Article: Place your pot on a flat surface with the 3 prongs that stick out facing you. These are your terminals. The first terminal, or terminal 1, is your ground. The middle terminal, or terminal 2, is the input signal for the pot. The third terminal, or terminal 3, is your output signal. The shaft on top controls a small ring attached to the second terminal. Turning it controls how low or high the input is.  If it helps, think of a potentiometer as a dimmer switch. The ground is all the way off, terminal 2 is the switch itself, and terminal 3 is the switch turned all the way up. A potentiometer is almost always used to throttle an input signal so that it can be adjusted. Sometimes, you can use a pot to overclock a device with a stronger signal. Pots are rarely used to control signals that are more than a couple of volts, but the amount of resistance that they provide is important. The higher the range, the more control you’ll have over your device. The number on the front of the pot tells the highest level of resistance that the pot can achieve. So a 200K pot can provide a maximum of 200,000 ohms of resistance.  100K is the most common kind of potentiometer on the market, since it has a solid range for audio equipment. These numbers are always printed directly on to a pot. Usually, they’re right next to the shaft on the opposite side of the terminals. Place your pot down on a flat surface next to your electronic device. If you know that you’re going to install the pot in a particular location, start there. Turn the 3 terminals so that they’re facing you. Remove any panels on your electronic device to expose the backside of any input or output ports. If you’re working on a breadboard, set the pot on the upper-most set of rows with the terminals facing you. You can use any kind of soldering wire to connect the terminals to the device so long as they aren’t acid-core. If you have an installation location set up, measure each length of wire from the terminal to the device. Strip any wires to expose the copper by using wire cutters. Use the notches on the cutter’s blades to cut and remove 0.5–1 in (1.3–2.5 cm) of plastic from the tip of each wire.  You’ll need to solder your wires, so get your soldering iron and flux and set them out on your work surface. Acid-core soldering wire is used for plumbing. It won’t work with your electronics. If you’re wiring a specific kind of electronic device that uses specialized wires, go ahead and use those if the soldering wires don’t work.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Identify the 3 main terminals sticking out of the middle of the pot. Read the resistance numbers printed on your pot to see what range you can achieve. Set your pot on a flat surface with the 3 terminals facing you. Measure and strip any wires that you’re going to be using.