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resistors with 5 colour bands

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prof328

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Sorry for the very basic question but how do you know which end to start reading the colours from ?
 
Very often the colors are close to one end. The start.
With 10%, 5% and 1% resistors the silver, gold and black bands are on the stop end.
band_color.jpg
 
On the ones I have the colours are evenly spaced, the bulge at each end has a colour band and then three in the middle all equi spaced making it quite confusing, all five are equally spaced, with no obvious one nearer an end.
 
As you say, it can be quite confusing - particularly with 2% (red) and 1% (brown) resistors - I must admit, I've taken to measuring them before fitting recently, using my Bangood component tester :D
 
Some times the last band is thicker. or maybe the first bank. lol
If you get a 5% resistor table, or 1% resistor table, you will see standard values.
Example for 5% is 4700 ohms. There should not be a 5% 4600 ohm resistor.
If all the resistors came from the same place then you find one that is right then you should know about all of them. Very likely the "tolerance" band will be the same on all. Black for 1%. Maybe you are lucky and all have a last band of black.
 
It would have made a lot of sense to have the tolerance band twice as wide as the others, or the space between the tolerance and the others twice as wide, but hey the standards committee must know best and didn't think it was necessary.
 
It would have made a lot of sense to have the tolerance band twice as wide as the others, or the space between the tolerance and the others twice as wide, but hey the standards committee must know best and didn't think it was necessary.

Feel free to believe in a 'standards committee' if it makes you feel happier :D

Be thankful it's not still body, spot, tip - or whatever way round it used to be :p
 
It would have made a lot of sense to have the tolerance band twice as wide as the others
some do

Many of these have the brown 1% band on one end. Just like many have gold or silver on that end.
resistor.jpg

resistor-sample.JPG

1_2_resistor-500x500.jpg

resistor_cf1.jpg

These5 are hard to read.
120-ohm-resistor.jpg
 
As you say, it can be quite confusing - particularly with 2% (red) and 1% (brown) resistors - I must admit, I've taken to measuring them before fitting recently, using my Bangood component tester :D
Couldn't agree more, I use my DMM to check the R values. The blue metal film R's are the worst for determining the colours, especially red, orange, brown, as they more or less look the same.
 
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