Resistor Color Code, Tutorial
© Tony van
Roon
Another example for a Carbon 22000 Ohms or 22 Kilo-Ohms
also known as 22K at 5% tolerance:
Band 1 = Red, 1st digit
Band 2 =
Red, 2nd digit
Band 3 = Orange, 3rd digit, multiply with zeros, in this case
3 zero's
Band 4 = Gold, Tolerance, 5%
Example for a Precision Metal
Film 19200 Ohms or 19.2 KiloOhms also known as 19K2 at 1% tolerance:
Band
1 = Brown, 1st digit
Band 2 = White, 2nd digit
Band 3 = Red, 3rd
digit
Band 4 = Red, 4th digit, multiply with zeros, in this case 2
zero's
Band 5 = Brown, Tolerance, 1%
Band 6 = Blue, Temperature
Coefficient, 6
If you are a bit serious about the electronics hobby I
recommend learning the "Color-Code". It makes life a lot easier. The same color
code is used for everything else, like coils, capacitors, rf-chokes, etc. Again,
just the color code associated with a number, like: black=0 brown=1 red=2, etc,
etc.
If you are
interested in learning the code by memory, try the steps below to help you
'Learn the Color-code'.
Make sure you add the number to the color, like: 0 is
black, 1 is brown, 2 is red, etc. etc.
Do not proceed to step 3 until
you know the color-code backwards, forwards, and inside-and-out (trust
me!)
Can you 'create' your own resistors? Sure thing, and
not difficult. Here is how to do it: Draw a line on a piece of paper with a soft
pencil, HB or 2HB will do fine. Make the line thick and about 2 inches (5cm)
long. With your multimeter, measure the ohm's value of this line by putting a
probe on each side of the line, make sure the probes are touching the carbon
from the pencil. The value would probably be around the 800K to 1.5M depending
on your thickness of the line and what type of pencil lead is used. If you
double the line the resistance will drop considerably, if you erase some of it
(length-wise obviously!) the resistance will increase. You can also use carbon
with silicon glue and when it dries measure the resistance, or gypsum with
carbon mixed, etc. The reason for mentioning these homebrew resistors is that
this method was used in World War II to fix equipment when no spare parts were
available. My father, who was with the Dutch resistance during WWII, at that
time made repairs like this on many occasion.
Step
1: Learn the colors.
The color 'Gold' is not featured in the above table. If the 3rd band
is gold it means multiplying by 0.1. Example, 1.2 ohm @ 5% would be
brown-red-gold-gold. 12 multiplied by 0.1 gives 1.2 Don't get confused by gold
as a resistance or a tolerance value. Just watch the location/posistion of the
band.
Step 2: Learn the tolerances.
Step 3: Do the exercises below.
(Cheating gets you nowhere :-))
Colors I used for 'Gold, Orange, Gray, and Silver'
1st band, denominator: Brown (1)
2nd band, denominator: Black (0)
3rd band, how many zeros (1)
4th band, tolerance in %: gold (5)
Answer: 1 0 1 = 100 ohm, 5% tolerance
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: _____
2nd band: _____
3rd band: _____
4th band, tolerance in %: _____
Answer: ___________________
1st band: brown
2nd band: black
3rd band: gold
4th band, tolerance in %: red
Answer: 1-0- 0.1 = 1 ohm. (3rd band is gold, multiply by 0.1)
1st band:
2nd band:
3rd band:
4th band, tolerance in %:
Answer:
1st band:
2nd band:
3rd band:
4th band, tolerance in %:
Answer:
1st band: brown
2nd band: white
3rd band: yellow
4th band: brown
5th band, tolerance in %: brown
Answer: 1 9 4 0 = 1940 ohm. (1.94K or 1K94. Precision resistor.)
1st band:
2nd band:
3rd band:
4th band:
5th band, tolerance in %:
Answer:
To get familiarized with abreviations in values, I used below 4700 or 4K7, 1000
or 1K, which is all the same. Every thousand (1000) is called a 'K' which stands
for 'Kilo'. The 'M' stands for 'Mega' (million). 1 Mega is 1000K or 1000 000
ohms. So 4K7 means 4 thousand and 7 hundred or 4700 ohms. 6K8 means 6 thousand
and 8 hundred or 6800 ohm. One more example, 1M2 means 1million and 200.000 or
1.200000 ohms. Here are a couple more: 1K92=1.92K=1920 ohms, 100E=100 ohms,
19K3=19.3K=19300 ohms, 1M8=1.8M, etc., etc. These abreviations you find
everywhere in the industry, schematics, diagrams and whatever. It is normal and
takes a bit of time to get used to.
4700 ohm, 5% = yellow violet red, gold 100 ohm, 2% = brown black brown, red
1000 ohm, 5% = brown black red, gold 22 ohm, 1% = red red black, brown
150 ohm, 5% = ________________________ 270 ohm, 5% = ________________________
3300 ohm, 5% = ________________________ 10 ohm, 1% = ________________________
470 ohm, 2% = ________________________ 6800 ohm, 10% = ________________________
3K3, 5% = ________________________ 1K, 5% = ________________________
150 ohm, 1% = ________________________ 2M9, 10% = ________________________
10M, 10% = ________________________ 1 Mega Ohm, 5% = ________________________
1 ohm, 1% = ________________________ 3M9, 20% = ________________________
1200 ohm, 5% = ________________________ 1K2, 5% = ________________________
220 ohm, 1% = ________________________ 3300 ohm, 2% = ________________________
47 ohm, 5% = ________________________ 390 ohm, 5% = ________________________
3900 ohm, 2% = ________________________ 100.000 ohm, 5% = ________________________
10K, 5% = ________________________ 10.000 ohm, 5% = ________________________
1500 ohm, 2% = ________________________ 56K, 5% = ________________________
1M, 10% = ________________________ 470K, 1% = ________________________
1.8 ohm, 2% = ________________________ 2.2 ohm, 1% = ________________________
2K76, 1% = ________________________ 94.1K, 2% = ________________________This
should get you started. If it looks difficult to you, don't worry. It is easy.
Whenever you have a spare moment practise the color code in your head. It's like
learning to ride a bicycle, once you know how to do it you never forget. I, and
many others who learned electronics in the 60's and up to the 80's, were taught
a little sentence to remember the sequence of the resistor colors like Black,
Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Gray, and White, which refers
to: "Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls
But Violet Gives Willingly". As you will agree this
saying no longer applies to the society we live in today for obvious offending
reasons. And I'm hessitant to even mention it but fact is, it was part of our
'learning' for decades and so I decided to mention it for reference purposes
only.
Good luck my friends!
Just in case, here
are the >>> Answers
<<< to all the questions above.
Resistor Formulas
Ohm's Law. R is Resistance, V is Volt, I is
Current.
I forgot to mention a very important thing, there are two
resistor body colors which you should know what they are if you are
thinking of repairing electronic circuits. These body colors are white, and blue
(and sometimes composite green depending on where you live) and are used to
indicate non-flammable and/or fusible resistor types. It is important to know
NOT to replace these with ordinairy type
resistors. The non-flamable types are there for a reason (they don't burn when
overheated) and just replacing it with a normal type resistor may create a
fire-hazard or worse. The fusible types are usually white with one black band in
the middle of the body. So if you ever are looking for the 'fuses' check these
out. They are less than 0.1 ohm, carbon.
In the case of surface mount
resistors; since they are so tiny they feature the same coding as on capacitors.
For example, if it says 103 this means 10 Kilo-ohm (10 + 3 zeros), 104 means 10
+ 4 zeros (100K), 222 means 22 + 2 zeros (2K2). Easy huh?
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