Voltage divider

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A thumbscrew sits on a small red wafer of silicon and metal, with three electrical leads coming out one side.
A potentiometer, pictured here, is a variable-strength resistor.

In electronics, a voltage divider is an electrical circuit which creates an output voltage which is proportional to an input voltage. Voltage dividers are also known as resistor divider and potential divider. It can be made of two resistors or it can be one potentiometer (variable resistor). The output voltage is depends on component values, or on the setting of the potentiometer. When an electrical load gets power from the divider's center point, the voltage may change.