Resistor Color Code
Here's an extreme close-up of a ¼ W metal film 20K (20,000) Ohm resistor, designated
by the standard resistor color code.
The colors map to numbers:
Color
Number
Black
0
Brown
1
Red
2
Orange
3
Yellow
4
Green
5
Blue
6
Violet
7
Gray
8
White
9
The color band positions have the following meaning:
Position
Meaning
1
Left-most Digit (e.g. most significant)
2
Next digit to the right
3
Next digit to the right.
4
Number of zeros that follow the three digits, unless:
• Band 4 is gold => multiply by 0.1
• Band 4 is silver=> multiply by 0.01
Yellow
Tolerance:
• Brown =>1%
• Red => 2%
• Gold=> 5%
• Silver=>10%
• No band=>20%
Figure 23-demonstrating the resistor color code
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