Potentiometers, little piece sticks off?

Question

I'm not electronics savvy and am a complete newbie. So I'm in the middle of a project and am trying to stick a potentiometer through an aluminum casing and I placed a 1/16" piece of rubber between the fairly thick aluminum (A Hammond 1560BB enclosure) and the base of the potentiometer.

However, there is a little piece that sticks off of the base of my potentiometers, and it's preventing them from going all the way through so they can be correctly attached. How do I solve this, do I break this piece off, or is there another solution?

This piece:

enter image description here

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 08 '15 at 00:07

19

You drill a second, much smaller hole. That protrusion keeps the pot in place when it gets turned past one of its ends and the screw isn't enough to hold it tight.

answered Jun 08 '15 at 00:07

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” - Douglas Adams. If you don't use that tab to prevent rotation and then give your finished project to somebody to show off so they can look at it and touch it and play with and twiddle and OH LOOK THIS KNOB TURNS ALL THE WAY ROUND IS IT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT? – CharlieHanson Jun 08 '15 at 13:55
@chaaarlie2 , thank you for your opinion – HLatfullin Jun 11 '15 at 01:49

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 08 '15 at 02:45

That little tab is an anti-rotation device. It normally goes into an extra hole in the panel.

I often just snap it off or bend it out of the way for many of my one-off projects. An internal-tooth lock-washer installed between the pot and the panel prevents the pot from rotating.

Potentiometers, little piece sticks off?

2 Answers2