Question

Is there any Difference between rheostat and Jockey.

Answer 1

Rheostat is an adjustable or variable resistor. It is used to control the electrical resistance of a circuit without interrupting the flow of current. Rheostat has 3 terminals and usually consist of a resistive wire wrapped to form a toroid coil with a wiper that slides along the surface of the coil.

The major use of jockey is in eclectric experiment where we make use of long wire with some resistane as a part . Instead of using a variable resistor we use this.

You would have studied resistance of a wire is directly proportional to it's length, so by using a jockey touching it to the wire, the wire between one terminal and the jockey is under consideration and that fraction of the length correspond to a fraction of total resistance. This is how we use a wire as variable resistor.

And whenever we use a long wire as variable resistance we use jockey.