My atari punk console

[Wavedude]

Everything in this new Atari punk console works fine except for one problem:
There is two 500k linear pots, and when I touch these two pots terminals, there is this weird screaming noise. It is pressure sensitive. It seems to be the sound made from my body heat touching the pot wiring. It seemed cool at first, but now I want to do it the right way.
Apparently, its these two pots, everything else is working just fine. The actual pot isn't controlling anything, its just the wires connected to it that make the screech when I touch them. The oscillator is definitely working according to the pitch screaming I am getting, now can someone please tell me how to control it? with the pots?

Heres the schematic:

http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/seljer/album114/apclayout_copy.gif.html

[stolenfat]

odds are the pot body is touching the terminal, so upon touching the pot electro activity is being sent into the circuit from your body through that contact. One way i heard you could deal with this is to ground the pot body, maybe by and eyelet around the pot threads to the ground connection.
This is a common phenomena in circuit bending called a body contact. research- its pretty cool.


I also bet once you add knobs to the pot, the plastic will insulate enough so this wont happen. Experiment.
If you do that you could wire a pot to a screw or some other conductive element and use it as a body contact for more control. 555s generally have a couple spots on them that can be effected by touch so you might be able to add a few more.

I like to include as much extra control as possible in my builds.

As to why the pot isnt working right, we'll all i can do is to suggest rechecking your circuitry and wiring, maybe the pot is crap, switch it out with another.

[Wavedude]

I think it is the pots, otherwise the whole circuit would make any sound. It reacts to when I touch those solder pins on the pot. The pots are weird different ones anyway, they are the right values, but they are half switch and have some sort of clicking mechanism.