"Victory" wrote in message
...
Ok, I called Radio Shack and they have 'potentiometers', which I hope
is the same thing. I just don't know which to pick because the one
they told me about is rated for 25 ohms...




Yes a pot is a variable resistor. Don't they have something around 5K?
That's a very common value. You can salvage this sort of thing out of all
sorts of old junk. Any junky old boom box or other audio equipment will have
a number of pots in it. Some are board mounted trimmers, some are panel
mounted, they all do pretty much the same thing.

If you get one with too low a resistance (25 ohms is too low) you won't be
able to dim very far at all. If you go too high, only the upper portion of
the rotation will be useful and below that the LED will be off. Anything
from 1K-10K should be usable. Rat Shack used to sell an asortment of mixed
trimpots for a few dollars, not sure if they still do.

You might want to read up on this stuff so you understand the theory behind
it rather than just asking for a specific part to get. Ohms law is really
simple stuff if you understand basic algebra.