Hi Frederick! Yes the motor changes direction in accordance to manual input from the potentiometer. When I say dead area I'm not quite sure if that's the right turn of phrase, the motor rotates left and right and stops once the pot is in centre. But to get any movement to begin with, the pot shaft has to be moved at least 1mm either way from centre which I don't think is right, and it's the same story with a few other pots I've used trying to make this work. I think it might be a good idea to post a video of what's going on so I'll try and do that later on.
What I can't understand is, having the exact same controller and very similar motor to others who have made this setup work, what am I doing that's so different? At first glaces the answer would be that I'm not doing anything different at all and I may be closer to getting it to work than I thought. But at this time I find that hard to believe lol