150 deg of a turn of the motor, so it really doesnt matter what pot is on there, 270 deg, 360 deg, you only use that 150 ish deg of a turn of a pot.
The idea of having the JRK reset full range and apply settings is to help you find the centre of the pot in the graph in utility. Once that centre of pot more or less matches up with the motor at centre, thats ready to do the "learn " thing next.
I use 360 deg turn pots these days, even though I have to pay $35 each for them is quality.
nothing wrong with 270 deg pots at $3 each, I find they are good if you need to put something together until you can get 360 deg turn pots.
The only thing is after I set feedback with a 270 deg pot, I have to turn the motor settings right down in jrk so when I hit the "run motor" , it doesnt fly too far one way or the other and possibly overshoot itself and break the pot.
If it doesnt and I get feedback direction and motor direction right, I wind up the motor speed and off I go.
I use expensive pots as they last, turn easier and are better for mistakes when I forget to get the feedback direction right during settings.
Did I make any sense?
its late and I am half wrecked.
Dave.

@bsft - you make total sense. I realize my motor would never need more rotation, I was just curious why I couldn't see more range in the JRK window. No big deal at all. Thanks for your help ... And get some sleep.

@bsft - You are right about spending the money on the better pots. . . The cheap ones work well when in the learning and tuning part of the process but once a person gets a decent profile worked out the higher quality pots work really great.