Can you increase the value of a pot?

[rebickguitars]

Is it possible?  For instance, can you make a B1K into B500K?  I know you can change the taper, but how do you increase the resistance?

[Seljer]

change the pot for one with the value you want, theres really no other way (you could wire a resistor in series but that leaves you with a 500k pot that you can only adjust from 499 to 500, which probably isn't that useful)

you can only low the total value of a pot by wiring another resistor in parallel with it

[smallbearelec]

I did it once by taking a control apart and sanding the element Very lightly with the finest carborundum paper I had. Turned a 5 meg pot into a 10 meg. I don't recommend this as regular practice, and not every control is of such construction as will permit doing it.

SD

[Processaurus]

Sometimes you can easily change the circuit to suit the pots you have on hand, if you have a good understanding of the pot's doing.  For typical voltage divider volume controls for instance, seems like you can get away with a lot of different values (10K, 25K,50K, 100K) without a change in behavior.

Steve, thats a cool article on your page about sanding the pot down to the right resistance.  I just took apart a CTS pot to paint conductive paint on part of the wafer to get the full transition from lug to lug with less rotation for my ex crybaby expression pedal (the mechanism only moves the pot about 270 degrees). 

[markm]

Yes.
Very interesting indeed fellas.