Rheostat
part · 1843 · Industrial Revolution
A resistor with a slider: move the slider and the resistance and current in the circuit change.
Inventor: Johann Christian Poggendorff.
Principles and materials it uses
- Electrical resistance — uses. More resistance means less current at the same voltage: that is how a rheostat controls the current.
- Nichrome — is made of. The winding is made of nichrome wire, which has a high resistance.
What it is a kind of
- Resistor — is a kind of. A rheostat is a resistor whose resistance can be changed.
Things built in a similar way
- Potentiometer — works like. Built the same way — a wire and a slider — but a potentiometer has three terminals and divides voltage, as in a volume knob.