Resistor Band Confusion

[Mark R.]

I have a package of resistors that are marked as 1000 ohm. They meter at 1000 ohms as well. But, I'm confused as to the color bands. Typically a 1000 ohm resistor has color bands brown / black / red.

How is this resistor read (brown / black / black / brown / brown) ? ....



I'm thinking brown (1) first digit / black (0) second digit / black (0) third digit - making 100 and the brown multiplier (10) giving 1000. Most unusual - to me anyway ....

Mark.

 

[goscrewyourselves]

Mark,

I have 1000 ohm resistors with totally different color bands; however, I checked the banding on the one in your picture and it does come up as a 1000 ohm resistor.

http://easycalculation.com/physics/electromagnetism/five-band-resistor-colorcode.php

Perhaps a different make or brand of resistor? or an older or newer one?

 

[Mark R.]

Right - brown / black / red is what I'm accustomed to. I can read any three band resistor and know what it is, but these five band variety kind of threw me ! They came free with a bulk order of LEDs from China. The packaged was marked 1000 ohms, but looking at the bands, I thought for sure they made a mistake but they meter out at 1000 ohms.

Obviously, five band resistors read entirely different. It appears as though the thin band is the fifth band being the tolerance.

Odd that after working with hobby circuits for over 30 years, I've never needed the knowledge of five band resistors. Are they rather uncommon ?

Mark.

 

[jdetray]

I have seen thousands of resistor in my day, but 5 bands is new to me. Maybe I lead a more sheltered (technical) life than I thought.

Anyway, having looked it up, I can tell you that in the five-band system the fifth band (brown) indicates a 1% resistor, which is probably far more accurate than necessary for any sort of model railroad work. But it can't hurt.

I learned that there is also a six-band resistor color code. It appears to allow fractional ohms and accuracies of less than 1% to be specified, such as 2.4 ohms at 0.25%.

Live and learn!

- Jeff

 

[Charles Smiley]

When you have 1-percent tolerance resistors they have 4-digit precision in their number range. They have values in smaller steps in the value table and can't just use the 3 place method as used on 5-percent tolerance parts. So string all the 4 values together - not just three. This is nothing new. But for Pete sakes get a 20 dollar DVM so you can verify. Sometimes the colors are poor with faded or junky paint (imported) and brown-red-orange are very similar.