Electronic color code

Electronic color codes are used to indicate the values or ratings of electronic components, near-universally for resistors, but also for capacitors, inductors, and others. They have also been used on signaling wire and cable as well, particularly for telephone and digital bus cables. The color-digit pairs used in the resistor example below are standard, but the tolerance and higher multiplier values are for resistors only.

Resistor example

Missing image
Resistor_bands.png
A diagram of a resistor, with four color bands A, B, C, D from left to right

band A is first significant figure of resistance value in ohms
band B is the second significant figure
band C is the decimal multiplier
band D if present, indicates tolerance of value in percent (no color means 20%)

Higher tolerance resistors use 5 bands, with three significant digits.

The Standard EIA Color Code Table per EIA-RS-279 is as follows:

Color1st band2nd band3rd bandMultiplierToleranceTemp. Coefficient
Black000×100  
Brown 111×101±1% (F) 100 ppm
Red 222×102±2% (G) 50 ppm
Orange333×103 15 ppm
Yellow444×104  25 ppm
Green 555×105±0.5% (D)  
Blue 666×106±0.25% (C) 
Violet777×107±0.1% (B)  
Gray 888×108±0.05% (A) 
White 999×109   
Gold    ×0.1 ±5% (J)  
Silver   ×0.01 ±10% (K)  
None      ±20% (M)  
Through-hole Resistors
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Through-hole Resistors
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Condensators.JPG
Capacitors

A useful mnemonic for remembering the first ten color codes is "Better Be Right Or Your Great Big Venture Goes West", where the first letter matches the first letter of the color code, by order of increasing magnitude.

Resistors are measured in ohms, so yellow violet red brown (http://www.okaphone.nl/calc/resistor.shtml?ohm=4700&tol=1) means 4700 ohms, 1% tolerance.

Capacitors are measured in picofarads (pF), so yellow violet red means 4.7nF. However the use of color coding for capacitors is not nearly as widespread as for resistors.

Inductors occasionally use this code as well. In this case, the units are microhenries (μH).

An alternative method of marking components is to write the digits and power of ten involved. Eg a resistor marked 472 is 4700 ohms; a capacitor marked 104 is 100nF (100000pF).

See also

External links

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nl:Elektronische kleurcode es:Resistencia sl:Barvna koda elektronskih elementov

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