Five Color Band Resistor

In electronic repair, most of the time i came across five color band resistor. The purpose of using the five colour band resistor in a circuit is that it provide a more precise value compare to the four color band. For example in order to get the value of 33.5kohm, with four colors band resistor you will not be able to calculate it. The most you can get is 33k (orange,orange,orange and gold). Using the five color band resistor you will be able to calculate it (orange,orange,green,red,brown) the last color which is brown represent 1% tolerance. You may go to any search engine and key in the 'word' resistor color code, resistor color coding, resistor color code calculator, or resistor color code chart to know more about how to find and calculate a five band resistance values.

If you remove the back cover of an analog multimeter you will understand what i mean. Most of the resistor circuit inside the analog multimeter are using five color band resistor. Why? Because the reading that you get whenever you measure current, voltage or ohm, the panel will show the nearest value. For instance, if you measure a 3v battery the needle will point to may be 2.9v, 3v,or even 3.1 volt. If that particular analog multimeter was designed using four color band resistor the result that it gets may be 3.5v,2.5v or 2.8 volt. In other words the use of five color band resistor is to make a circuit more accurate and output the desire result as what the engineers want it to be.

I've found a five color band resistor which is rare. In fact i have already seen quite a number of them. I will show you the calculation about this unique five color band resistor. The colors are orange, orange, red, gold, and white. Actually it is a four color band resistor. Just ignore the white color band and proceed to calculate using the four color band formula. As to why the resistor manufacturers add this 'extra' white band i really do not know. However, from electronic repair forum someone said that it is for the military purposes. Well here it is, you now know the main differences between the four and five color bands resistor. In order to calculate and check the five color band resistor i suggest you measure all the resistor in the analog multimeter as a training ground for you. Please don't try it at your expensive multimeter as you may 'accidently' short some of the components if you are not careful enough.Get a cheap multimeter or a broken one from your store and do experiment on it. If you have any difficulty you can always log in to internet or get some books related to basic electronic components for further knowledge.