New Resistor Color Code

erco

Some Chinese kits have odd color codes so I always check with an ohmmeter. Just saw this in a PDF. Check that crazy bottom 5-color band explanation. Who knew?

Heater.

I gave up trying to read resistor colour codes years ago. When brown and red and whatever all look the same. And on a blue background just to make tings confusing.

Besides, there are no colour codes on SMD resistors!

Having said that, your example looks quite reasonable.

MikeDYur

Had to measure every one, in a kit I put together awhile back. All the bands looked black or brown to me. I'm not sure of the manufacturing process, but it looked like they were in to too hot an oven.
No big deal, I never remembered the color code anyway. At least they measured correct.

ceptimus

I've had some that were just plainly wrong - I forget what the colours were but it was something like they were painted as 47K but were actually 330 ohms.

Then there are those crazy four-band ones with equally spaced bands where you get a different answer depending on which end you start from:

brown, red, black, black, brown = 120 ohms 1% tolerance. Turn it over and you get:
brown, black, black, red, brown = 10k ohms 1% tolerance.

Peter Jakacki

These have been common for decades especially for 1% tolerance and fractional values. As for being able to tell the difference between red and brown and other colors that certainly is a problem with some brands (and eyes). The meter tells all.

Hal Albach

All the 5 band resistors I got from Amazon recently were blue like the bottom one on Erco's post, BUT the first and fifth were equally spaced from the ends and the three middle ones equally spaced across the center. Almost impossible to tell which one is supposed to be band (ring?) one, especially if one and five are brown. As I have done with the older 4 band, I sorted them in a small parts drawer by multiplier, after verifying with a meter. Fortunately, all resistors of the same value came taped together, so I just had to meter one from each group. even though the tape had markings like 4K7 for 4.7K and 82R for, well, errr.., 82.
Does it still hold true if the body color is blue it's a metal film resistor and if tan it's a carbon?

Jeff Haas

I've gotten some LEDs off of ebay that were manufactured backwards...the flat side was next to the wrong leg!

Then a couple of years later there was one kit that drove me nuts, it just wouldn't work at all, I tested and retested everything until I realized that it had the same problem. I desoldered the LEDs and flipped them opposite of the silk screen and it was fine.

karnim

yes these color codes have been used since I see the resistor first time. Most commonly used used is 4 band color code. Other than that there is 5 band and 6 band.
4 band color represents- First digit: Second Digit : Multiplier : tolerance
5 band color represents- First digit: Second Digit :third digit: Multiplier : tolerance
6 band color represents- First digit: Second Digit :third digit: Multiplier : tolerance : temperature cofficient

If you can see the color clearly then there are lot of Calculators available online to calculate the resistor value like this resistor color code calculator and there is a very nice application for mobile phones ElectroDroid which have many Electronics Calculators.

But some times its very hard to see the colors and you surely need a multimeter for find its resistance value.

evanh

Yep, perfectly standardised and common back to the dark ages. 1% percent'er have always had the extra digit.

ASKME

What the Hey??? Leave it to the chinese.....

ajward

Heater. wrote: »

I gave up trying to read resistor colour codes years ago. When brown and red and whatever all look the same. And on a blue background just to make tings confusing.

Besides, there are no colour codes on SMD resistors!

Having said that, your example looks quite reasonable.

Heh... let's not forget those color bands that are like 0.1mm wide!

@

Cluso99

And nothing at all on 0402 resistors

Heater.

Bah, it's all new.

When I was a kid pulling components out of broken TV's a radios resistors were colour coded as "body tip spot":



https://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/for_beginners_identifying_resistors.html

Cluso99

body tip spot
You are showing your age! Unfortunately remember them too

erco

I've replaced a few caps coded thusly: