๐ Resistor Color Code Tools
Convert between resistance values and color bands
๐ About Resistors
Resistors are passive electronic components that limit current flow in a circuit. The colored bands on a resistor encode its resistance value, tolerance, and sometimes temperature coefficient. Understanding these color codes is essential for building and troubleshooting electronic circuits.
Common Series: E12 (10% tolerance), E24 (5% tolerance), and E96 (1% precision) are standard resistor value series. Higher precision resistors use 5-band color codes to specify three significant digits.
๐ง Types of Resistors
Most common and affordable type. Made by depositing a carbon film on a ceramic substrate. Typical tolerance: 5-10%. Applications: General purpose circuits, hobby electronics, prototyping.
Higher precision with better temperature stability. Typical tolerance: 1% or better. Lower noise than carbon. Applications: Audio circuits, precision measurement, instrumentation.
Made from metal wire wound around a core. Excellent for high power (5W-300W+) and high precision applications. Applications: Power supplies, motor controls, current sensing, load testing.
Tiny chip resistors for PCB mounting. Use 3-4 digit codes (not color bands). Common sizes: 0402, 0603, 0805, 1206. Applications: Commercial electronics, compact PCB designs, mass production.
Adjustable resistance via a wiper that moves along a resistive element. Potentiometers have 3 terminals (act as voltage dividers), while rheostats use 2 terminals. Types include rotary, slide, and trimpots. Applications: Volume controls, dimmer switches, calibration, sensor tuning.
Resistance changes with temperature. NTC (Negative Temperature Coefficient): resistance decreases as temp rises. PTC (Positive): resistance increases with temp. Applications: Temperature sensing, inrush current limiting, overcurrent protection.
Also called photoresistors. Resistance decreases when exposed to light. High resistance in dark (Mฮฉ), low in light (kฮฉ). Applications: Light sensors, automatic lighting, camera exposure meters, night lights.
