Soldering a potentiometer is easy. Here are the parts you will need:

a potentiometer
a breadboard set up for 5 volts
one LED
one 220 ohm resistor
some red wire
some black wire
some green wire
A soldering iron




This is what the breadboard will look like when you are finnished - following are the complete steps as really big pictures.







Step One: Observe your potentiometer. Notice that there are three ringed tabs to the right (in this photo) of the component. The important thing to remember is that, starting from the bottom, the tab designations are: Power, Output, Ground.







Step Two: Strip the end of the red wire and make a hook. Loop it through the appropriate tab, crimp it with a pliars, and solder.






Step Three: follow step two with the green wire, connecting it to the middle tab.






Step Four: Lastly, follow step two with the black wire and connect it to the remaining tab






Step Five: Congradulations, you have soldered your potentiometer. Now you can connect it to your breadboard.






Step Six: Set up an LED on your breadboard as seen in the photo. The resistor is connecting the ground (short leg) of the LED. tot he ground bus. Take the potentiometer and connect the power and ground to the power and ground bus on your breadboard. Connect the green wire (output) to the power(long leg) of the LED






Step Seven: Apply power and give the potentiometer a turn. The LED should vary in brightness.