Today while trying to sort out the buffers on a voltage divider for one of my circuit bending projects I grew frustrated with the ever growing pile of alligator clips and random resistors/potentiometers piling up on my desk as I experimented with different values. To help alleviate this chaos I spent the last half hour or so putting together a basic tool to help simplify the process.
What this tool allows you to do is attach your voltage in (Vin) to the left screw using an alligator clip. Next attach the center screw to the point the divided voltage is going. Finally you can connect the rightmost screw to ground (Or some other lower reference voltage). You can then adjust the knobs on either side to find the approximate buffer needed for either side of the voltage divider to give you maximum play from the potentiometer you install on your project. This device can also be used as a basic bend tester by attaching your two bend points to the center screw and one of the outside ones to test different resistance values with the bend.
You can also play with the potentiometer values or use additional potentiometers to give you an even wider range of values. I would have liked to include a 1 or 2 meg pot and a 10K pot to each side had I had them on hand to give the tool more versatility.
Above you can see the schematic for this tool, as you can see it is a fairly simple build. The connectors at the bottom represent the screws for attaching clips on the final project. Please note if you prefer you can use binding posts or banana jacks in place of the screws depending on what is most convenient for you.
Here is the final wiring of the tool