Value to colour code
| Colour | Digit | Multiplier | Tolerance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black | 0 | ×1 | — |
| Brown | 1 | ×10 | ±1% |
| Red | 2 | ×100 | ±2% |
| Orange | 3 | ×1k | — |
| Yellow | 4 | ×10k | — |
| Green | 5 | ×100k | ±0.5% |
| Blue | 6 | ×1M | ±0.25% |
| Violet | 7 | ×10M | ±0.1% |
| Grey | 8 | ×100M | ±0.05% |
| White | 9 | ×1G | — |
| Gold | — | ×0.1 | ±5% |
| Silver | — | ×0.01 | ±10% |
A 4.7 kΩ 5% resistor is yellow, violet, red, gold. The first two colours are the digits 4 and 7, red multiplies by 100, and gold marks ±5%. Enter any value to get its band sequence.
How to find the bands for a value
This direction is the useful one when you are picking a part out of a tray rather than identifying one already in hand. It is also the faster way to spot a mistake: knowing that 220 Ω should be red-red-brown makes an incorrectly stuffed board obvious at a glance, without a meter. Note that not every value has a valid code. A four-band part cannot express 4.99 kΩ, and the tool will round to what two digits allow.
Questions
Yellow, violet, red, then gold for 5% tolerance.
Red, red, brown, gold. It is worth memorising: it is the most common LED resistor there is.
Not in four bands. Values needing three significant digits require a five-band code.
4700. The letter marks the decimal point in the shorthand, so 4k7 is 4.7 kΩ.
The tool encodes what the bands can express. The nearest standard value in the E12 or E24 series is usually what you want.