How To Read Resistors

Resistors never start with a metallic band on the left.

How to read resistors. How to read the code. And the last color. A series circuit is a circuit in which resistors are arranged in a chain so the current has only one path to take. Three of the bands tell you the nominal value which means the value the resistor was designed to have. Always read resistors from left to right.

Read the color sequence of the resistor and search the color of the first band in the column labeled 1 st digit of the table given below. Tolerance is the precision of the resistor and it is given as a percentage. 3rd digit only for 5 band resistors. Position the resistor with this band on the right side and again read your resistor from left to right. To determine the value of a given resistor look for the gold or silver tolerance band and rotate the resistor as in the photo on the left.

Must read method of ceramic capacitor code reading series connection. The third band is a weight value which multiplies the two significant digits by a power of ten. Similarly search the color of the second band in the column labeled 2 nd digit. The first two bands always denote the first two digits of the resistance value in ohms. Make sure to read the value of the right most color band to determine the tolerance of the resistor.

Through hole axial resistors usually use the color band system to display their value. Tolerance band on the right hand end of the colors refer to the tolerance chart below for exact values. If you have a resistor with a gold or silver band on one end you have a 5 or 10 tolerance resistor. The first two bands indicate the two most significant digits of the resistor s value. Brown is the multiplier 10 1 10 and gold is the tolerance 5.

Look at the first color band and determine its color. The fourth band tells you the tolerance of the resistor which indicates how far off the nominal value the actual resistance could be. Most of these resistors will have four bands of color circling the resistor. Standard resistors have four color bands. If the 3rd band would be red instead of brown the multiplier would be 10 2 100 instead of 10 and the resistor value would be.