Resistor Colour Codes Explained

You may be familiar with the resistorⁱ colour code chart below... but what does it all mean? I hope this helps!

may be familiar

The colours are as follows (in order):

• Black (0)
• Brown (1)
• Red (2)
• Orange (3)
• Yellow (4)
• Green (5)
• Blue (6)
• Violet (7)
• Grey (8)
• White (9)

The first two bands are the number to be multiplied, using the example above Red (2) and Violet (7)

the third band is the multiplier, or number of zeros to add to the first two band figures, using the example above Red (2) you add two zeros to the first two numbers.

The final band is gold, therefore the tolerance of the resistorⁱ can be + or - 5% of the value

The value for Red Violet Red (gold) is 2 7 00 5%

the value can then be changed into 2K7 which is much easier to write and understand than 2700R